If it may be said that in the city of New York the abuses complained of fall mainly to the charge of the Democratic party, or rather of the ruling organization in the Democratic party, it may be said with equal truth that wherever in a large city the Republicans wield a heavy majority, as the Democrats do in New York, Republican rule is almost without exception as profligate, arbitrary, and inefficient as Democratic rule has been here. It is needless to point out examples. The two parties, therefore, as to their sins of omission and commission in municipal government, stand substantially on the same level. This is here all the more the case since the development of the Platt machine, as it grew more powerful, has been distinctly in the line of Tammany principles and practices. Of equal significance is the unquestionable fact that in our present city administration, which was to illustrate non-partisan municipal government, that part of the municipal service in which the non-partisan principle was most strictly adhered to has been conspicuously by far the most successful, while the failures that have occurred in others can be measured almost exactly by the degree in which the non-partisan principle has been disregarded. There could be no object-lesson more striking and conclusive.
But the movement, of which the call for the organization of the Citizens' Union forms the initial part, is confronted, among the very class of citizens who naturally sympathize with its aims, by that kind of timidity which is born of long subjection, and by that inane pessimism which discourages every effort for improvement with the cynical plea that all such endeavors are doomed to failure anyhow, and that it is useless to try. This pessimism, which is only a supercilious form of mental sloth or moral cowardice, has done more to frustrate reformatory efforts in public affairs than direct opposition. Many such efforts which failed would have succeeded had the crowd of pessimistic wiseacres, instead of turning up their noses at them as hopeless, aided them with the vigor and constancy of true men and dutiful citizens. So we hear now that the party machines are too strong to be dislodged; that they command a well-organized and perfectly drilled force, while their opponents have no organization, or at best a very loose one; and that if both the party machines make regular nominations, the non-partisans, acting independently, will have no chance of success on their side. Therefore why go to the useless trouble of fighting? Why not surrender at once?
Talk like this is peculiarly pusillanimous and reprehensible at this moment. Formerly we were told that while national and State elections were held at the same time with those for municipal offices, party spirit ran away with many citizens who otherwise would have been inclined to give their efforts to good municipal government for its own sake, and that thereby the chances of non-partisan movements were grievously impaired. At last the separation of municipal from national and State elections has been effected, for the very purpose of giving non-partisan action at municipal elections a free field. And now, when we have that free field, the good citizens of New York should abstain from taking advantage of it, because the party machines do not, what they were never expected to do—voluntarily lay down their arms, but threaten to continue the fight for their accustomed plunder? Thus to abstain under such circumstances would be self-stultification with a decided flavor of imbecility.
The duty of the public-spirited citizens of New York who are sincere and earnest in their desire for good municipal government seems to be a very plain one. The call for the formation of a Citizens' Union, signed by a large number of respectable persons, many of whom enjoy the confidence of the whole community for uprightness and good faith, furnishes a suitable rallying-point for a strong organization. The work of organizing should be pushed forward without delay, and as soon as the organization is sufficiently representative of the various classes of our population it should proceed to action. What can it do? It can designate candidates for the municipal offices with sole regard to the duties to be performed. It can select for each place a person of whom every fair-minded citizen will have to admit that he is the man for the place, and that for the public interest no better choice could be made. It can put these candidates before the people—the earlier the better—appealing to all good citizens to support them for the general good of the community, and then leave the party machines to support or oppose them as they see fit.
It may be said that this would be a bold proceeding; and so it may appear at first sight. But what was the separation of the municipal from the national and State elections designed for, if not for just this kind of action? What will that separation be worth, if, after all, the public-spirited citizens are to wait for the party machines to put before them the old-accustomed choice between evils, and then tamely to accept that choice? Besides, the course of action here proposed is by no means as rash and adventurous as it may look to timid souls. Neither of the two party machines in the city of New York is in a very sanguine state of mind. Both are nervously anxious as to what the future may have in store for them, and there is but little doubt that a bold and determined advance of the non-partisan movement is the thing they fear most. Of this the wails uttered by the spokesmen of the machines when the call of the Citizens' Union came first before the public gave ample evidence. That the non-partisan movement, too, will have to meet its dangers is not denied. But the greatest of these dangers would be a lack of courage in its own conduct.
Carl Schurz.
THE PRESIDENT ON ECONOMY.
President McKinley's inaugural address has been received by his own party with warm applause, and by fair-minded citizens not of his party with hearty praise of some of its utterances and with respectful and kindly criticism of others. There is, however, one point in it which seems to have failed to attract the attention and to obtain the commendation it deserves. In discussing the subject of government finance the President said: “Economy is demanded in every branch of the government at all times, but especially in periods like the present of depression in business and distress among the people. The severest economy must be observed in all public expenditures, and extravagance stopped whenever it is found and prevented wherever in the future it may be developed.” And further on he added, “The depressed condition of industry on the farm and in the mine and factory has lessened the ability of the people to meet the demands upon them, and they rightfully expect that not only a system of revenue shall be established that will secure the largest income with the least burden, but that every means will be taken to decrease, rather than increase, our public expenditures.”
President McKinley certainly uttered these sentiments in perfect sincerity. Neither would he have done so had he not seen an urgent reason for it. He had in mind the vicious practices for some time in vogue. He virtually denounced the reckless extravagance that has of late been generally prevailing. Nor can he have been in doubt as to where the responsibility for that extravagance rests. Certainly President Cleveland was not responsible, for he never failed to do all in his power to stem the reckless tide, and exposed himself to unmeasured obloquy for so doing. Neither were the Democrats in Congress alone responsible, although they unquestionably shared the guilt. No fair-minded observer of current events will deny that the Republicans who began the series of “billion Congresses,” and who controlled the last House of Representatives and the Senate, bear the greatest part of that responsibility. It was, therefore, mainly to the Republicans in Congress that President McKinley addressed the reproof and the admonition. What will they answer? What they answered when President Cleveland addressed to them similar admonitions we know. They treated them as stale commonplaces to be contemptuously repelled. They told the President that they were “tired of this kind of impertinent lecturing,” and then went on voting down his vetoes and spending the people's money right and left with a recklessness hardly knowing any bounds.
Mr. Cannon, the chairman of the Committee of Appropriations of the late House of Representatives, tries in vain to shift the responsibility upon the late Democratic administration, on the ground that the estimates submitted to Congress by the departments asked even for more money than was afterwards granted; for every well-informed person knows that the estimates, being made on the basis of existing practices, often contain many
