Mr. Godkin's Political Writings

MR. GODKIN’S POLITICAL and economic essays ¹ extend over a period of thirty years. They consist of contributions to magazines and reviews, discussing several of the questions raised by the great modern democratic movement of our day, and covering such a range as to suggest the idea that they form the groundwork for a systematic treatise on the whole subject of government. This, we hope, may prove to be the case. They are not, like most occasional essays on such topics, contentious or hortatory contributions to the continuous debate on public affairs kept up by the press, but represent the ripe views of an enlightened critic and student of the best school, who approaches his subject without prejudice, discusses it without passion, and records his conclusions with that ease and mastery of style which come only from long familiarity and study combined with unusual literary gifts.

Mr. Godkin’s English is what the best English has always been, pointed, strong, and simple. An analysis of his style would show it to be the natural expression of his mind, working in the field to which his tastes direct him. For lucidity and directness it is unequaled among contemporary writers in this country or in England. The essays are contributions to political and economic literature of the most solid sort; in a brief notice we can only call attention to one or two salient features, and we do so because the appearance of this volume is, in our opinion, a literary event of no mean importance, marking the secure occupation of a distinct field by a political writer of the first order.

Before the period at which these essays begin, it was not clearly perceived that democratic institutions represented a changed condition in the whole social and economic world. It sometimes happens that the general external aspect of society lives on long after the vitality of its customs, observances, beliefs, and manners has been sapped by vast social changes; suddenly we wake to find ourselves in a new world, in which they have become in a measure superstitions. Before the Civil War, and for many years after it had come to an end, the view of political institutions still held by educated men of mature age was that they were matters of voluntary adoption, which, once introduced, tended to produce certain known consequences. Every country had a choice. It might have a monarchy, an aristocracy, ora democracy, or a mixture of these ; the choice made, certain things would happen, the nature of which could be predicted with more or less certainty. It was partly in obedience to this theory that liberal institutions were adopted, on paper, all over Europe and in Spanish America, in most cases by nations for whom they were but ill-fitting disguises of the fundamental facts of their political life. Now we perceive clearly that political institutions are only within very narrow bounds a matter of choice, and that they are chiefly a result of social conditions. Universal suffrage, which was no essential part of the original liberal programme, has astonished friend and foe alike by spreading over the globe, less by choice than by natural action, like that of water finding its own level. We recognize now that democracy is a natural product of modern society, just as an absolute hereditary monarchy was of English life at the time of the Conquest, or as slavery was in the primitive world. The principle of equality which Jefferson and his teachers thought they were discovering for mankind was really the promise of the great fact of equal rights and opportunities, in a society freed from vested abuse and privilege, of which they were the heralds, and which the disappearance of the old European order, and the spread of science, invention, and commerce, were to make a universal necessity.

This new view is not the thesis of Mr. Godkin’s essays, but we know of no contributions to political literature which have helped to make it so plain. For example, in the leading essay in the book, Aristocratic Opinions of Democracy, he combats the idea, so prevalent a generation ago, that the marked features of American society were produced by democracy, and that democratic institutions transferred to any other country would give rise to precisely the same phenomena, and advances the view that “ any speculation as to the causes of the peculiar phenomena of American society, in which its outward circumstances during the last eighty years do not occupy the leading position, must lead to conclusions radically erroneous, and calculated to do great injustice not only to the American people, but to democracy itself.” In an exceedingly acute criticism, perhaps the most important discussion of the subject since Tocqueville wrote, he shows how the great French observer’s studies are marred by his failure to perceive that in tracing what he saw here to the single cause of democracy, or the principle of equality, he deviated altogether from the true method of political study : it is on this account that his conclusions have not the permanent value which was anticipated for them. But Mr. Godkin does not merely criticise Tocqueville ; he reconstructs the philosophy of the subject, and, with a powerful array of facts and reasoning, undertakes to show in what respect and by the operation of what forces the social conditions of the American people tended to produce democracy. The essay is not merely a striking literary or historical or critical performance, but is instinct with the true method of the political inquirer who is not led astray on the one side by the often misleading analogies of natural science, nor on the other by theory, but pursues the even tenor of the rational path which leads to some distinctly human, and practical, goal.

There is no speculative writer with whom one can very well compare Mr. Godkin. He recalls Mill, but only as regards method and in a restricted field. Mill took all human science for his province ; these essays cover a small portion of it. On the other hand, Mill was a student and philosopher, but not a man of the world. His essay on Liberty belongs to the same class with some of those in this volume: it is an essay in which a trained inquirer speculates on the proper solution of some of the problems of government which in one form or another have agitated the world since the revival of learning, and which, having begun by troubling the brains of a few highly educated men, have ended in convulsing the civilized world. Mr. Godkin is a follower of Mill, as every one must be who is worth listening to at all, but his method, because of the circumstances we have mentioned, is in some respects more sure than Mill’s. Among American writers, he may be regarded as a legitimate successor of the authors of The Federalist. He has, however, qualifications entirely his own.

