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Title: The Strategy of Culture
Date of first publication: 1952
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   University of Toronto, 1952 (First Edition)
Author: Harold A. Innis (1894-1952)
Date first posted: 22 December 2007
Date last updated: 22 December 2007
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #49

This ebook was produced by: David T. Jones, Mark Akrigg & the Online
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HAROLD A. INNIS

THE
STRATEGY
OF
CULTURE

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS: 1952




PREFACE


These two essays assume a familiarity with a general thesis developed
in _The Bias of Communication_ (Toronto, 1951), in the Cust Foundation
Lecture _Great Britain, the United States and Canada_ (Nottingham,
1948), the Stamp Lecture, _The Press, a Neglected Factor in the
Economic History of the Twentieth Century_ (London, 1948) and a
sesquicentennial lecture of the University of New Brunswick, _Roman
Law and the British Empire_ (1950).

The general argument has been powerfully developed in Aeschylus,
_Prometheus Bound_ as outlined in E. A. Havelock, _The Crucifixion of
Intellectual Man_ (Boston, 1950). Intellectual man of the nineteenth
century was the first to estimate absolute nullity in time. The
present--real, insistent, complex, and treated as an independent
system, the foreshortening of practical prevision in the field of
human action--has penetrated the most vulnerable areas of public
policy. War has become a result and a cause of the limitations placed
on the forethinker. Power and its assistant force, the natural enemies
of intelligence, have become more serious since "the mental processes
activated in the pursuit and consolidating of power are essentially
short range" (p. 99). But it will not do to join the great chorus of
those who create a crisis by saying there is a crisis.

H. A. I.

Copyright, Canada, 1952
University of Toronto Press
Printed in Canada




THE STRATEGY OF CULTURE

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CANADIAN LITERATURE--A FOOTNOTE
TO THE MASSEY REPORT

"Pay them well; where there is a Maecenas there will be a Horace
and a Virgil also." _Martial_

"Complaints are made that we have no literature; this is the fault of
the Minister of the Interior." _Napoleon_


The title of this article may be regarded as an illustration of the
remark of Julien Benda concerning "the _intellectual organization of
political hatreds_"[1] and as a further effort to exploit Canadian
nationalism. "Political passions rendered universal, coherent,
homogeneous, permanent, preponderant--everyone can recognize there to
a great extent the work of the cheap daily political newspaper."[2]
Whistler[3] and others have contended that art is not to be induced by
artificial tactics. They have pointed to Switzerland as a country
without art and it has interesting parallels with Canada, a country of
more than one language, a federation, and dependent on the tourist
trade. A distinguished Canadian painter has remarked: "I am not sure
that future opinion of the contemporary art of our day will not
consider the advertising poster, the window and counter card as most
representative."[4]

Printers' ink threatens to submerge even the literary arts in Canada
and it may seem futile to raise the question of cultural
possibilities. The power of nationalism, parochialism, bigotry, and
industrialism may seem too great. Cheap supplies of paper produce pulp
and paper schools of writing, and literature is provided in series,
sold by subscription, and used as an article of furniture. Almost
alone Stephen Leacock, by virtue of his mastery of language, escaped
into artistic freedom and was recognized universally and even he, as
Peter McArthur pointed out, never attacked a publisher.

[Footnote 1: Julien Benda, _The Great Betrayal_ (London, 1928), p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 7.]

[Footnote 3: J. M. Whistler, _The Gentle Art of Making Enemies_ (New
York, 1904).]

[Footnote 4: William Colgate, _C. W. Jeffreys_ (Toronto, n.d.), p. 28.]

But we can at least point to the conditions which seem fatal to
cultural interests. We can appraise the cultural level of the United
States and appreciate the importance of New York as a centre for the
publication of books and periodicals, the effects of the higher costs
of commercial printing in Chicago, and the dangers to literature and
the drama of reliance on the authoritative finality of New York
newspaper critics. We should be able to escape the influence of a
western American news agency which advised that if you want it to sell
"put a New York date line on it."

We can point to the dangers of exploitation through nationalism, our
own and that of others. To be destructive under these circumstances is
to be constructive. Not to be British or American but Canadian is not
necessarily to be parochial. We must rely on our own efforts and we
must remember that cultural strength comes from Europe.[5] We can
point to our limitations in literature and to the consequent
distortions incidental to the impact of mechanization, notably in
photography. The story has been compelled to recognize the demands of
the illustration and has become dominated by it.[6] The impact of the
machine has been evident in the dependence of Edgar Wallace and
Phillips Oppenheim and dictators of the quick action novel on the
dictaphone.[7] An emphasis on speed and action essential to books
produced for individual reading weakens the position of poetry and the
drama particularly in new countries swamped by print.

[Footnote 5: "Until the English visitor to America comprehends that he
is in the midst of a civilization totally different from anything he
has known on our side of the Atlantic, he is exposed to countless
shocks." Sir John Pollock, Bt., _Time's Chariot_ (London, 1950), pp.
184-5. Sir John regards the great difference as having developed since
1880 as a result of the Civil War and foreign immigration. In England,
with a background of feudalism, it seems possible to keep political
differences and personal relationships in separate departments.]

[Footnote 6: Whistler's complaint that painting was subordinate to
literature must be offset by the account of Newman Flower of Cassell &
Co. He resorted to a _clich_ department or "bank" of illustrations
built up since 1870, selected a promising illustration, and asked a
young writer to write around it. _Just As It Happened_ (London, 1951),
p. 27.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid_., p. 40. On the other hand Edgar Wallace protested
that dictaphone stuff was "good Wallace publicity. I write my best
stuff with a pen." Reginald Pound, _Their Moods and Mine_ (London,
1939), p. 233. "Dictation always is rubbish" (George Moore). _Ibid_.,
p. 112. As a result of the influence of the newspaper on reading,
novels have been written to be read rapidly and consequently emphasize
length and description. "I do not want literature in a newspaper" (E.
L. Godkin).]

Burckhardt[8] in his studies of Western civilization held that
religion and the state were stable powers striving to maintain
themselves and that civilized culture did not coincide with these two
powers, that in its true nature it was actually opposed to them.
"Artists, poets and philosophers have just two functions, i.e. to
bring the inner significance of the period and the world to ideal
vision and to transmit this as an imperishable record to posterity."
In the words of Sir Douglas Copland, summarizing the philosophy of P.
H. Roxby, "A cultural heritage is a more enduring foundation for
national prestige than political power or commercial gain."[9] "It is
the cultural approach of one nation to another, which in the long run
is the best guarantee for real understanding and friendship and for
good commercial and political relations. In the past, it has been, on
the whole, sadly neglected, and especially as between western Europe
and China." (Roxby.)[10] It has been scarcely less neglected as
between Canada and the United States. In the long list of volumes of
"The Relations of Canada and the United States" series, little
interest is shown in cultural relations and the omission is ominous.

