PROBLEMS OF AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13722, 11 April 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

PROBLEMS OF AMERICA.

THE POLITICAL SITUATION. liT HTTGH H. LCSK. It may bo said, and with a good deal of truth, that in spite of the great and tarreaching character of the problems that have been referred to in these articles as confronting the American people to-day, there is a sen.-*- in which the political situation constitutes in itself a problem hardly less serious than any of them. At this moment sincere, though not as yet very effective, measures are being taken to deal with .several of the problems that have been discussed in the preceding articles: the quest ion which is by no means settled as yet is, whether the new policy of reform is to go on vigorously during the next five years. If it is to go on, many things must be done that have not been done as yet. The people must express their decision by the election to the Presidency next November of a man who has not only strong opinions on the questions at issue, but a strong will, and a strong hand, to carry them into practical effect. They must go farther than this; they must also elect representatives to Congress who are known to be prepared to carry out the reform policy, by passing such statutes from time to time as may be necessary. Unless both of these steps arc taken by the electors of America in 1908 the awakening, which has unquestionably taken place in the last four or five years, will have little or no practical effect in improving the conditiens of the people or destroying the Oligarchy of wealth which threatens its liberty aa well as its prosperity in the near future. The awakening to which reference has been repeatedly made in these articles has been w very real one, but it has not been all on one side. The people—that is to say, a very considerable class of the more intelligent of the people —have become alive to the fact that a small— deed a very smalt—class of the community, numbering but a few thousands out of 80 millions—have for a good many years past been building up a system by which they have in effect been using the. rest of the nation for their own purposes. They have discovered that these men have quietly and insidiously moulded the laws to suit themselves, by the influence which their wealth enabled them to exercise over State and Federal legislators, and either directly or indirectly over the courts of the country. They have appreciated the fact that the party managers and bosses, who, in America, exercise so tremendous an influence on all matters relating to politics, have become the mere tools of this class, which thus carries out its plans without ever taking any prominent part in the active political life of the country. They r-e fully conscious that any reform that is to overturn this state of things, and prevent the control of the country's wealth becoming even more absolute than it now is, in the hands of this —which may be called the millionaire class, for want of a bettor name— be both complete and radical, and must be the result of drastic legislation, persevered in probably for years, to meet the ingenious schemes of the other party. All this they are aware of, but they are not more keenly aware of it than the party at which their reform policy is aimed.

It need Hardly be said that the millionaires of America are shrewd men; but for that circumstance they would not have ■been millionaires to-day. Some of > them have shown themselves to be men of extraordinary ability, not only as financiers, hut as generals in their power of using other men. The methods of a good many of them have been frankly unprincipled _: • and while this does not apply to all of them, there can be no doubt that their business and social standards of morality has been of a generally, if not universally, low type. In one way and another, they have achieved a wonderful success, and to-day they hold in their hands—possibly ten thousand hands—the riches of the country and the control of its people's well-being, probably as effectively as any recognised Oligarchy ever, did since the days preceding the fall of the Roman Republic. • They are, however, fully aware that their position differs front that of the rulers of the great Italian Republic of two thousand years ago, in the circumstance that its strength rests upon the fact that it is not formally recognised in any way. It is because its members have hitherto been clever enough to keep themselves wholly in the background, and to do all that has been done through the agency of others, that they have to-day so tremendous a grip on the political life of the nation. The question now before them is, how they are to maintain that grin in the same impersonal fashion in which they gained it?

The millionaire party is shrewd enough to comprehend the signs of the times, and to miiierrtand what they mean to them. They see that any continuance, at once steady and vigorous, of the campaign begun by President Roosevelt against them, for even a very few years, would practically destroy the fabric of power they have oeen building up for years, by taking, one after another, the great resources of control and therefore of wealth, out of their hands. Two lines of action were manifestly open to them under the circumstances. " They might declare warsecretly, of course, but none the less really—against every candidate, either for high office or for Congress, who espoused the cause of reform, and support only those who were in manifest sympathy with things as they are : or they might adopt another course and throw their tremendous influence into die scale in favour of the moderate. men, who, either from temperament or real conviction, were certain to do little or nothing of a vigorous character,-if elected. As might have been expected, the indications at present are all in favour of the conclusion that they will adopt the latter alternative. It must be remembered, in discussing such questions, that in the very nature of things it is impossible to speak as yet of more than indications. Where the matter to be arranged is the swaying, one way or other, of more than fifteen millions of voters, many things have to he considered, and many things may arise almost at the last moment to change the conclusions arrived at. Had President Roosevelt been even reasonably likely to be a candidate for re-election, the campaign could, and almost certainly would, have been fought on very simple lines. In that case there can hardly be a doubt that the millionaires would have thrown all their strength into the scale in favour of the Democratic candidate, whoever he might be, from the conviction that nothing could be so bad for their cause as the triumphant returnpractically for a third time—of the man who had started the crusade against them, and whose reputation would have been absolutely bound up with carrying it to a success. It is more than likely that a conviction that such would have been the case is responsible for Roosevelt's stubborn refusal to allow himself to be named as a candidate.. By this step he has at least prevented the wholesale desertion by the capitalist class of his party, and the by-no-means unlikely victory of the Democrats. The difficulty which now confronts both oarties is that of selecting a candidate who is likely to command a large support, and yet may be relied on to carry out their expressed or real policy. ' In this matter, the Democrats have the easiest, and in some ways the strongest position. There can be little doubt that I Mr. Bryan will, for the third time, be the candidate, of the Democrats, in spite of the fact that such a thing as a twicedefeated candidate being nominated a third time for President, or any other public office in the country, is utterly without precedent in the history of the nation. Of course this does not amount-to i a certainty as. yet, but it is certain that