Certain causes have hitherto tended to obscure Mr. Godkin’s authoritative position as a publicist and a writer on government. They are involved in the history and circumstances of the time, which have fostered the temporary popularity of writers of a totally different and, as we believe, of a vastly inferior class. Any one who will read the economical essays contained in this volume will have no difficulty in perceiving that they run counter to the philosophical fashion of the day. Their author would be put down as belonging to what is now called the “ older “ economical school, — that is, the school of Smith, Mill, Ricardo, and Malthus, the founders of economic science. On the one side he would fall under the ban of the “ new ” or historic economists, who think they have discovered that the method of inquiry pursued by those writers was in part false or narrow; and on the other side, under that of the speculative socialists, who, detesting political economy as originally taught, endeavor to solve what they believe to be the problems of modern society by various panaceas which are really day-dreams. Both the new political economy and socialistic speculations have had an extraordinary vogue during the past twenty years. The former has produced the curious hallucinations on the subject of the currency which, under the name of Bimetallism, pass for a body of economical doctrine ; the latter, all sorts of schemes for making everybody happy and rich by law, which have suddenly come together in the last two or three years to precipitate the anomalous product called Populism.

Two essays, that on the Economic Man, written in 1891, and that on Who Will Pay the Bills of Socialism (1894), give in a nutshell the gist of Mr. Godkin’s views both on the proper method of economical inquiry and on socialism. Taken together, they show that he holds that there is only one school of economical thought and one method of inquiry in economical subjects ; that so far as they deviate from this the new political economy and socialism are errors, and their professors the worshipers of error.

The essence of the question lies within narrow bounds, and may be explained in a few words. Political economy, as expounded by Smith and his followers, eliminates from the consideration of man many of his appetites, desires, hopes, and passions, and regards him solely as an economic creature, an animal eager to accumulate wealth on the easiest terms. The tendency of his nature in various other directions, his moral qualities, his patriotism, his benevolence, is not considered at all. This hypothesis, the new school replies, does not rest on the totality of the facts of life. No such creature really exists ; and what is more, induction, and not deduction, is the foundation of knowledge. If we wish to inquire properly, we must not study the abstract “ economic man,” but man as he exists or has existed in actual industrial societies, take into account his political system, his laws, his morals, and his family life, and educe from these the true economical conclusion. As the economical history of no two countries is exactly alike, it follows that we may have a different political economy for every country : and this is what has actually happened. “ There has arisen a German school, an Austrian school, an English school, a Russian school, and an American school, which all differ in the matter of ‘ method,’ but all agree in repudiating Adam Smith and his economic followers.”

Now Mr. Godkin holds that the “economic man ” is an absolute necessity to us. The assumption of his existence is analogous to the assumption in natural science that a body once set in motion always travels indefinitely in the direction given it. Nobody ever saw a body traveling in vacuo, and nobody ever met with the “ economic man,” but the one assumption is as necessary to economical science as is the other to mechanics.

Political economy cannot be taught without assuming the existence of a creature who desires above all things, “ and without reference to ethical considerations,” to “ get as much of the world’s goods as he can with the least possible expenditure of effort or energy.” "The fact that he is not humane or God-fearing no more affects his usefulness for scientific purposes than the fact that the first law of motion would carry a cannon-ball through a poor man’s cottage. The theory of production, of value, and of exchange rests on his assumed existence. He supplies the raison d’être of the whole criminal law, and of a large part of the civil law of all civilized countries. Ethics, and religion in so far as it furnishes a sanction for ethics, exist for the purpose of deflecting him from his normal course. The well - known Gresham’s Law, which declares that the less valuable of two kinds of legal-tender money will drive the more valuable out of circulation, has been understood by some of our more ignorant bimetallists as meaning that one will exert some kind of mechanical pressure or chemical repulsion on the other. But Gresham’s Law is simply a deduction from observation of the working of the economic man’s mind when brought into contact with two kinds of currency of unequal value, and through our knowledge of the economic man we can predict its operation with almost as much certainty as the operation of a law of chemistry or physics. Ethics and religion, in fact, constitute the disturbing forces which make possible the organization and prosperous existence of civilized states. They have to be calculated and allowed for, and their working observed, just as the disturbing force of gravity or atmospheric or other resistance has to be calculated, allowed for, and its working observed, in astronomy or mechanics. But this calculation would be impossible if the constant tendency were not known. If the economic man were blotted out of existence, nearly all the discussions of the economists would be as empty logomachy as the attempt to reconcile fixed fate and free will.”