[Footnote 8: See Jacob Burckhardt, _Force and Freedom: Reflections on
History_ (New York, 1943).]

[Footnote 9: D. B. Copland, "Culture versus Power in International
Relations" in _Liberty and Learning: Essays in Honour of Sir James
Hight_ (Christchurch, 1950), p. 155.]

[Footnote 10: _Ibid_., p. 154.]

Inter-relations between American and Canadian publishing in the
nineteenth century had significant implications for Canadian
literature in the present century. In the nineteenth century the
tyranny of the novel in England had been built up in part because of
inadequate protection to English playwrights from translations of
French plays, production of which had been systematically encouraged
in France,[11] and by a monopoly of circulating libraries protected by
the high price of the three-volume novel which made it, therefore,
cheaper to rent than to buy books.[12] Restrictive effects of high
prices on exports of books from Great Britain, absence of circulating
libraries in the United States, lack of protection to foreign,
especially English books before the enactment of copyright legislation
in America in 1891, and section 5 of the American Copyright Act, May
31, 1790, which was "an invitation to reprint the work of English
authors," were factors responsible for large-scale reprinting of
English works in the United States and for the publication of English
works first in the United States.[13]

[Footnote 11: In France the Thtre Franais was subsidized by the
government, and the Society of Dramatic Authors founded by
Beaumarchais and reorganized by Scribe in the nineteenth century
fostered an interest in plays rather than novels. See Brander
Matthews, _Gateways to Literature and Other Essays_ (New York, 1912),
p. 41 and also H. A. Innis, _Political Economy in the Modern State_
(Toronto, 1946), pp. 35-55.]

[Footnote 12: See introduction by Graham Pollard to I. R. Brussel,
_Anglo-American First Editions, 1826-1900_ (New York, 1935), p. 10.]

[Footnote 13: _Ibid_., p. 11. See also H.A. Innis, _The Bias of
Communication_ (Toronto, 1951), pp. 171-2.]

In 1874 legislation in the United States reduced postage on newspapers
issued weekly or oftener to two cents a pound without regard to the
distance carried. Under an act of March 3, 1879 (par. 14),
second-class mail matter "must be regularly issued at stated intervals
as frequently as four times a year, and bear a date of issue, and be
numbered consecutively." Again, on July 1, 1885, postal charges on
paper-covered books were reduced from two cents per pound to one cent
and cloth-bound books were carried at eight cents per pound. The
legislation reflected the demands of a vigorous cheap book publishing
period, concentrating on English or foreign books for which a market
had been created by established publishers.

In the ultimate development of the publication of English books
previous to the Copyright Act in 1891, Canadians, emigrants to the
United States and undisciplined by the demands of its distributing
machinery, played an important role. George Munro, a mathematics
teacher in the Free Church College, Halifax, who had emigrated to New
York and acquired experience in the handling of dime novels in the
firm of Beadle and Adams and in the publishing of the _Fireside
Companion_, a family newspaper started in 1867, launched the "Seaside
Library," a quarto, two or three columns to the page with cheap paper,
on May 28, 1877. It was estimated that 645 pages in a regular edition
could be printed in 152 pages quarto. As a result of saturation of the
market for quartos in the latter part of 1883, Munro started a
pocket-size edition in spite of the higher costs of manufacturing. In
1887 he cut wholesale prices from twenty and twenty-five cents to ten
cents and from ten cents to five cents, and in 1889 sought protection
by publishing a monthly "Library of American Authors," cheap
cloth-bound twelvemos, "sold by the ton." In 1890 Munro sold the
"Seaside Library" to J.W. Lovell,[14] on a three-year option to
repurchase arrangement, for $50,000 plus $4,500 monthly. It was
estimated that, by 1890, 30,000,000 volumes of the "Seaside Library"
had been sold, chiefly through the American News Company.

[Footnote 14: The funds became the basis of a substantial gift to
Dalhousie University.]

J. W. Lovell was the son of John Lovell, who in 1872 had a printing
shop on the American side near Montreal at which he printed British
copyright works, free of copyright, and imported them into Canada
under 12 per cent duty to be sold at a lower price than editions
imported from Great Britain.[15] The son moved to New York in 1875 and
engaged in the sale of cheap unauthorized editions. After a failure in
1881 he followed the German plan of producing cheap handy books with
neat covers and, in 1882, started publication of handy twelvemos in
"Lovell's Library," paper-covered books selling at twenty cents, and
"Lovell's Standard Library," cloth-bound at one dollar. In 1885 he
concentrated on "Lovell's Library" and sold the remainder of his
business to Belford and Clarke. This became a most popular series
selling about seven million volumes annually. As a result of the
reduction of prices by George Munro in 1887 competition became more
intense and in 1888 Lovell bought the "Munro Library"[16] from Norman
W. Munro, the brother of George Munro. The "Munro Library" in
pocket-size books had been started in 1884 when the owner had returned
to the business after failing with the "Riverside Library," sold
between 1877 and 1879. With control over the "Seaside Library,"
acquired in 1890, and over the plates and stock of other cheap book
publishers by purchase or rental to the extent of over half the titles
of cloth-bound books and over three-fourths of the titles of
paper-covered books, and supported by the Trow Printing Company,
Lovell organized the United States Book Company with a reported
capital of $3,500,000.

Alexander Belford and James Clarke, members of a firm of Belford
brothers in Toronto, moved to Chicago and organized Rose, Belford and
Company; it was reorganized in 1879 after a failure as Belford Clarke
and Company. They became publishers of "railroad literature" and built
up an elaborate retail system developing a policy of selling to the
book trade at artificially high prices, first to jobbers, and then to
the regular trade, and later at extremely low prices through dry-goods
and department stores. Showy bindings contrasted with the woodpulp,
clay, and straw paper inside the books. In 1885 they acquired
"Lovell's Standard Library" and became the largest producers of cheap
cloth-bound twelvemos. As a result of the intensive price cutting
after 1887 they failed in 1889.

[Footnote 15: R. H. Shove, _Cheap Book Production in the United
States, 1870 to 1891_ (Urbana, 1937), p. 75. This book is a mine of
information.]

[Footnote 16: This included 855 sets of plates and 1,500,000 copies of
books for which $250,000 was paid.]

