Here Governor Black might close the balance-sheet for the first two months of his administration. Surveying the profit and loss account with a clear eye he will discover that he is carrying on a frightfully losing business, for himself as well as for his party. As he himself can hardly fail to know, he has, by his appointments, succeeded in creating the widespread impression that he is one of the worst Governors this State has ever had; and if he were to be voted upon again to-day, he would surely be defeated by a larger majority than was cast for him last November. Of course he would drag his party with him into the disaster. In fact, New York has never had a Governor—not even excepting Hill—who in so short a time did as much to ruin his party as Governor Black has contrived to do in the first six weeks of his term. By the very things he may have thought apt to strengthen it, he has dealt the Republican organization of this State a staggering blow at home, and made it an object of contempt all over the country. The Governor will hardly dispute this if he reads Republican papers published outside of this State.
Governor Black cannot complain of being harshly judged. When he entered upon his office everybody was disposed to think and to speak well of him. Mere indiscretions or errors of judgment on his part would not have been intolerantly condemned. Even the offensive tone of a part of his message, although of evil augury, might have been forgotten, had it not been followed up by acts going beyond the darkest apprehensions. Governor Black may think that the storm of condemnation he has raised against himself will blow over, and that he will have a chance to regain public confidence. It would be unreasonable to say that such a chance can never come to him. But he should not delude himself with the belief that he will recover the respect of the people by helping the machine politicians to "beat" the civil service clause of the Constitution; nor will he ever reconcile the moral sense of the community to the appointment of such a person as Lou Payn by pleading that "we should stick to those friends who have stuck to us in fair weather and in foul, and should stick the closer to them when they are jumped upon the hardest"—a sentiment the promulgation of which he and Lou Payn are reported to have saluted with an approving nod at the Platt banquet. There can be nothing more immoral than the doctrine that a public man elevated to power should reward with office every villain that helped him to rise, and should do so all the more when the villanies of the "friend" are exposed and denounced. Governor Black must know that a man of self-respect and of a proper sense of public duty will pay his debts, political as well as other, out of his own and not out of the people's pocket; that he himself owes his real obligation to the people who elected him, and not to the Aldridges and Payns; and that he would never have been elected had the people known that, when in power, he would put Lou Payn into the high places of the State.
Neither can he hope to propitiate the people by merely pursuing his reputed plan of doing something to preserve the Adirondack woods, of completing the Capitol, and of recommending economy to the Legislature. Such things may be very nice, but they will evaporate like drops of water poured upon a hot stove. To regain for him what he has lost, a few good acts will be sadly insufficient. He will have wholly to renounce the companionship of the Aldridges and Payns, as well as their principles and practices, and to fight with more than ordinary bravery for the best kind of good government in the State. Unless he do that, the character of his record is already determined and will stand. The Franklin method of self-examination cannot be too highly recommended to him.
Carl Schurz.
THE QUADRENNIAL DISGRACE.
How long will the American people tolerate the scandals of the spoils carnival which accompanies every change of party rule in the national government? Two of our Presidents, both hailing from Ohio, have already fallen victims to it—one, the first Harrison, by harassment; the second, Garfield, by murder. And now it is hounding another. Let every American citizen who has the honor and welfare of the republic at heart watch with care what is going on in these days. Ever since the Presidential election last November Mr. McKinley has been in a state of siege in his home at Canton. Hordes of pushing office-seekers pressed around him from morning till night. His mail was so burdened with applications for place that the attempt to acknowledge the receipt of each of them had to be given up in despair. At last Mr. McKinley's health broke down, and his physicians forced him to deny himself to the relentless throng. Now Mr. McKinley, his health hardly recovered, goes to Washington to assume the duties of his high office. Problems of tremendous magnitude and perplexing difficulty await him. Since the civil war there has been no Presidential election involving more momentous issues than the last. The country narrowly escaped a great danger for the time being. It is the task of Mr. McKinley's administration to avert this danger for the future. A task of greater responsibility can hardly be imagined. It will require, on the part of those who stand at the head of government unceasing exertion of their working strength and endurance, mental as well as physical, and it is of the utmost importance not only to themselves, but to the American people generally, that they should have at least a fair chance for such exertion.
But what do we behold? Tens of thousands of persons rush to Washington to transfer the siege from Mr. McKinley's home in Canton to the White House. And not to the White House alone. Mr. McKinley has invited into his cabinet and put at the head of the government departments eight gentlemen who, however able and upright, are not yet familiar with the great duties imposed upon them. They need, especially at the beginning, times for arduous study to master the work they will have to perform. They too are besieged day in and day out by the same countless crowds. And these besiegers, headed by Senators and Representatives in Congress or other party magnates, clamorously demand that the President and the cabinet ministers—dismissing from their minds all thoughts of currency reform, or of foreign policy, or of public economy, or of measures or methods of administration—shall instantly take to pieces the working machinery of the government, for the purpose of dealing out to those crowding around them foreign missions and consulates and revenue places and commissionerships and post-offices and what not. Nor is this distracting torment confined to the President and the heads of departments. The Senators and Representatives in Congress, too, at least those of the majority party, are chased about like errand-boys in pursuit of offices for their hangers-on, thus being robbed of the time and the working strength needed for their legislative duties, and not seldom even of their self-respect. And what is the pretence on which this wild turmoil is carried on? Not that the present incumbents of the offices to be vacated and refilled are unfit for their duties or unfaithful in the discharge of them; not that the persons demanding the places are better qualified for them; but, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, simply that the “ins” belong to the wrong party and “ought to go,” that the clamoring “outs” have been or will be of service to the ruling party and ought to “have something,” and that the possession of the offices will strengthen the ruling party in maintaining its power—a ghastly plea in the face of the fact that the party possessing the offices has in the last four Presidential elections regularly been defeated. What this pursuit of spoil really does effect is to demoralize our political life by increasing in it the elements of selfishness, to impair popular government by developing machine politics, and to discredit democratic institutions by a relapse into barbarism.
Let every thoughtful American citizen soberly contemplate this spectacle. What other civilized nation is there that presents so absurd and shocking an exhibition to the world? Can any American who respects himself and takes pride in his country behold it without contrition and shame? Must he not devoutly