This analysis cannot be improved upon, but if accepted it leads to a conclusion fatal to the authority of those who confound ethics with economics. It shows that these men are really not economists, but politicians or reformers, whose effort is, not the discovery of economic truth, but the restriction of individualism by means of governmental action, or the diffusion of wealth and happiness by means of governmental aid. Their accumulation of facts does not bring us any nearer the discovery of laws, and they have not contributed anything of practical importance to our knowledge of the laws of value, of production, or of exchange, as extracted from the mind of the producer and purchaser.” Their contributions to economical literature do not differ “ from the books of intelligent and observant travelers.”

This essay is in a critical sense a judgment. It passes in review a whole school of writing and teaching, and declares it to be founded in error, of which the falsity can be demonstrated by scientific means. The same may be said of the essay on the Bills of Socialism, in which it is shown, by a very simple examination of the facts, that even an absolutely equal redistribution of the wealth of the world would not appreciably improve the lot of any one in it. It is a destructive analysis of the whole socialistic scheme of reform, yet so temperately written, so free from exaggeration or excess, as to be convincing to any one who approaches the subject impartially. Whenever the drift of these essays shall have been mastered by the public at large and its guides, we shall be spared most of the economical confusion which now permeates discussion and legislation. That they have not yet been accorded the weight they deserve can only be attributed to the fact that they have run counter to the popular taste, which has been for twenty years all in the direction of “ ethical ” economy and socialism. For a generation the poor have been deluded by false hopes and promises, and fashionable philanthropy has fanned the breeze of an effeminate radicalism teaching people to look to the “ state ” instead of to themselves for help. But, unless we are mistaken, the tide has turned, or is turning, and the next twenty years will witness a reaction in favor of sanity and truth. This change will place these essays for the first time in their true light as authoritative deliverances, by an extraordinarily clear and powerful thinker, upon the true scope and limits of political thought and social effort, — the science and art of government.

It can hardly be expected that those upon whose teachings a critic pronounces adverse judgment will be eager to testify to his competence. If he is right, they are sadly wrong, and accordingly much of Mr. Godkin’s warning against false political and economic teaching has fallen upon inattentive ears. Between the true and false teachers in these matters it is very hard for the public at large to decide, except by the test of experience. To that test, in this case, appeal may safely be made. “ By their fruits ye shall know them ” applies to economists and publicists as well as to others. Modesty forbids Mr. Godkin to mention the important fact that the movement for the reform of the civil service (the success of which he cites as a signal illustration of the danger of denying that a democratic society has “ the capacity and determination to remedy its own defects ”) was due originally to his own unremitting efforts, in the teeth of ridicule and abuse on all sides. Looking back thirty years, we can say now that the foresight which detected in this reform the key to a great democratic advance was a no less signal illustration of the author’s constructive political wisdom. The general soundness of his whole view of government is rapidly being established before our eyes by the misfortune, disorder, and confusion which are overtaking the attempts made by rash theory in other directions. This is what has already in his own lifetime given him a peculiar repute and authority, and his words a tangible and visible sanction of the one incontestable kind.

In what has been said, the attempt has been made as far as possible to examine these studies of Mr. Godkin’s in detachment from the journalistic career of the author, during the period covered by them ; but after all, it is against what may be called an editorial background, the true nature of which should be kept in view by the reader, that they will be judged.

It is the impartially practical character of his political writings taken as a whole that separates them on the one side from speculative disquisitions on government and society, and on the other from political writing of another kind, the aim of which is to advance the views of a party or a set. In this respect, again, he reminds us of the great publicists of an earlier day, who succeeded, against heavy odds, in persuading the country to adopt the Constitution under which we live. It was through the press that they dealt their keenest blows, and it is their “ leading articles ” that now, at a distance of a hundred years, expound for us the foundations of our government. They were originally the leaders, not of a party, but of those who desired good government, as opposed to the enthusiasts, fanatics, demagogues, and partisans of the time ; of those who knew only too well that party had always been the curse of free institutions. For thirty years Mr. Godkin has stood for precisely the same ideas.

