Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880.
- -
- 100%
- +
The view of the people undoubtedly is (1) that the public places are common property; (2) that any one may aspire to fill them; and (3) that the elevation to them is properly the direct or nearly direct result of election. The elective principle is democratic. It has been, since the beginning of the government, steadily consuming all other methods of making public officers. In most States the appointing power of the governor, which years ago was usually large, has been stripped to the uttermost. It is thirty years in Pennsylvania since even the judiciary became elective by the people. And in those States—of which Delaware furnishes an example—where most of the county officers are still the appointees of the governor, the tendency to control his action by a display of the popular wish—such an array of petitions, etc. as amounts to a polling of votes—is unmistakable. The governor is moved, obviously, by the people. And if to some this general tendency toward the elective idea seems dangerous, it must be answered that it is not really so if the people are in fact capable of self-government. Conceding this as the foundation of our system, we cannot, at this point and that, expect to interpose a guardianship over their expression.
To the permanency of tenure it is that we have given, and expect will generally be given, most attention. This is the essence of the proposed "reform." The manner of selecting new appointees is of no great consequence if the vacancies are to occur so seldom as must be the case where incumbents hold for life. Whether the new recruits come in upon the certificates of a board of examiners, such as the British Civil-Service Commission, or upon the scrutiny of the Executive and his advisers, as now, is a consideration of minor importance. It is the idea of an official class, an order of office-holders, which appears to throw itself across the path of the democratic activity which we have attempted to describe. This is the point of conflict—if any. We might, it is true, take many measures to ensure the colorless and harmless character of the system. Up to a recent time the government clerks in England were deprived of the suffrage, in order that they might be perfectly indifferent to politics. It is probable that in time our own officials would lose the ordinary instincts of a democratic citizenship, and would regard with coldness, if not contempt, the activities that lead to a renewal of the government. But however smoothly they might move in the pursuance of their clerical routine, however faultless they might become in their round of prescribed duties, would they not still obstruct the public purpose? Would not even this emasculate order of placemen, standing apart a sacrificed though favored class, still present themselves as unpardonable offenders? When it should be discovered that they claimed the possession in perpetuity of the offices in the national government, and had organized themselves as a standing army of placemen, can it be believed that they would not be swept aside by the same iconoclastic onset which ended the Adams administration?
We do not pause here to represent the apparent inconsistency of desiring to de-citizenize a large number of intelligent members of the community, or the risk of creating a class in the republic forbidden to take any active interest in the renewals of its organization, or the impolicy of diminishing the force and courage of the popular will in its grapple with the problem of self-government; but all these comments may suggest themselves.
Popular expectancy, it may fairly be declared, follows all the stations of public life with a jealous if not an eager eye. There is abundant evidence of this in the county and township systems. Taking, for example, the administration of county affairs in any of the States, it will be found that the officers, by a rule that seems generally satisfactory, hold during short terms, and are seldom re-elected immediately to the same place. The rule is rotation—giving a large number of persons their "turn"—and changes are regularly made. A man disappointed this year for a particular place waits until the time comes to fill it again, and in many counties, other things being about equal, the fact that he has waited patiently and now presents the oldest claim governs the selection. The antipathy to one who seeks to hold on to his place beyond the ordinary term—the dislike for a grabber who desires more than is usually assigned—is a perfectly well-known feature in politics. The county system of Pennsylvania will afford abundant proof of the statements here made: the terms of the officers, who are all elective, do not average more than four years, even including such court-officials as the clerks and prothonotaries, whose duties are in some particulars technical and difficult, requiring an acquaintance with the forms of legal procedure. But it is further true that in the States where county officers are appointed by the governor no protracted tenure results. On the contrary, the pressure upon him of the public expectation seldom permits the reappointment of an officer whose commission is expiring.
With this rule of change, primary as its application is, and within the direct comprehension and control of the people, there does not appear to be any general discontent. It is accepted, so far as we can discover, as a just and proper system by which an equality of claims upon the common favor is maintained. It is reasonable to presume, therefore, that amongst a people fairly acquainted with their own business, and possessing a fair education both of the schools and of experience in life, many persons in every community are competent to serve as its officials. At any rate, in the midst of these usages we discover no demand that the terms of office be made permanent, and that the place-holders be put beyond the reach of a removal. There is no apparent realization that such a "reform" is demanded; and if it be difficult, as has been stated, to awaken popular enthusiasm in behalf of a permanent tenure in the national civil service, there seems to be nothing in the rules of primary politics to help smooth the way.
It may be asked now whether it is not almost certainly true that some sound principle lies in the methods which an intelligent community, unrestrained by ancient conventional ideas or repressive systems of law, applies to its own political organization. Is not this instinctive democratic plan an essential principle of a government founded upon equal rights? Is it not a law of Change which characterizes the civil service of a democracy, and not a law of Permanence?
