"MR. PRESIDENT."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

"MR. PRESIDENT."

THE AMERICAN SCENE.

A STUDY IN DEMOCRACY.

(By CYRANO.)

To most Britis-li people tlie history ot' the United States is like a inistenshrouded landscape where a few peaks rise from the cloud. They know oi' the Boston Tea Party and the war that followed, but little or nothing of the second war, iu ISI2, when wo burned Washington. They know that there was a long civil war. fouglit, 5.0 they believe, purely on the slavery Issue. They have some knowledge of the war with Spain and the subsequent trouble in the Philippines. And, of course, they have a vague idea of tlie vast drama of American internal development—the conquest of the middle west and west, the huge influx of immigrants, and the rise of the greatest body of industrial activity that the world has witnessed. They know little, however, of the connected stream of American history, but after all this is not surprising. They are occupied with other history, and where is the brief, reliable, readable record of American development?

Prevalent Mediocrity, Take the Presidents of the United States, for example, the subject of the book before me.* Between Washington and Theodore Roosevelt how many names are known to tho average Briton? Only Lincoln is known to everybody, and of tho others one might say that the names of Grant, Cleveland and McKinlcy mean something to a good many. Here again, however, the Briton is not. wholly to be blamed, for the majority of American Presidents have not been great or even remarkable figures. It is a commonplace now that the American system of democracy docs not, save occasionally, bring first-class men to the head, of the State. Americans have not hitherto been troubled by this. They have liked to feel that they aro governed by one of themselves. It has been their pride that anyone could reach White House; and if he comes from Log Cabin it satisfies all tho more their sense of romance. It docs not, however, satisfy idealists, especially those who arc anxious about the future of democracy. Such critics point to tho influence of demagogues and political bosses in the choice of Presidents and to the deliberate selection of second and even third-rate men. is not many years since Warren Harding was chosen President by as cynical a process as American history can show. Harry Daugherty, "political organiser, 'spoilsman,' and head of the 'Ohio Gang,' " "insolently predicted that after a long deadlock Jn the Nominating Convention, at two o'clock some morning, a little group of the real Republican leaders would meet in a smoke-filled hotel room and would decide to make Harding the party's nominee," despite the fact that Harding was an amiable nonentity, who had not even won th 6 entire delegation from his own State. This is exactly what happened, and the scandals that followed Harding's election are well known to the world. An American journalist recently in New Zealand, who knew Harding, vouched for his personal honesty, but said of the gang about him: "If they came into your house, you would nail down everything that was loose."

Democracy on Trial. Such a state of tilings, only one of many similar scandals ill American political lpstory, is enormously important to-day, betausc democracy is on its trial. This book before me, with its fierce indictment of the American political and economic systems, is one of nuijibers of challenges to democracy. Taking the Presidents as central figures, Mr. Agar traces the history of American politics from Washington to Harding, and seeks to show that democracy has been grossly betrayed in the greatest democratic experiment ever tried. He begins with a caustic exposure of the traditional view of the Revolutionary War, which so many -Britons accept. There was, as historians on both sides of the Atlantic recognise now more freely, much to be said for the English case-, and the effort put forward, by the revolting. colonies Was far below what a century and a halt of Fourth of July orations lias depicted. When victory liad been won there was etill the Constitution to be hammered out on the anvil of theory and experience. It was one of tlie provisions of that Constitution that the President should not be elected by popular vote, but should he chosen by the calm deliberation of a of Electors, chosen by the State legislatures. Both these safeguaids went l.y° the board. For some years, however, men of eminence were chosen as Presidents. America looked for her leaders anion" those who had played a prominent and honourable part in -her emancipation. These men were not all democrats in the sense of the .term afterwards current. They wished democracy to go slowly. But the influence of the French Revolution and the bait of the country s fathomless riches were too much for them.

A Critical Date. The critical date, he says, was 1828. It means nothing to the average Briton. John Quincy Adams, one of the most accomplished and ablest of Presidents of the second rank, like his predecesors a man of dignity and culture, served a term, but was not re-elected. Adams had thought a great deal about the development-of the vast territories to the west, and had come to the conclusion that this must be regulated in the national interests. He foresaw the opening up of tlm land ou an ordered plan, with the land increment arising out of settlement going to the endowment of science and education on a scale never dreamt of in any country —a community of informed men and women governed by conscientious administrators like himself. The dream was dissipated by a flood of unthinking and greedy democracy. Jackson, the Victor of New Orleans, a vigorous, rough, ignorant frontier soldier, was put up against him, and won. A wild unregulated scramble for land began. The policy of spoils to the victors was openly preached in the campaign. Government positions were to be filled by Jackson supporters. It was their right. The tradition that appointment and removal in the public service depended on merit or demerit only was destroyed, and the system introduced that made every government employee, down to the lowliest postmaster and the charwoman at Washington, dependent on party success. This vast system of spoliation "rew until as many as 120,000 jobs mi"ht have to be filled when a new Administration came in, and it was not until the end of the century that this scandal was seriously taken in hand. But what happened between IS2S and our own time must wait, ♦The \mcrican Presidents, from ashin"ton to Harding: A Study in Democracy. <"y Herbert Agar (Byre and Spottiswoodc.)