In the absence of copyright on foreign books, publishers were
compelled to rely on their only means of protection, namely, cheapness
based on mass production. With efficient systems of distribution
through the American News Company and the post office, equipment was
steadily improved; cylinder presses were first installed in 1882 and
in 1886 three cheap library publishers had their own typesetting,
printing, and binding plants. The cheapest variety of paper was used
and slight attention was given to proof reading and corrections. Paper
manufacturers were compelled to sell their fine book papers chiefly to
the large printing houses and the periodical publishers. Stereotype
establishments or "sawmills" began to sell plates to publishers who
then issued their own editions. Typographical unions[17] complained,
and, following the sharp reduction in prices, recognized the
importance of copyright. With lower postal rates on paper-covered
editions, and prices from one-sixth to one-tenth those of cloth-bound
volumes, it was estimated that almost two-thirds of a total of 1,022
books published in 1887 were issued in the cheap libraries. Demands
for new titles led to the publication of poorer classes of
fiction.[18] The technological changes which lowered the prices of
paper[19] and of printing widened the gap between the supply of
written material and the demand of readers and intensified the need
for non-copyright foreign books. Yet the supply of foreign material
was limited, the market for lower grade fiction was saturated, it was
no longer possible to increase sales by changing formats from quarto
to twelvemo, deterioration of paper was not sufficiently rapid, and
finally newspapers expanded to absorb supplies of newsprint.
Publishers were now compelled to emphasize American writers, to whom
copyright was paid. The basis was laid for the supremacy of the
periodical, with significant consequences for American and Canadian
literature. National advertising steadily advanced to impose its
demands on the reading material of the periodical. The discrepancy
between prices of books in England and in the United States gradually
lessened. The three-volume novel disappeared in England as prices were
levelled with those in the United States after the Copyright Act of
1891. To secure copyright it was necessary to print books in the
United States.[20]

[Footnote 17: The unions were at first opposed to the Copyright Act
but became active in its support; see G. A. Tracy, _History of the
Typographical Union_ (Indianapolis, 1913), p. 450.]

[Footnote 18: Brussel, _Anglo-American First Editions_, p. 19.]

[Footnote 19: In 1871, newsprint straw paper was twelve cents per
pound, fine book paper sixteen to seventeen cents; in 1875 newsprint
was nine cents, machine-finish book paper ten to eleven cents; in 1889
newsprint was three and one-quarter cents and calendared book paper
six and one-half to seven and one-half cents. Shove, _Cheap Book
Production_, p. 4.]

[Footnote 20: Cheap unauthorized editions disappeared and the works of
authors such as Kipling, which had sold widely in pirated editions,
were sold at higher prices and in smaller numbers.]

In the last decade of the nineteenth century the advantages of cheap
newsprint, of cheap composition following the invention of the
linotype, and of the fast press as the basis of large circulations
were being fully exploited by newspapers. Every conceivable device to
increase circulation was pressed into service, notably in the
newspaper war between Pulitzer and Hearst in the late nineties in New
York City, including sensational headlines, the comics, and the
Spanish American War. Crusades were started in every direction to
enhance goodwill for newspapers.

The sudden improvement in technology in the production of newspapers
was accompanied by an increase in magazine readers. The weekly was
replaced by the monthly which became a leading factor in modern
publishing. The Copyright Act of 1891, in itself a recognition of the
problem of creating a supply of American writers,[21] was followed by
the training of an army of fiction writers who by 1900 met the demands
of magazines. Muck-raking magazines[22] were supported by experienced
newspaper men such as Lincoln Steffens (who wrote a series on "The
Shame of the Cities"). They followed the tactics, particularly of the
Hearst newspapers, in the struggle for circulation.[23] McClure, for
instance, applied the sensational methods of the cheap newspaper to
the cheap and new magazine. He sponsored a reform wave which was
effectively exploited by Theodore Roosevelt. He built up circulation
by paying enormous sums to famous writers and trying to corner a
market in them. As a former peddler of coffee pots, he knew the
demands of people on farms and in small towns.[24] Munsey,[25] in the
all-fiction magazine which followed the Sunday magazine section of the
newspaper with smooth paper and clearer half-tones, made fiction the
basis of circulation and earning power by 1896.[26]

[Footnote 21: The suit brought against the _New York World_ by Harriet
Monroe for printing her ode presented at the opening of the Chicago
World's Fair and the award of $5,000 damages strengthened the position
of authors. Harriet Monroe, _A Poet's Life: Seventy Years in a
Changing World_ (New York, 1938), pp. 139-43.]

[Footnote 22: C. C. Regier, _The Era of the Muckrakers_ (Chapel Hill,
N.C., 1932).]

[Footnote 23: H. L. Mencken, _Prejudices, First Series_ (New York,
1929), p. 175.]

[Footnote 24: S. S. McClure, _My Autobiography_ (New York, 1914).]

[Footnote 25: F. A. Munsey, _The Founding of the Munsey
Publishing-House_ (New York, 1907); also George Britt, _Forty
Years--Forty Millions: The Career of Frank A. Munsey_ (New York,
1935).]

[Footnote 26: Algernon Tassin, _The Magazine in America_ (New York,
1916), pp. 342-3.]

The position of women as purchasers of goods led to concentration on
women's magazines and on advertising. In Philadelphia, Curtis
developed the great discovery, that reading matter trailed through a
periodical compelled readers to turn the pages and to look at the
advertising which made up most of the page, into an extensive magazine
business.[27] Through the national magazine,[28] advertisers such as
the manufacturers of pianos, high cost two-wheeled bicycles, and other
commodities were able to reach a large market at less cost than
through the daily newspaper and to concentrate on more attractive
layouts appealing to people in higher income brackets. The national
magazine made a systematic attack on older advertising media.
Religious papers dependent on patent medicine advertising felt the
effects of a crusade of the _Ladies' Home Journal_ which in 1892[29]
refused to handle medical advertising and exposed widely advertised
preparations by printing chemical analyses. With the growth of
large-scale printing, the printer assumed the direction of advertising
and displaced the single advertiser and agency. Specialization of
printing and increased pressure of overhead costs necessitated
effective control of publications. Lorimer, an able writer of
advertisements, became editor of the _Saturday Evening Post_ and gave
advertisements the personality of articles.[30] A four-colour printing
press costing $800,000 and a new building in 1910 led the Curtis
publications to add a third magazine to cover agriculture.[31]

[Footnote 27: Arthur Train, _My Day in Court_ (New York, 1939), p.
419.]

[Footnote 28: Frank Presbrey, _The History and Development of
Advertising_ (New York, 1929), p. 339.]

[Footnote 29: _Ibid_., pp. 531-2. See _The Americanization of Edward
Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After_ (New York,
1937). Also Edward W. Bok, _A Man from Maine_ (New York, 1923). The
campaign against patent medicines provoked the announcement by Eugene
Field of the engagement of the grand-daughter of Lydia W. Pinkham to
Edward W. Bok, the editor of the _Ladies' Home Journal_.]

[Footnote 30: Bok, _A Man from Maine_, p. 171. "The secrets of success
as an editor were easily learned; the highest was that of getting
advertisements. Ten pages of advertising made an editor a success;
five marked him as a failure." _The Education of Henry Adams: An
Autobiography_ (Boston, 1918), p. 308. "The art of advertising has
outgrown the art of creative writing.... Three-fourths of the income of
the magazines comes from their advertisers ... just take the advertising
and rewrite it." W. E. Woodward, _Bunk_ (New York, 1923), p. 51.]

[Footnote 31: Bok, _A Man from Maine_, p. 183.]

