Populism

“ Populism—lately embodied in the Nonpartisan League. (c) The Land Question—agitation, for example, for the so-called Single Tax. (d) Antipolitical organizations, as exemplified in the I. W. W., Communist party, etc. ”

“ The conduct of the Government and their supporters has been just what might have been expected from their language in Parliament: they have sacrificed every other object to that of catching votes; at one time and at one place representing themselves as Free Traders, and in another as Protectionists, and everywhere pandering to the ignorance and bigotry of the masses by fanning the No-Popery flame. ”

“ Every attempt made to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,' section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the rich,' or interest against interest in the United States is in the highest degree reprehensible." In the Populist features of the Democratic platform he saw a grave menace to our institutions, but he accepted the challenge. ”

“ I have said that what are called politics are out of fashion; there is no public man a jot more popular than another; nobody cares about parties, for there is no party distinguished by any peculiar badge of principle, with a distinct colour, and standing in open and defined antagonism to any other; none which has any great object to advance—constitutional, political, or commercial—in opposition to another party ranged against it. ”

“ Will the partialities of a government between different classes promote the harmony and happiness of society? Is not their discord the universal consequence of the fraudulent power assumed by governments, of allotting to classes and individuals indigence or wealth, according to their own pleasure? Has not the English parliament been fatigued for centuries with eternal petitions, remonstrances, and lamentations from the artificial combinations it has created, or the natural classes it has favoured or oppressed, soliciting partialities, and deploring their pernicious effects? ”

“ Are there no party contests stirring the popular mind to its very depth? And now, in the freest of all countries, where the people in the largest sense are called to govern themselves, where the people owe so much to their democratic institutions and are said to be so proud of them, here there should not be patriotism and public spirit enough, here it should require the sordid allurement of spoils and plunder to inspire the citizens with an active interest in their own affairs? ”

“ Every Representative elected by the Populist, every Senator selected as the result of their votes cast for the State legislators, will recognize that the Populist party contains the same elements, to the plain “Common People,” as the Democratic party, and, therefore, faith will best be kept with the constituents by whom the [Pg 415] Populist Representatives and Senators were elected, by acting with the Democratic party, so long as it continues to wage war upon “caste” and class distinctions and the accumulation of wealth in a dangerous degree in our country. ”

“ It is the same thing all over the world—a deluded populace—a social movement which elects a parliament and ministry—and then the result,—which is, that this or that party hold the reins of government, on whichever side happens to be most advantageous to the immediate social and financial whim. The people are the grapes crushed into wine for their rulers’ drinking; and the King is merely the wine-cup on the festal board. ”

“ Every month the Populist party increased in strength, the East watching it with mingled fear and contempt and ignorance. The comic papers pictured as the typical Populist the raw-boned, booted, unkempt farmer, in shirt-sleeves and with flowing beard. ”

“ I know now that14 I was witnessing the crude beginnings of the money-machine in politics,—the beginnings of the downfall of parties,—the beginnings of the overthrow of the people as the political power. Those stiff-armed men were the "floating voters" of that ward of Pulaski. They had been bought up by a rich candidate of the opposition party, which was less scrupulous than our party, then in the flush of devotion to "principles" and led by such old-fashioned men as my father with old-fashioned notions of honor and honesty. ”

“ No one knows better than he that, in the most democratic of communities, it is the wills of the few that count. The organization of a party, clever leadership, the command of the press, the catching phrases of the popular orator, the street procession, the brass band, the possession of the ability to cajole and to threaten—these play no mean role in the outcome, which may be the adoption of a state policy of which a large proportion of the majority voting may be quite unable to comprehend the significance. Shall we say, in such a case, that the will of the majority was for the ultimate end? ”

“ I do not see that the cause of popular power has much risen, even with the addition of this leaven. If the suffrages of the Commons of England were polled together, the hustings-books of the last general election will prove that a very considerable majority of their numbers is opposed to the present Government, and that therefore, under this new democratic scheme, this great body of the nation are, by some hocus-pocus tactics or other, obliged to submit to the minority. ”

“ When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.... ”

“ Representative government fails to yield all that its inventors hoped of it, simply because it is so tolerably representative of its majorities; and there is thus great truth in the common consolation that our municipal governments, like larger ones, are seldom much worse than we deserve. Each social formation, through each of its material activities, exerts its influence upon the civic whole; and each of its ideas and ideals wins also its place and power. ”

“ If attached, by prejudice and birth, to the aristocracy, he was yet by reputation and habit attached also to the popular party,—that party more popular than the middle class,—the majority, the masses. ”

“ Who can estimate the benefit which would come from merely making our Government what it purports to be—government by the people? The initiative, the referendum, the recall, the short ballot, direct primaries, and proportionate representation are all designed to transfer power from rings and bosses to the people themselves. ”

“ If, even when only a small proportion are electors, and the majority of the population almost uneducated, public opinion is already, as every one now sees that it is, the ruling power in the last resort, it is a chimera to suppose that over a community who all read, and who all have votes, any power could be exercised by landlords and rich people against their own inclination, which it would be at all difficult for them to throw off. ”