We can hardly doubt that the facts which have been stated concerning the disposition of the people toward the offices in their government are capable of a philosophical explanation; and as they proceed with evident freedom and naturalness from the very bosom of communities accustomed to independent thought and action, the conclusion is irresistible that this is the temper and the tendency of a free government. Startling as it may be to propose change rather than permanency in the civil service, that may prove to be best adapted to our wants. Consciously or not, such a rule has been established by the people themselves; and while it has scarcely found a formal presentation, much less had careful examination and argument, there can be little doubt that such a principle, substantially as we have described, lies close to the hearts of the people. The right of election, the idea that public officers should be elective, and the expectation that there will be a rotation of duties and honors, are popular principles which are unmistakable.
Apart from the consideration that whatever is fundamental in popular government, whatever tends to the preservation of individual freedom and equality of rights, must be a safe principle, there could be much said from the most practical stand-point in favor of rotation in office. All human experience proves the usefulness of change. Rest is the next thing to rust. In physics things without motion are usually things without life; and in government it is the bureaus least disturbed by change that are most stagnated and most circumlocutory. The apparent misfortune of having men experienced in public affairs make way, at intervals, for others of less experience is itself greatly exaggerated. There are facts so important in compensation that the assumed evil becomes one of very moderate proportions. For it will be seen upon careful observation that no important function of the government, not even in the national service, calls for a character or qualification—sometimes, but rarely, for any sort of special or technical skill—which is not being continually formed and trained either in the movements of private life and business experience or in the political schools which are furnished by the State, the county and the township. The functions of the government are substantially the guardianship of the same interests for which the State, the county, the township and the individual exercise concern. Government has lost its mystery: even diplomacy has somewhat changed from lying and chicanery to common-sense dealing. The qualities that are required in the government—industry, economy, integrity, knowledge of men and affairs—are precisely those which are of value to every individual citizen, and which are taught day by day everywhere—to the lads in school and college and to the men in their occupations of life. Such qualities a community fit to govern itself must abundantly possess. There is nothing occult in the science of government. The administration in behalf of the people of the organization which they have ordered is nothing foreign to their own knowledge. They have ceased to consider themselves unfit for self-rule: they no longer think of calling in from other worlds a different order of beings to govern them.
We may accept without fear principles which seem startling, but which are proved to be rooted in democratic ground, so long as we have faith in the democratic system itself. There is no road open for the doubter and questioner of popular rights but that which leads back to abandoned ground. We may proceed, then, with an attempt to explain the philosophy of the rule of Change. Shall it not be stated thus:
That, due regard being had to the preservation of simplicity and economy—forbidding thus the needless increase of offices and expenses—it is then true that the active participation by the largest number of persons in the practical administration of their own government is an object highly to be desired in every democratic republic.
The government must be the highest school of affairs. Shall it be declared that to study there and to have its diploma is not desirable for all? Is it not perfectly evident that the more who can learn to actually discharge the duties belonging to their own social organization, the better for them and the better for it?
All these propositions necessarily imply the existence of an intelligent and patriotic people, at least of such a majority. So always does every plan of popular government. Whatever of disappointment presents itself to the author of any scheme of "reform," upon finding that he has constructed a system which is ridden down by the political activity of the people, he must blame the plan upon which our fabric is built. If he is chagrined to find that his imperium in imperio is not practicable, and that nothing can make here a power stronger than the source of power, he must solace his hurt feelings with the reflection that the system was never adapted to his contrivance, and that our fathers, when in the beginning they resolved to establish a government by the people, gave consent thereby to all the apparent risks and inconveniences of having the people continually minding their own affairs.
With a just comprehension of the democratic forces that give motion and life to the governmental system of the United States, and of the manner in which they affect the public service in all its departments, the wise advocate of reform must approach his work. His patriotism and thoughtfulness are both necessary. To proceed against the democratic law is not practicable: to establish a new system which is inconsistent with the abundant vitality and conscious strength of that already established is a futile proposition indeed.
THE PRICE OF SAFETY
Thirty-three years ago—that is, shortly before Christmas, 1847—I went over to Paris to pass a few weeks with my family. The great railway schemes of the two previous years in England had broken down a good many men in our office—draughtsmen, surveyors and so on. I wonder if the present public recollects those days, when the Times brought out double supplements to accommodate the advertisements of railroads, when King Hudson was as much a potentate as Queen Victoria, when Brunel and Stephenson were autocrats, and when everybody saw a sudden chance of getting rich by shares or damages? Those days were the beginning of that period of prosperity of which the recent "hard times" were the reaction. Then twenty guineas a night for office-work was sometimes paid to youngsters not yet out of their teens. In the great offices the young men worked all day and the alternate nights to get plans ready for Parliament, sustained by strong coffee always on the tap, till some of them went mad with the excitement and the strain.