The average circulations of magazines increased from 500,000 to
1,400,000 in the period from 1905 to 1915 and following the boom
beginning in 1922 reached 3,000,000 by 1937.[32] The _Reader's Digest_
was started in 1922, _Time_ in 1923, and the _New Yorker_ in 1925.
Extension of education and increased use of text-books conditioned
youth to acceptance of the printed word and to magazine consumption.
The demand for writers exceeded the supply. After the First World War,
women's magazines, which had begun as pattern makers in the
_Delineator_ and other Butterick papers, gained conspicuously in
circulation. Women's magazines reached the largest circulations, paid
most highly for articles, and were the chief market for writers.
Competition between magazines for writers with an established
reputation brought sky-rocket prices.[33] The sale of film rights to
popular novels brought even more than that of serial rights. An
average best-seller in "the slicks" with serial rights, movie, book,
and other rights brought returns varying between $70,000 and $125,000.
Writers concentrated on magazines rather than books.[34]

Writing for the great popular magazines built up on advertising
implied assiduous attention to their requirements on the part of
writers and editors. Dulness was absolutely abhorrent. Serial
instalments involved consideration of appropriate terminal points at
which intense interest might be sustained for the next number.
Magazines with the largest circulation were able to carry longer
fiction by writers with an established reputation but tended to reduce
instalments and stories from 12,000 to 5,000 or 4,500 words.[35] Since
dependence on advertising meant that the magazine "expands and
contracts with the activity of the factory chimney"[36] writers were
particularly affected by fluctuations of the business cycle. The
reputations of authors were built up through advertising by editors of
magazines who were thus enabled to sell advertising material, and
stories[37] became commercialistic. George Ade could write "I guess I
can now sell anything I write, even if it's good."[38]

[Footnote 32: Train, _My Day in Court_, p. 421.]

[Footnote 33: Fairfax Downey, _Richard Harding Davis, His Day_ (New
York, 1933), p. 219.]

[Footnote 34: _Ibid_., pp. 430-1, 433.]

[Footnote 35: Train, _My Day in Court_, pp. 423-5. In England Gilbert
Frankau held that the serial market was disappearing because readers
of monthly magazines would not wait and newspapers preferred the short
story "in these days of so much front-page excitement." Pound, _Their
Moods and Mine_, p. 241.]

[Footnote 36: Train, _My Day in Court_, p. 420. The limited
circulation of Canadian magazines makes for a seasonal expansion.
Advertising is sufficient only during the period of the two or three
months before Christmas to warrant a full-fledged interest in
features, especially short features. Longer features appear after the
holiday season.]

[Footnote 37: Train, _My Day in Court_, p. 440.]

[Footnote 38: F. W. Wile, _News is Where You Find It_ (Indianapolis,
1939), p. 36.]

The influence of the newspaper and advertising on the magazine was
developed to a sophisticated level in the twenties when magazines such
as the _New Yorker_ playfully exposed the foibles of its advertisers
and advertisers exploited the foibles of the magazine. More recently
the campaign of the _New Yorker_ against loud speaker advertising in
public buildings has not been unrelated to competition for
advertising--all of course in the spirit of good clean fun. The rigid
limitations in style of advertising copy enabled the _New Yorker_ to
succeed by emphasizing the independence of the editor from the
business office, and by developing a new style of writing which in
turn led to a revolution in the style of advertising copy. In the
_Smart Set_ and the _American Mercury_ H. L. Mencken, a Baltimore
newspaperman, was successful in building up circulation in a direct
attack on the limitations of a society dependent on advertising. In
reviewing books for newspapers he had become familiar with trends in
literature and he attracted to the _Smart Set_ new authors unable to
secure publication with old firms and willing to acquire prestige in
lieu of high rates of pay. As a columnist Mencken had also gained an
intimate knowledge of libel laws. Of German descent, he had suffered
from the frenzied propaganda of the First World War. The _American
Mercury_ was started in 1924 as a fifty-cent magazine and practically
doubled its average monthly circulation from 38,694 to 77,921 by
1926.[39] Debunking became a new word and a profitable activity. In
developing the _American Mercury_ as a quality magazine designed to
make the common man respectable,[40] Mencken pursued his attacks on
the puritanical and on the English book to the point of recognizing in
a powerful fashion the new language of the newspaper and the magazine
in his _American Language_.

[Footnote 39: W. Manchester, _Disturber of the Peace: The Life of H.
L. Mencken_ (New York, 1951), p. 15.]

[Footnote 40: _Ibid_., p. 155.]

The women's magazines began to feel the restraining influence of
puritanism and its effects on advertising. Bok became concerned with
the importance of sex education. Theodore Dreiser, editor of
_Delineator_, came into conflict with censorship regulations in his
novels and triumphantly conquered in _An American Tragedy_. Mencken,
in the tradition of Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce, secured the support
of the Authors' League for Dreiser's position.[41] The Calvinistic
obsession of hypocritical people with the subject of sex[42] became
the centre of attack by Dreiser as chief artist and Mencken as high
priest, determined to defeat "the iron madonna who strangles in her
fond embrace the American novelist" (H. H. Boyesen). With a shrewd
appreciation of the advertising value of censorship regulations
Mencken seized upon the occasion of the banning of a copy of the
_American Mercury_ to attack the Boston Watch and Ward Society as the
stronghold of Catholic and Protestant puritanism.[43] His active
interest in the Scopes trial, following a law enacted in Tennessee on
March 21, 1925, against the teaching of evolution was a part of the
general strategy against religious bigotry.

Decline of the practice of reading aloud led to a decline in the
importance of censorship. The individual was taken over by the
printing industry and his interest developed in material not suited to
general conversation. George Moore in England and H. L. Mencken in the
United States exploited the change in their attacks on censorship.
Censorship could no longer be relied upon to secure publicity.
Significantly the advertiser had contributed to a change of atmosphere
and women no longer feared to smoke cigarettes in public.

[Footnote 41: _Ibid_., pp. 93-4.]

[Footnote 42: _Ibid_., p. 101.]

[Footnote 43: _Ibid_., p. 207. See an account of the failure of
attempts by Covici, Friede to secure suppression of Radclyffe Hall's
_Well of Loneliness_ by the Boston Watch and Ward Society. Donald
Friede, _The Mechanical Angel_ (New York, 1948), p. 94.]

Even before the Copyright Act, the effects of advertising, as
reflected in the newspaper and the magazine, on the writer had
important implications for the book. "Most people now do not read
books, but read magazines and newspapers" (H. G. Baird).[44] Limited
distributing facilities for books evident in the high costs of book
agents and subscription publishing[45] in the nineties, and the
development of special publishers of text-books in the early part of
the century were gradually being offset by department stores. Small
retail stores for books could not compete with rents paid by diamonds,
furs, and bonds. Mail order business in books expanded in the early
1900's but the results were perhaps evident in the remark of a
publisher's reader, "this novel is bad enough to succeed."[46] W. D.
Howells wrote in 1902: "Most of the best literature now sees the light
in the magazines, and most of the second best appears first in book
form." The increasing importance of apartment buildings and lack of
space for shelves supported the rapid development of the lending
library in the twenties. Book clubs increased rapidly[47] after 1926
as a means of securing the economies of mass production. Nevertheless,
the inadequacy of book distributing machinery and dependence on
British and Continental devices[48] showed the limitations of the book
in contrast with the newspaper and the magazine. Publishing firms such
as Doubleday, Page and Company entered on policies of direct vigorous
advertising, which built up, for instance, the success of O.
Henry,[49] but their most significant results were in less obvious
directions.

