dicting that if we go on for another half-century as we are now all the trouble and disaster we may go through will bring us no nearer to a solution of the difficulty.

Instead of trying to educate seventy millions of people in the complex principles of currency, the advocates of sound money would do well to bend their energies towards bringing Congress into subjection to discipline under authoritative and responsible leadership.

The author has been led to this somewhat dogmatic statement of the principles of currency by the fact that nearly half a century of study and experience, in and out of active business, has enforced strong convictions upon the subject. In fact, it was interest in it which first attracted his attention, immediately after the Civil War, to the political organization and methods of the government. Whether the theory advanced is correct or not does not affect the main proposition, that the great complexity and vast importance of the subject of the currency, as well as of the whole department of finance, furnish perhaps the strongest illustration of the total failure of our attempt at government by legislature and the imperative necessity of stronger executive government of some kind.

It will hardly be denied that there has been no satisfactory condition of general business since 1893. An undefined dread of some violent change in the currency, not merely owing to the agitation for free silver, but also to the dissensions among the advocates of the gold standard as to what system of currency shall be adopted, in the absence of any firm authority to which the country can look with confidence, has predisposed all minds to panic and distrust. The inability of Congress to deal with pressing financial problems not only had much to do with bringing on the Spanish war, but has tended greatly to increase the exasperation between classes which is perhaps the most threatening symptom of the future.

CHAPTER XXI

THE SPIRIT OF PARTY

WASHINGTON'S farewell address contains, among

For ex

its other words of wisdom, a warning against the operation of party spirit, and this phrase is often made use of by public speakers without any very clear definition of its meaning. The good or evil of party spirit depends upon the purpose for which the party is formed, upon its organization and methods of action. ample, the members of the original antislavery party have spent the last half of their lives in a state of serene satisfaction with the results they have achieved, notwithstanding the cumbrous and costly process by which these were obtained. If the basis of carrying on the government is to be the wishes of some millions of units, it is evident that they must to a greater or less extent agree in wishing for something. It is equally evident that they cannot all agree in wishing for the same thing at the same time, while if they, or any considerable number of groups, want different things at the same time the result in so far is anarchy. Government is paralyzed, and with the wellknown excitability of humanity in groups men begin to confound the importance of the thing wanted with the importance of getting what they want. The clash of contending factions is apt to suggest the clash of arms. The first necessity, therefore, is the formation of large and coherent parties, not merely for the purpose of accomplishing what is desired by the majority of the people, but also for suppressing agitation and social disturbance on behalf

of what may be merely objects of passion or private interest with comparatively small groups, at least until those objects enlist the support of a large minority. It must be observed further that the numbers of a group are not at all to be measured by the noise it makes, that the force of attack of a small but active and determined band may be quite out of proportion to the force of resistance even of a large majority of the people, and that the only way in which this latter force can be made available is through the union of a party. As the late Henry Wilson, certainly as far as experience goes a competent witness, once observed to the writer, the only way to carry on a free government is by organized, drilled, and disciplined parties.

It may be said that an excess of party spirit is what is objected to. But that is only stating what is true of every principle of human action. What is excess? How is it determined, and how is it to be restrained within due limits? The question may be made somewhat clearer if for the word 'party' we read 'faction,' that is, a violent minority seeking to rule in its own interest. Party may be, indeed to some extent must be, an instrument for reaching high and noble ends, while faction never can be anything but an evil. To form and maintain parties, yet to prevent them from degenerating into faction, is perhaps the most difficult task of representative government.1

1 The distinction between party and faction seems to be this: that party aims at administrative control, while faction is the propaganda of a particular interest. Party, therefore, contains a principle of conservatism, inasmuch as it must always seek to keep faction within such bounds as will prevent it from jeopardizing party interests. An important consequence of the party instinct of comprehension is the tendency of opposing party organizations to equalize each other in strength. The practical purpose of their formation causes each to compete for popular favor in ways that tend towards an approximately equal division of popular support. Even in the greatest victory at the polls, the preponderance of the triumphant parties is but a small percentage of the total vote. The con

New parties cannot be formed on constantly changing issues, since to have any strength they must have a certain degree of permanence. The only two nations which have succeeded in forming great national parties are Great Britain and the United States. In other European countries the splitting into groups has almost made representative government impossible. In England, from the Revolution until the first parliamentary reform bill, a period of nearly a century and a half, the names of Whigs and Tories were practically unchanged. From 1832 to the present time the division has been into Conservatives and Liberals, and though the lines have of late been less strictly drawn they have been preserved by other influences to be presently noticed.

In the United States the parties until 1830 consisted of Federals who upheld the power of the general government, and Republicans who leaned towards Statẻ rights. With General Jackson grew up the Democratic party, successors to the then Republicans, who fell into their natural and permanent position of looking upon the people as a mass with an authoritative head embodying their will, while over against them stood the Whigs who, in what was perhaps their chief reason of existence, a protective tariff, developed their natural tendency towards an aristocratic character with the belief that governments should be in practice in the hands of the select few. The war swept away these distinctions, and the new Republican party, successor to the Whigs, was built up on antislavery grounds. It is an illustration of the necessity and strength of party, that while the Democrats had no especial reason for resisting the war, and while, in fact, a large part of

servative function of party is not duly appreciated because its operation is negative. What is done is known, but how far the impulse which produced the act has been moderated cannot be known.-HENRY JONES FORD, "The Rise and Growth of American Politics," Chap. IX.

them were thoroughly loyal to the Union, they did keep up a sullen opposition to it. The underlying idea doubtless was that of the original Republican-Democrats, the right of the several States and their people to judge for themselves. With the close of the war of course the division line of slavery disappeared and a new basis of the two great parties had to be sought for. In a former chapter (III.) it has been argued that the only effective ways of uniting masses of men are three self-interest, moral enthusiasm, and enthusiasm for persons. As to self-interest the multitude not only differ very greatly in their ideas but they are liable to be grossly deceived with regard to them. When this is the only motive force power falls into the hands of a few men who, knowing clearly what they want, are able to persuade the multitude that the interest of all is identical with theirs. Moral principles, though much more definite, are still more or less abstract and liable to be exploited by small numbers or bodies of men who make use of them to deceive the multitude for their own purposes. The history of the great religions, Roman, Christian, Mohammedan, Brahmin, and Buddhist, is sufficiently illustrative of this. Personality, when uncontrolled, likewise has its drawbacks, as in a Louis XIV., a Frederick II., and a Napoleon, but it has this advantage, — that it is distinctly visible, and that the multitude can judge it and form an estimate of it. If adequate machinery is provided through a legislature for forming and guiding that judgment and enforcing its behests, then the government will respond to public opinion, being good if that is good and bad if that is bad. Personality has the further advantage that it typifies and concentrates in the public mind a cause or a principle, even as the point of a lightning rod draws lightning from a cloud; so that the union of the personal with the moral stimulus constitutes the most irresistible of political forces.