no other man in the Democratic rank? > could collect so solid a support from the party, while he is acceptable to many of the advocates of reform who hitherto have been known as Republicans. He will, however, only be accented in the last resort by the party of capital. They would sooner risk him than Roosevelt, undoubtedly, under the belief that whatever his opinions, he would do leys, and because in case of his election their defeat would be less direct and crushing, but in any other contingency they will probably use his candidature as a means of gaining support for a man of their own selection from the Republican ranks. There are only three candidates, or rather probable candidates, for the Republican nomination for President in 1908 whose claims appear at present to demand I consideration. These arc Messrs. Taft, i Hughes, and Foraker. Of these three it ! is understood that Taft has the strong support of Roosevelt, with whom, as Commissioner to the Philippines, ami since then as Secretary of State, be has been in close touch. The second is the > present Governor of the State of New York, in which office lie has committed him- | self to many measures of reform by no means agreeable to the millionaire class. And the third is strongly conservative in his opinions, and has of late resigned his seat as Senator for his own State as a sign that he proposes to contest the issue of the Presidency to the bitter end. It is understood that Mr. Taft is certainly a candidate for the Republican nomination, while Governor Hughes has carefully avoided anything that might look like* committing him to such a position. The real question at issue may be taken to be, which of the three is most likely to suit the purposes 'of the power behind the Republican "Convention? —which is beyond the question the millionaire clique, as represented by their creatures in that Assembly. There is no reason to doubt that any one of them, if nominated, will be willing to accept the position, and do his utmost to secure election. | As matters stand the." support of Roose- '• velt goes far to secure the support of the general body of Republicans for Taft, but on the face of it that very fact is against his acceptance by the capitalists. RooseI velt believes that Taft will give a wholehearted support to his own policies, aimed at repressing the power of the capitalists; if they are of the same opinion, it is safe to say that they will cither shipwreck his nomination, or, failing that, will desert bint for the Democratic candidate. There are, however, a good many wellinformed persons in the tanks of both Republicans and Democrats who do not believe that Mr. Taft is by any means so i strongly inclined to the Roosevelt programme of reform as that statesman himself believes. Should this view be taken by the leaders of the capitalists, there can hardly be a doubt that Taft will be nominated, with,. at least, a strong probability of his election. In a sense Hughes is the dark horse of the Presidential race. He is a man comparatively new to political life but his record as Governor of New .York for the last two years is a strong one. It is understood that he does not commit himself to all of Roosevelt's ideaswhich accounts for the fact that there is no intimacy between the men —but it is also certain that he is a strong man. a* good deal less hasty in making up his mind on any questions than the present, impulsive President, but, as far as appears, cool and determined in fighting for what' he has once decided on. New York State is certainly to be relied on to give Hughes a very solid support, so far as it is free to support anyone apart from the wishes of the capitalists, who are nowhere else so strong as they are in the metropolitan Stale. On the whole, the probabilities are strongly against the millionaires giving their support to Hughes, though the very slowness with which. he makes up his mind and proceeds to action '.would render, nini more, acceptable than Roosevelt himself would have been. Mr. Foraker is personally the least strong of the candidates who may at present looked upon as in the running foil the Presidential nomination, though he is certainly the most in sympathy with the capitalists. . That astute body of men, however, will hot be swayed by sympathy in anything they may do, and the fact that it would be almost impossible, to Jill appearance, to elect Foraker, if nominated, may be, accented as a strong argument against his nomination, unless the millionaires should have decided to favour the election of the Democratic candidate for any reason.