The experience of the prominent publishing firm of Scribner's
illustrates directly the impact of advertising on the newspaper and
the magazine and in turn on the book. Roger Burlingame,[50] trained in
a newspaper office, and M. E. Perkins, a reporter on the _New York
Times_, exercised a powerful influence on publications of the firm.
Perkins was concerned to arouse a consciousness of the value and
importance of the native note in opposition to the imitation of
English and European models and "the cynical disparagement of American
materialism."[51] To him great books were those which appealed to both
the literati and the masses. The book-buying public was made up of
fairly successful people but to Perkins the reading of Thomas Wolfe's
books "to pieces" in the libraries reflected the truer sense of life
of people in the lower economic level.[52] While he condemned the mad
pursuit of best-sellers which developed during the boom period of the
twenties and the newspaper policy of playing up the work of authors of
best-sellers and criticized the Book of the Month Club for
concentrating the attention of the public on one book a month,[53] he
was concerned primarily with the newspaper public. Writers from the
newspaper field included Hemingway, Edmund Wilson, Stanley Pennell,
Stephen Crane, and Dreiser. It was his opinion that the teaching of
literature and writing in the colleges compelled students to see
things through a film of past literature and not with their own eyes.
Two years with a newspaper were better than two years in college.[54]
He favoured what Irving Babbitt called "art without selection." The
demands of commercialism were evident more directly in the avoidance
of controversy. "The sales department always want a novel. They want
to turn everything into a novel."[55] The public and the trade
preferred books of 100,000 words and works of 25,000 to 30,000 words
were padded to give the appearance of books of a larger size.

[Footnote 44: J. C. Derby, _Fifty Years among Authors, Books and
Publishers_ (New York, 1884), p. 559.]

[Footnote 45: Subscription selling was accompanied by a development of
techniques of salesmanship and depended for its success to an
important extent on snob appeal, particularly the prestige attached to
owning a large book among the relatively illiterate. Estes and Lauriat
of Boston, prominent subscription book agents, who came under the
control of Walter Jackson and Harry E. Hooper after 1900, were active
in developing schemes for the sale of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_
in connection with the London _Times_.]

[Footnote 46: W. H. Page, _A Publisher's Confession_ (New York, 1905),
p. 27.]

[Footnote 47: E. H. Dodd, _The First Hundred Years: A History of the
House of Dodd, Mead, 1839-1939_ (New York, 1939), p. 36.]

[Footnote 48: O. M. Sayer, _Revolt in the Arts_ (New York, 1930).]

[Footnote 49: Train, _My Day in Court_, p. 439.]

[Footnote 50: Roger Burlingame, _Of Making Many Books_ (New York,
1946), p. 221.]

[Footnote 51: J. H. Wheelock, _Editor to Author: The Letters of
Maxwell E. Perkins_ (New York, 1950), p. 8.]

[Footnote 52: _Ibid_., p. 184.]

[Footnote 53: _Ibid_., p. 128.]

[Footnote 54: _Ibid_., p. 267. "What the eighteenth century thought
simply vulgar, and the nineteenth gathered data from, has now become
literary material; even the annals of the poor are to be short and
simple no longer." H. W. Boynton, _Journalism and Literature and Other
Essays_ (Boston, 1904), p. 164.]

[Footnote 55: Wheelock, _Editor to Author_, p. 84.]

An orderly revolt against commercialism was significantly delayed and
frustrated in literature possibly more than in any other art. Henry
James had escaped to England and in the period after the First World
War Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot followed. "The historians of Wolfe's
era ... all record this strange phase of our cultural adolescence; the
same sad and distraught search for foreign roots."[56] "You could
always come back" (Hemingway). But in the words of Pound: "We want a
better grade of work than present systems of publishing are willing to
pay for."[57] "The problem is _how_, how in hell to exist without
over-production."[58] "The book-trade, accursed of god, man and
nature, makes no provision for _any_ publication that is not one of a
series...."[59] "The American law as it stands or stood is all for the
publisher and the printer and all against the author, and more and
more against him just in such proportion as he is before or against
his time."[60] Books by living authors were, he claimed, kept out of
the United States and "the tariff, which is iniquitous and stupid in
principle, is made an excuse."[61] Even in Great Britain from about
1912 to 1932 booksellers did "their utmost to keep anything worth
reading out of print and out of ordinary distribution." "Four old
bigots" of Fleet Street practically controlled the distribution of
printed matter in England.[62] Criticism was related to publishers'
advertising.[63]

[Footnote 56: Maxwell Geismar, _Writers in Crisis: The American Novel
between Two Wars_ (Boston, 1942), pp. 214 and _passim_.]

[Footnote 57: _The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941_, ed. D. D. Paige
(New York, 1950), p. 175.]

[Footnote 58: _Ibid_., p. viii.]

[Footnote 59: _Ibid_., p. 319.]

The distorting effects of industrialism and advertising on culture in
the United States have been evident on every hand. Architecture as a
sort of tyrant of the arts had the advantage of the utilitarian
demands of commerce. Painting and sculpture as allied to it had the
support of collectors, private and public, and the encouragement of
awards and prizes.[64] Poetry was the subject of paragraphers' jokes,
a space filler for magazines[65] and "must appeal to the barber's wife
of the Middle West."[66] "Poetry had no one to speak for it."[67] In
the drama the lack of interest of actors in modern art[68] and the
support of tradition involved effective reliance on Shakespeare and a
terrific handicap to playwrights.[69] The commercial theatre manager
and the newspaper critic have been reluctant to recognize the vitality
of a demand for the imaginative artistic work of the little
theatre[70] particularly in competition with the cinema. In the words
of George Jean Nathan the talking picture may be "the drama of a
machine age designed for the consumption of robots" and the theatre
may have gained enormously by the withdrawal of "shallow and imbecile
audiences," but the change has been costly and painful.[71]

[Footnote 64: Harriet Monroe, _A Poet's Life_, p. 241.]

[Footnote 65: _Ibid_., p. 247. A study of the demands of space on
Bliss Carman's poetry might prove rewarding.]

[Footnote 66: _Ibid_., p. 288.]

[Footnote 67: _Ibid_., p. 242.]

[Footnote 68: Nathan refers to "the mean capacity of the overwhelming
number of them, whatever their nationality ... the downright ignorance,
often made so conspicuously manifest." _The Intimate Note-books of
George Jean Nathan_ (New York, 1932), p. 144.]