“ It is difficult to pick up a magazine or newspaper of any kind now without finding favorable opinions of some Populist measure, particularly as to the reforms in voting and the management of monopolies. The Populists never stood so high in the respect and admiration of the people. It is a time when state and local committees should be up and stirring. Whenever and wherever an improvement comes, the Populists will be the kernel of the problem. The Populists will be required to furnish the working plans and should be prepared to receive their friends.—Joliet News. ”

“ The trend toward social democracy, with its accompanying eagerness to experiment with new devices for confiding to the people the power of initiating legislation and expelling unsatisfactory officials, paralleled by another tendency toward the short ballot and the concentration of power—these and kindred tendencies are viewed best in a non-partisan spirit in those free Western airs where the electorate is fickle, coy, and hard to please. ”

“ We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps, all principle, as it is called—all party—all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. We shall support no party—be the organ of no faction or coterie, and care nothing for any election or any candidate from president down to a constable. ”

“ Whatever the two party organisations have a mind to do together, whatever issue they chance to reserve from “party politics,” is as much beyond the control of the free and independent voter as if he were a slave subject in ancient Peru. ”

“ Under the pressure of opposing parties, all the political wisdom and integrity there is in the country stand between the people, the masses, and the men of their choice.
Undoubtedly popular government will, in the main, be like any other popular thing,—it will partake of the conditions of popularity ”

“ And Parliament would become a gathering of prominent men instead of a means to prominence.
The two-party system which holds all the English-speaking countries to-day in its grip would certainly be broken up by Proportional Representation. Sane Voting in the end would kill the Liberal and Tory and Democratic and Republican party-machines. That secret rottenness of our public life, that hidden conclave which sells honours, fouls finance, muddles public affairs, fools the passionate desires of the people, and ruins honest men by obscure campaigns would become impossible. ”

“ You can lift party politics up to a higher plane by striking the decisive blow at the spoils system. You can extend and perpetuate the reform of the civil service. You can thus bring about a state of things in which public questions can once more be discussed on their own merits. ”

“ And, as I have elsewhere remarked, it is indeed the nature and prerogative of free states to concentrate the popular will into something of the unity of despotism, by producing, one after another, a series of representatives of the wants and exigences of the hour— each leading his generation, but only while he sympathizes with its will; and either baffling or succeeded by his rivals, not in proportion as he excels or he is outshone in genius, but as he gives or ceases to give to the widest range of the legislative power the most concentrated force of the executive ”

“ If the lines of party are drawn with an inflexible rigidity; and if the majority insist on the full exercise of their powers, parliamentary government may become a despotism as crushing as the worst autocracy—a despotism which is perhaps even more dangerous as the sense of responsibility is diminished by being divided. ”

“ Worst of all, the use of government to advance special interests places a premium on the efforts of those who seek to corrupt the expression of the popular will in its every stage, from the voters at the polls to the chief rulers in the seats of government. ”

“ I need not describe, as our English complex is by no means suppressed. Known to us all, probably, is the political complex. Year after year we have been excited about elections and candidates and policies, preferring one party to the other. If this preference has been very marked, or even violent, you know how disinclined we are to give credit to the other party for any act or policy, no matter how excellent in itself, which, had our own party been its sponsor, we should have been heart and soul for. ”

“ The desire that Parliament shall be the exponent of the whole people, not merely of a majority, is true Democracy. But Democracy commonly abandons that position and allies itself with the selfish interests of a single class. ”

“ Party government in this sense is the outcome of the efforts of the masses to establish their complete and untrammeled control of the state.
This is the reason why conservative statesmen of the eighteenth century regarded the tendency towards party government as the greatest political evil of the time. Far-sighted men saw clearly that its purpose was revolutionary; that if accomplished, monarchy and aristocracy would be shorn of all power; that the checks upon the masses would be swept away and the popular element made supreme. ”

“ It is inevitable at present that place and power should be the goal of all parties, and that politics should present the aspect of a scramble for office. There is no dividing-line between political parties, as elsewhere. ”

“ One pre eminently democratic quality our party with this glorious record unmistakably possesses, to do it justice, far beyond all true democracy, namely, a colossal respect for popular majorities. A majority it must have at all costs, and since it would have hard work to convince one, it buys its majority wherever it can. ”

“ Thus the question of what really needs to be enacted by the state in order to secure the conditions under which a good life is possible, is lost sight of in the quest for majorities; and as the will of the people in any other sense than the measure of what the people will tolerate is really unascertainable in the great nations of Europe, the way is prepared for the sophistries of modern political management, for manipulating electoral bodies, for influencing elected bodies, and procuring plébiscites. ”

“ The plea of bringing the government back to the people was catching and plausible, and it found eager response in the deeply rooted dislike of party machinery, party discipline and party constancy on the part of those who habitually neglect all attention to politics and the political duties of citizenship except during periods of popular excitement and upheaval. ”