I had worked hard both in the field and office during the closing months of 1847, but I broke down at last, and was sent to recover my health under the care of my family. That family consisted of my father—a half-pay English officer—my mother and three sisters, then living au troisième in the Rue Neuve de Berri, not far from the newly-erected Russian church, and the windows of the appartement commanded a side view down the Champs Élysées. I only needed rest and recreation, both of which my adoring family eagerly provided me. My sisters were three lively, simple-hearted, honest English girls, who had a large acquaintance in Paris, and took great pride and pleasure in introducing to it their only brother. We were not only invited to our embassy and on visiting terms with all the English Colony (that colony whose annals at that period are written in The Adventures of Philip, and to which Thackeray's mother and nearest relatives, like ourselves, belonged), but we were, in virtue of some American connections, admitted to the American embassy on the footing of semi-Americans.
We enjoyed our American friends greatly. I formed the opinion then, which I retain now, that cultivated Americans, the top-skimming of the social cream, are some of the most charming people to be met with in cultivated society. To all that constitutes "nice people" everywhere they join a soupçon of wild flavor which gives them individuality. They are to society what their own wild turkeys and canvasbacks are to the menu.
One of my sisters, Amy, the eldest, had been ill that winter, and was not equal to joining in the gayeties that the others enjoyed. Her principal amusement was walking in the Gardens of Monceaux, a private domain of King Louis Philippe in the Batignolles, a quiet, humdrum spot, where she could set her foot upon green turf and gravel. The streets of Paris, the Boulevards, and the Champs Élysées were too attractive to a pleasure-seeker like myself to allow me to content myself with the pale attractions of Monceaux, but I went there with my sister once or twice, because French etiquette forbade her walking even in these quiet garden-paths alone.
One day it was proposed by her that we should go again. I could not, in common humanity, refuse, and so consented. Poor Amy "put on her things," as our girls called it, and we descended to the porte-cochère, intending to engage the first passing citadine. As we stepped into the street, however, a gay carriage with high-stepping gray horses, a chasseur with knife and feathers, and a coachman in a modest livery on a hammer-cloth resplendent with yellow fringes and embroideries, drew up at our door: a pretty hand was laid upon the portière and a voice cried, "Amy! Amy! I was coming for you."
"My brother—Miss Leare," said Amy.
Miss Leare bowed to me gracefully and motioned to her chasseur to open the carriage-door. "Get in," she said. "I have the carriage for two hours: what shall we do with it? Mamma is at the dentist's.—Amy, I thought you would enjoy a drive, and so I came for you."
I helped Amy in, and was making my bow when Miss Leare stopped me. "Come too," she said cordially: "Amy's brother surely need not be taboo. Shall we drive to the Bois?"
"I was going to Monceaux," said Amy. "Would it be quite the thing for us to drive alone to the Bois?"
"Oh-h-h!" said Miss Leare, prolonging her breath upon the vocative.—"You see," she added, turning to me, "I am so unprepared by previous training that I shall never become au fait in French proprieties. Indeed, I hold them in great reverence, but they seem to be for ever hedging me in; nor can I understand the meaning of half of them. In America I was guided by plain right and wrong.—Why shall we not outrage etiquette, Amy, by 'going alone,' as you call it, to Monceaux? Is it that the place is so stiff and solemn and out of the way that we may walk there without a chaperon? I should have thought seclusion made a place more dangerous, allowing that there be any danger at all.—In America, Mr. Farquhar, your escort would be enough for us, and the fact that Amy is your sister would give a sort of double security to your protection."
"Oh, dear Miss Leare—" began Amy.
"Hermie, Amy—Hermione, which is English and American for Tasso's Erminia.—Do you like my name, Mr. Farquhar? We have strange names in America, English people are pleased to say.—Victor!" she went on, calling to the chasseur without pausing for any reply, "stop at some place where they sell candy. Mr. Farquhar will get out and buy us some."
Obediently to her order, we stopped at a confectioner's. I was directed to put my hand into the carriage-pocket, where I should find some "loose change," kept there for candy and the hurdy-gurdy boys. Then I was directed to go into the "store" and choose a pound of all sorts of "mixed candy."
I had not more than made myself intelligible to a young person behind the counter when the carriage-door was opened and both the girls came in, Miss Hermione declaring that she knew I should be embarrassed by the multitude of "sweeties," and that I should need their experience to know what I was about.