In one of his essays he says that he is not an enthusiast for any form of government, because he regards government as an extremely serious kind of business, the problems of which cannot be solved by enthusiasm. This is one of those statements which mark out the essential character of the position which he holds. In party politics, the efforts of leaders are generally to appeal to some feeling, — the self-love of the crowd, party passion, the dislike of foreign rivals, the thirst for military glory or territorial empire, the longing for wealth without effort, the dislike of irksome authority; in speculative politics, there has been always an analogous tendency to appeal to the enthusiasm of an idea, and to make Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and Democracy objects of worship instead of means to an end. It was under the influence of this sort of enthusiasm that the great democratic wave of fifty years ago carried the country completely off its feet, and introduced the system of frequent elections and short terms which has made the modern “ machine ” a possibility. Nothing has so degraded our bench and bar as throwing judicial nominations into the whirlpool of party politics; yet those who introduced the elective judiciary did it under the influence of disinterested enthusiasm for an idea, and had it not been for the woeful effects of their reform there is little doubt that a generation later it would have been extended to every executive office in the country. It is against this sort of enthusiasm that Mr. Godkin protests. What he would substitute for it the general drift of all that he has had to say about politics makes clear enough. The ideal he has in view — for without ideals we cannot live under any form of government—is rationality, the application to government of the teachings of experience. The first postulate of every branch of knowledge is devotion to truth, and the beginning of wisdom in the political art is common sense.

If what we have said is true, to talk of being pessimist or optimist about popular government is very much like talking of being pessimist or optimist about life. It is one of the characteristically sensible observations made by Mr. Godkin that there is no more reason why the human race should despair, in the face of the Malthusian law of the pressure of population on the means of subsistence, than that it should confess defeat in the face of the fact of mortality. Some people will always take a cheerful view of the future, as others will always take a gloomy view of it; but neither cheerfulness nor gloom will enable us to reach any conclusion about it. Nothing is more certain than that neither optimism nor pessimism ever increased any one’s foresight. If people talked of the duty of taking a cheerful view of chemistry, we should laugh at them ; but if we are to make any advance in the study of government, our attitude toward institutions must aim at being as dispassionate as that of a chemist toward acids and alkalis. During the recent presidential campaign, a curious instance of the distracting effect of the emotional view of institutions was given on a great scale by the attitude of a large part of the English press. These conservative organs were from first to last gloomy about the result, and half predicted the election of Bryan. They could give no clear reason for their dread, but they exhibited an incapacity to appreciate the facts which made his election seem to cool observers in this country an impossibility, and did nothing but echo and reëcho their fears. The real reason was that they had always preferred to believe that popular institutions inevitably produced either anarchy or despotism. The election of Bryan would have been a verification of their pessimism. No doubt the cause of our making such slow progress in political science is that we are ourselves involved in the thing observed, while in natural science this is not the case. Very few observers ever reach such skill in self-detachment as is shown by the author of this volume.

Under other conditions than those which have existed for a generation, Mr. Godkin would have perhaps been conspicuously engaged in public life. But since the war, owing to a variety of causes, the gulf between politics, strictly so called, and the moral and intellectual forces which determine the development of the country has deepened and widened. It is a commonplace that the public men of the United States are not at present really representative men. They neither mould its opinion nor guide its energies. On the other hand, while they have deteriorated, the country itself has made a stride in civilization. The result has been the growth of a great body of non-partisan independent opinion, closely allied to neither of the political parties, but holding the balance of power between them, and determining the resultant movement of the government against the will of both. This body of opinion has settled the fate, first of one party, and then of the other, in several elections, and its work is only begun. It is necessarily non-partisan, and its leaders are excluded from a definite public career by the very fact of being its leaders. They are found in the press, in the pulpit, in law, in education, in industrial pursuits, but not in politics. They have no machines, they cannot become bosses ; they trade neither in offices nor in votes. But they constitute a powerful political force which those who need votes have to reckon with. The future of the country is theirs. If we are asked what common bond unites them, we can only say, the desire for better and more rational government. Now, if Mr. Godkin’s work be examined as a whole, it will be seen that there is not a distinctive principle underlying the independent movement of his period for which he has not found its best and most forcible expression, and not an impulse to action that has not received impetus, and in many cases life, from him. We have mentioned the reform of the civil service ; we might have referred to the second movement for the redemption of New York from Tammany Hall, in which he voluntarily incurred a very considerable personal risk, and, what now really seems incredible, had to convert people to the belief that the “ new Tammany” was not on the whole a reformatory body.

Whether we believe in “ necessary ” men or not, we all recognize that at certain epochs public guides appear who divine what is necessary for those in whose interest they think and feel, with an instinct which resembles and in fact is genius. They are heard because they must be heard ; they are followed because they must be followed. They point out the goal and mark out the path ; and though what they tell us may sometimes run counter to our prejudices and be at war with our desires, in the end it prevails, because it is true. If the question is asked, To what single influence is the fact chiefly due that there is visible to-day a definite ideal of good government which beckons the country steadily forward, and a coherent body of independent. thought which supports us in the hope that, we may attain it ? the answer must be, To that of the author of these essays.