[Footnote 69: See a letter from Mrs. Fiske in Harriet Monroe, _A
Poet's Life_, pp. 176-7.]

[Footnote 70: _Ibid_., p. 419.]

[Footnote 71: See St. John Ervine, _The Alleged Art of the Cinema_
(n.p., March 15, 1934). "Actors and actresses were certainly regarded
with far greater interest than they are nowadays. The outstanding ones
inspired something deeper than interest. It was with excitement, with
wonder and with reverence, with something akin even to hysteria, that
they were gazed upon. Some of the younger of you listeners would, no
doubt, if they could, interrupt me at this point by asking, 'But
surely you don't mean, do you, that our parents and grandparents were
affected by them as we are by cinema stars?' I would assure you that
those idols were even more ardently worshipped than are yours. Yours
after all, are but images of idols, mere shadows of glory. Those
others were their own selves, creatures of flesh and blood, there,
before our eyes. They were performing in our presence. And of our
presence they were aware. Even we, in all our humility, acted as
stimulants to them. The magnetism diffused by them across the
footlights was in some degree our own doing. You, on the other hand,
have nothing to do with the performances of which you witness the
result. Those performances--or rather those innumerable
rehearsals--took place in some far-away gaunt studio in Hollywood or
elsewhere, months ago. Those moving shadows will be making identically
the same movements at the next performance or rather at the next
record; and in the inflexions of those voices enlarged and preserved
for you there by machinery not one cadence will be altered. Thus the
theatre has certain advantages over the cinema, and in virtue of them
will continue to survive." Sir Max Beerbohm in _The Listener_, Oct.
11, 1945, p. 397.]

The overwhelming pressure of mechanization evident in the newspaper
and the magazine has led to the creation of vast monopolies of
communication. Their entrenched positions involve a continuous,
systematic, ruthless destruction of elements of permanence essential
to cultural activity. The emphasis on change is the only permanent
characteristic. Thomas Hardy complained that narrative and verse were
losing organic form and symmetry, the force of reserve, and the
emphasis on understatement, and becoming structureless and
conglomerate.[72]

The guarantee of freedom of the press under the Bill of Rights in the
United States and its encouragement by postal regulations has meant an
unrestricted operation of commercial forces and an impact of
technology on communication tempered only by commercialism itself.[73]
Vast monopolies of communication have shown their power in securing a
removal of tariffs on imports of pulp and paper from Canada though
their full influence has been checked by provincial governments
especially through control over pulpwood cut on Crown lands. The
finished product in the form of advertisements and reading material is
imported into Canada with a lack of restraint from the federal
government which reflects American influence in an adherence to the
principle of freedom of the press and its encouragement of monopoly.
Sporadic attempts have been made to check this influence in Canada as
in the case of the banning of the Hearst papers in the
First World War and in the imposition by the Bennett administration of
a tariff based on advertising content in American periodicals.
Protests are made by institutions against specific articles in
American periodicals but without significant results other than that
of advertising the periodical. To offset possible handicaps Canadian
editions of _Time_, _Reader's Digest_ and the like are published.
Canadians are persistently bombarded with subscription blanks
soliciting subscriptions to American magazines, and their conversation
shifts with regularity following the appearance of new jokes in
American periodicals. Canadian publications supported by the
advertising of products of American branch plants and forced to
compete with American publications imitate them in format, style and
content. Canadian writers must adapt themselves to American
standards.[74] Our poets and painters are reduced to the status of
sandwich men. The ludicrous character of the problem may be shown by
stating that the only effective means of sponsoring Canadian
literature involves a rigid prohibition against all American
periodicals with any written material and free admission to all
periodicals with advertising only. In this way trade might be fostered
and Canadian writers left free to work out their own solutions to the
problems of Canadian literature. Indeed they would have the advantage
of having access to the highly skilled examples of advertiser's copy.

[Footnote 72: May, _John Lane and the Nineties_, p. 177.]

[Footnote 73: See Upton Sinclair, _Money Writes! A Study of American
Literature_ (Long Beach, Calif., 1927).]

[Footnote 74: One Canadian writer has complained of writing an article
of 60,000 words for an American woman's magazine, cutting it to about
40,000 words to make two instalments, and expanding it to 80,000 for
the English market. Canadian writers should become efficient
concertina players.]

Publishers' lists in Canada are revealing in showing the position of
American branches or American agencies in the publication of books.
Advertising rates for a wide range of commodities, determined by
newspapers and magazines particularly in relation to circulation, are
such as to make it extremely difficult for publishers to compete for
advertising space, particularly as book advertising is largely
deprived of the powerful force of repetition.[75] Moreover, the
demands of a wide range of industries for advertising compete directly
and effectively for raw materials, paper, capital, and labour entering
into the production of books, and restrict the possibility of
advertising them. American devices such as book clubs and the mass
production of pocket books to be sold on news-stands and in cigar
stores and drug stores have immediate repercussions in Canada. The
extreme importance of book titles--perhaps the most vital element in
American literature--evident in the changing of titles of English
books in the United States and of American books in Great Britain and
in the interest of the movie industry in the publishing field,[76] is
felt in Canada also. In the field of the newspaper, dependence on the
Associated Press and other agencies, on the _New York Times_,[77] and
other media needs no elaboration. In radio and in television
accessibility to American stations means a constant bombardment of
Canadians.

[Footnote 75: Wheelock, _Editor to Author_, p. 138.]

[Footnote 76: See J. T. Farrell, _The Fate of Writing in America_
(n.p., n.d.), also W. T. Miller, _The Book Industry_ (New York, 1949).
"Before the war British publishers were often told by friends in the
Canadian book trade that their public preferred the bigger, handsomer
American book. They wanted value for money, and had been accustomed to
measure value by size and weight. The story has often been told of the
Canadian agent who handed one of his travellers an advance copy of a
new book from a British publisher and asked, 'How many can you sell of
that?' The traveller, without opening the book, handed it back and
said, 'None.' The agent, somewhat nettled, said, 'None? But you
haven't even looked at it.' The traveller replied, 'I don't need to.
It doesn't weigh enough.'" Michael Joseph, _The Adventure of
Publishing_ (London, 1949), p. 131.]

[Footnote 77: It "set out to be dull and ponderous and it has achieved
its purpose with a fidelity and thoroughness justly commanding the
admiration of all lovers of bulk and solidity." G. M. Fuller, "The
Paralysis of the Press," _American Mercury_, Feb., 1926, p. 160.]

The impact of commercialism from the United States has been enormously
accentuated by war. Prior to the First World War the development of
advertising[78] stimulated the establishment of schools of commerce
and the production of text-books on the psychology of advertising.
European countries were influenced by the effectiveness of American
propaganda. Young Germans were placed with American newspaper chains
and advertising and publishing agencies to learn the art of making and
slanting news. American treatises on advertising and publicity were
imported and translated. American graduate students were attracted to
Germany by scholarships and experiments in municipal government. In
turn, German exchange professorships were established, especially with
South American universities. The Hamburg-American Lines became an
effective propagandist organization.