With dawdling, laughing and good-comradeship we chose our bonbons, and getting back into the barouche we proceeded to crunch them as we drove on to Monceaux. It was like being children over again, with a slight sense of being out of bounds. I had never seen confectionery eaten wholesale in that fashion. Such bonbons were expensive, too. Trained in the personal economy of English middle-class life, it would never have occurred to me to buy several francs' worth of sugar-plums and to eat them by the handful. But as the fair American sat before me, smiling, laughing, petting Amy and saying fascinating impertinences to myself, I thought I had never seen so bewitching a creature. Her frame, though svelte and admirably proportioned, gave me an idea of vigor and strength not commonly associated at that time with the girls of America. Her complexion, too, was healthy: she was not so highly colored as an English country girl, but her skin was bright and clear. Her face was a perfect oval, her hair glossy and dark, her eyes expressive hazel. Her points were all good: her ears, her hands, her feet, her upper lip and nostrils showed blood, and the daintiness and taste of her rich dress seemed to denote her good taste and fine breeding. My sisters, could not tie their bonnet-strings as she tied hers, nor were their dresses anything like hers in freshness, fit or daintiness of trimming.
We alighted at last at old Monceaux, and walked about its solemn alleys. Sometimes Miss Leare talked sense, and talked it well. Those were exciting days in Paris. It was February, 1848, and a great crisis was nearer at hand in politics than we suspected; besides which there had been several events in private life which had increased the general excitement of the period—notably the murder of Marshal Sebastiani's daughter, the poor duchesse de Praslin. Hermione could talk of these things with great spirit, but sometimes relapsed into her grown-up childishness. She talked, too, with animation of the freedom and happiness of her American girlhood. My sister Amy had always taken life au grand sérieux; Ellen was a little too prompt to flirt with officers and gay young men, and needed repression; Lætitia went in for book-learning, and measured every one by what she called their "educational opportunities." My sisters were as different as possible from this butterfly creature, who seemed to sip interest and amusement out of everything.
At the end of two hours we drove back to Mrs. Leare's hôtel, which was opposite our own apartment in the Rue Neuve de Berri, the hôtel that a few weeks later was occupied by Prince Jerome. Here Hermione insisted upon our coming in while the carriage drove to the dentist's for her mother.
The reception-rooms in Mrs. Leare's hôtel were very showy. They were filled with buhl and knick-knacks gathered on all parts of the Continent, and lavishly displayed, not always in good keeping. A little sister, Claribel, came running up to us when we entered, and clung fondly to Hermione, who sat down at the Erard grand piano and sang to us, without suggestion, a gay little French song. She was taking lessons, Amy afterward told me, of the master most in vogue in Paris and of all others the most expensive. Amy, who could sing well herself, disparaged Hermione's voice to me, and sighed as she thought of the waste of those inestimable lessons.
Then Miss Hermione lifted the top of an ormolu box on the chimney-piece of a boudoir and showed Amy and me, under the rose as it were, some cigarettes, with a laugh. "Mamma's," she said: "she has a faiblesse that way."
"Oh, Hermione! you don't?" cried Amy.
"No, I don't," said Hermione more gravely.
I was so amused by her, so fascinated, so completely at my ease with her, that I could have stayed on without taking note of time had not Amy remembered that it was our dinner-hour. We took our leave, and met Mrs. Leare on the staircase ascending to her apartment. She greeted Amy with as much effusion as was compatible with her ideas of fashion, and said she was "right glad" to hear we had been passing the morning with Hermione.
"I wish you would come very often. I like her to see English girls: you do her so much good, Amy.—Mr. Farquhar, we shall hope to see you often too. I have a little reception here every Sunday evening."
With that she continued her course up stairs, and we descended to the porte-cochère.
She was a faded woman, "dressed to death," as Amy phrased it, and none of my people had a good word for her.
"The Leares are rolling in riches, I believe," remarked my father, "and an American who is rich has no hereditary obligations to absorb his wealth, so that it becomes all 'spending-money,' as Miss Hermione says. The head of the family—King Leare I call him—stays at home in some sort of a counting-room in New York and makes money, giving Mrs. Leare and Miss Hermione carte blanche to spend it on any follies they please. I never heard anything exactly wrong concerning Mrs. Leare, but she does not seem to me the woman to be trusted with that very nice young daughter. I feel great pity for Miss Leare."
"Miss Leare has plenty of sense and character," said my mother: "I do not think her mother's queer surroundings seem to affect her in any way. She moves among the Frenchmen, Poles and Italians of her mother's court like that lady Shakespeare—or was it Spenser?—wrote about among the fauns and satyrs. With all her American freedom she avoids improprieties by instinct. I have no fears for her future if she marries the right man."
"Indeed, mamma," said Amy, "I wish she would keep more strictly within the limit of the proprieties. She makes me nervous all the time we are together."
"My dear, you never heard her breathe a really unbecoming word or saw her do an immodest thing?" said my mother interrogatively.
"Oh no, of course not," said Amy.
"They say Mrs. Leare wants to marry her to that Neapolitan marquis who is so often there," put in Ellen. "On dit, she will have a dot of two millions of francs, or, as they call it, half a million of dollars."