[Footnote 78: Will Irwin, _Propaganda and the News_ (New York, 1936).
For an account of the influence of an advertising agent of a Canadian
department store on advertising and journalistic ideas in England, see
_Autobiography of a Journalist_ edited with an introduction by Michael
Joseph (London, n.d.), pp. 45, 50. The author, advised by the agent to
begin journalism by writing advertisements for shopkeepers, used
samples of full-page advertisements of the Canadian store (p. 66).
Advertising methods were then introduced effectively in political
campaigns.]

But German experience[79] proved much too short in contrast with that
of American[80] and English propagandists,[81] though their
effectiveness is difficult to appraise since the estimates have been
provided chiefly by those responsible for the propaganda.

American propaganda[82] after the First World War became more intense
in the domestic field. Its effectiveness was evident in the emergence
of organizations representing industry, labour, agriculture, and other
groups. The Anti-Saloon League pressed its activities to success in
prohibition legislation. In the depression the American government[83]
learned much of the art of propaganda from business and exploited new
technological devices such as the radio. With the entry of the United
States into the Second World War instruments of propaganda[84] were
enormously extended.

The effects of these developments on Canadian culture have been
disastrous. Indeed they threaten Canadian national life. The cultural
life of English-speaking Canadians subjected to constant hammering
from American commercialism is increasingly separated from the
cultural life of French-speaking Canadians. American influence on the
latter is checked by the barrier of the French language but is much
less hampered by visual media. In the period from 1915 to 1920 the
theatre in French Canada was replaced by the movie or French influence
by American. With the development of the radio, protection of language
enabled French Canadians to take an active part in the preparation of
script and in the presentation of plays. During the Second World War
the revue and the French-Canadian novel received fresh stimulus. The
effects of American technological change on Canadian cultural life
have been finally evident in the numerous suggestions of American
periodicals that Canada should join the United States. It should be
said that this would result in greater consideration of Canadian
sentiment by American periodicals than is at present the case when it
probably counts for less than that of a religious sect.

[Footnote 79: G. S. Viereck, _Spreading Germs of Hate_ (New York,
1930).]

[Footnote 80: James R. Mock and Cedric Larson, _Words That Won the
War: The Story of the Committee on Public Information, 1917-1919_
(Princeton, N.J., 1939).]

[Footnote 81: See Neville Lytton, _The Press and the General Staff_
(London, 1921); Sir Campbell Stuart, _Secrets of Crewe House: The
Story of a Famous Campaign_ (London, 1920); Walter Millis, _Road to
War: America 1914-1917_ (Boston, 1935); James Squires, _British
Propaganda at Home and in the United States from 1914 to 1917_
(Cambridge, Mass., 1935); H. D. Lasswell, _Propaganda Technique in the
World War_ (London, 1927).]

[Footnote 82: See O. W. Riegel, _Mobilizing for Chaos: The Story of
the New Propaganda_ (New Haven, Conn., 1939).]

[Footnote 83: See George Michael, _Handout_ (New York, 1935); L. C.
Rosten, _The Washington Correspondents_ (New York, 1937).]

[Footnote 84: See _Propaganda by Short Wave_ ed. H. L. Childs and J.
R. Whitton (Princeton, N.J., 1943); C. J. Rolo, _Radio Goes to War:
The "Fourth Front"_ (New York, 1940).]

The dangers to national existence warrant an energetic programme to
offset them. In the new technological developments Canadians can
escape American influence in communication media other than those
affected by appeals to the "freedom of the press." The Canadian Press
has emphasized Canadian news but American influence is powerful.[85]
In the radio, on the other hand, the Canadian government in the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has undertaken an active role in
offsetting the influence of American broadcasters. It may be hoped
that its role will be even more active in television. The Film Board
has been set up and designed to weaken the pressure of American films.
The appointment and the report of the Royal Commission on National
Development in the Arts and Sciences imply a determination to
strengthen our position. The reluctance of American branch plants to
support research in Canadian educational institutions has been met by
taxation and federal grants to universities. Universities have taken a
zealous interest in Canadian Literature but a far greater interest is
needed in the whole field of the fine arts. Organizations such as the
Canadian Authors' Association have attempted to sponsor Canadian
literature by the use of medals and other devices. The resentment of
English and French Canadians over the treatment of a French-Canadian
play on Broadway points to powerful latent support for Canadian
cultural activity.

We are indeed fighting for our lives. The pernicious influence of
American advertising reflected especially in the periodical press and
the powerful persistent impact of commercialism have been evident in
all the ramifications of Canadian life. The jackals of communication
systems are constantly on the alert to destroy every vestige of
sentiment toward Great Britain holding it of no advantage if it
threatens the omnipotence of American commercialism. This is to strike
at the heart of cultural life in Canada. The pride taken in improving
our status in the British Commonwealth of Nations has made it
difficult for us to realize that our status on the North American
continent is on the verge of disappearing. Continentalism assisted in
the achievement of autonomy and has consequently become more
dangerous. We can only survive by taking persistent action at
strategic points against American imperialism in all its attractive
guises. By attempting constructive efforts to explore the cultural
possibilities of various media[86] of communication and to develop
them along lines free from commercialism, Canadians might make a
contribution to the cultural life of the United States by releasing it
from dependence on the sale of tobacco and other commodities which
would in some way compensate for the damage it did before the
enactment of the American Copyright Act.

[Footnote 85: "I am sceptical about the value of 90 per cent of press
reports. Most of them tend to say enough to be misleading and not
enough to be in any sense informative." Interview with a veteran
Vancouver journalist. See M. L. Ernst, _The First Freedom_ (New York,
1946) and Herbert Brucker, _Freedom of Information_ (New York,
1949).]

[Footnote 86: The problem to an important extent centres around the
confusion as to the distinct possibilities of each medium. Literary
agents deliberately exploit the demands of technological innovations,
adapting the same artistic piece of work to the book, the magazine,
and the film. See Curtis Brown, _Contacts_ (London, 1935). Shaw
refused to allow a play to be filmed stating that no one would go to
see it after seeing it on the screen and that the author suffered
because the play became dull with the dialogue left out (_ibid_., p.
51). The studios wanted "a big kick" at the end of every sequence of
the film (_ibid_., p. 33). Mechanization demands uniformity. The
newspapers are concerned with news and contemporary topics, and books,
plays, films, and novels centre around newspaper owners. The book has
been subordinated to the demands of advertising for the movies,
business firms in centennial volumes, radio broadcasts, and articles
from magazines. Bible scenes are exploited for plays and movies.
Shakespeare's plays for actors are primarily studied in print as
texts. Newspaper serials and radio scripts differ from novels and
emphasize topics of the widest general interest. Any fresh idea is
immediately pounced on and mauled to death. Irvin Cobb remarked
concerning the dull conversation of Hollywood that the phrase coiners
preserved silence until they had sold the wheeze themselves.]




THE MILITARY IMPLICATIONS OF THE AMERICAN
CONSTITUTION


I

This paper[1] is an attempt to understand the policies of the United
States. In Canada we are under particular obligations to attempt such
an understanding in our own interests as well as in the interests of
the rest of the world. The difficulties involved in any country's
understanding itself, particularly a country with a complex unstable
history, are overwhelming and the most penetrating studies of the
United States have been made by de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, and by
Lord Bryce, an Englishman. A Canadian is too close to make an
effective study but he has the most to gain from it. He is handicapped
by tradition especially in English-speaking Canada, evident in the
pervasive influence of those who left the United States after the
American Revolution, namely the United Empire Loyalists, and by
language in French-speaking Canada. The writer of this paper can
scarcely pretend to the necessary objectivity, nor, I suspect, can
most of his readers. Nevertheless we must do our best.

Whatever our view about the American Revolution we must agree that it
was achieved by a resort to arms against Great Britain. To the British
it may have been a war of little consequence; we remember the remarks
of an Englishman who when told that in the War of 1812 the British
forces had burned Washington said he thought he had died in bed. To
Americans the achievement was a result of desperate struggle.
Revolutions leave unalterable scars and nations which have been burned
over by them have exhibited the most chauvinistic brand of nationalism
and crowd-patriotism.[2] These nations have developed highly
depersonalized social relationships, political structures, and ideals
and their counsels are determined most of all by spasms of crowd
propaganda. "Public policy sits on the doorstep of every man's
personal conscience. The citizen in us eats up the man."[3] The
founders of the American Constitution appear to have recognized the
danger by framing an instrument which put limits on the number of
things concerning which a majority could encroach on the position of
the individual.[4] But the extent of such protection has varied and
declined with improvements in the technology of communication and the
increasing powers of the executive, as Senator McCarthy has
conspicuously shown.

[Footnote 1: Read at a meeting of the Salmagundi Club on December 6,
1951.]

[Footnote 2: E. D. Martin, _The Behavior of Crowds: A Psychological
Study_ (New York, 1920), p. 223.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 248.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., p. 249. "The most certain test by which we judge
whether a country is really free, is the amount of security enjoyed by
minorities." "By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be
protected in doing what he believes his duty, against the influence of
authority and majorities, custom and opinion.... It is bad to be
oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a
majority." (Lord Acton.) See Sir John Pollock, Bt., _Time's Chariot_
(London, 1950), pp. 166-7.]

Washington and his successors in the nineteenth century renounced an
interest in Europe but steadily expanded their influence in the
Americas following the increase in demand for new land on which to
raise cotton. The demand implied steady expansion westward, in the
south, and, in order to maintain a balance, in the north. In the south
expansion was at the expense of the French empire, notably in
Jefferson's administration when Louisiana was bought from Napoleon,
and in the north at the expense of the British empire when Lewis and
Clark were sent on a journey of exploration to the northwest and when
John Jacob Astor established Astoria on the Columbia River. Later
expansion in the south was safeguarded in the Monroe Doctrine,
enunciated in 1823, which warned European powers to keep their hands
off South America and was directed to the absorption of Texas,
California, and other states at the expense of the Spanish empire and
of Mexico. The remnants of a crumbling Spanish empire were finally
taken over after the explosion of the _Maine_ in Cuba ("Remember the
_Maine_") and when Puerto Rico and the Philippines became American
possessions. Expansion in the south to some extent intensified and to
some extent eased the pressure on the British empire in the north. The
line was eventually tightened to the present Canadian border and
Alaska, "Seward's icebox," was purchased from Russia in 1867. These
developments remind us of Disraeli's comment when Poland had been
partitioned by European powers at a meeting at breakfast. "What will
they have for lunch?"


II

The outbreak of the American Revolution marked a return to ideological
warfare such as had largely disappeared in England after the Civil
War.[5] Democratic nationalism and the mass army became the new basis
of warfare.[6] George Washington, an officer in the British army in
the Seven Years' War against the French, had gained experience which
gave him the leadership of the Revolutionary Army. The immediate
significance of the Revolution was evident in the position of this
soldier from Virginia. A mass army could not be built up under a New
England general.[7] As a result of success in arms he secured not only
independence for the colonies but also a stable federal government. He
presided over the Convention and was asked to take the chief position
in the new government. An interest in western lands was not unrelated
to his sympathy with the Federalists in their proposal for a strong
central government with "powers competent to all general purposes,"
words included in a letter from him to Hamilton in 1783.[8] His
sympathies found reflection in the views of delegates concerned about
the dangers implicit in the radical character of state constitutions
written by revolutionary legislatures. "Our chief danger rises from
the democratic parts of our constitutions" (Edmund Randolph of
Virginia to the Convention).[9] Conservatism and an emphasis on the
theory of divided powers led to provisions strengthening the executive
power, such as those making the President Commander-in-Chief of the
Army and Navy and giving him control over patronage. The Secretaries
of State and War were made responsible to the President alone and,
with the exception of the Treasury Department, the precedent was
followed in the establishment of new Cabinet posts. The President
became a focus of executive power. The influence and character of
Washington finally left their impression on the United States as he
secured Virginia's acceptance of the Constitution in 1787 and gave
leadership to the other states which followed.

[Footnote 5: J. F. C. Fuller, _Armament and History_ (London, 1946),
p. 101.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_., p. 109.]

[Footnote 7: Herbert Agar, _The United States: The Presidents, the
Parties & the Constitution_ (London, 1950), p. 28. "For it is a fact,
that more than one third of their general officers have been
inn-keepers, and have been chiefly indebted to that circumstance for
such rank. Because by that public, but inferior station, their
principles and persons became more generally known." Smyth; cited by
Kittredge, _The Old Farmer and His Almanack_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1920),
p. 264.]

[Footnote 8: Agar, _The United States_, p. 37.]

[Footnote 9: _Ibid_., p. 45.]

In the work of establishing a nation, the influence and prestige of
the first President left an indelible impression on the operation of
government. However, Washington's efforts to secure the advice of the
Senate as a sort of privy council were met with distrust. The decision
of the Senate to receive reports of Cabinet ministers in writing and
to exclude them from its meetings drove the Cabinet into the position
of being the President's council. As a further guarantee against
presidential interference, in Congress a system of committees was
emphasized in which members were protected by secrecy from any group
including the press.

John Adams, the second President (1797-1801), whose election implied a
recognition of the role of New England in the Revolution and its
aftermath, inherited the task of maintaining the prestige of the
office, but he found it difficult to maintain the delicate balance
between New England and the South, in the face of the power of
Alexander Hamilton as a representative of industrial and commercial
interests in the middle states. At Hamilton's insistence, Washington
had agreed to call out the militia of four states to put down the
Whisky Rebellion in 1794. In 1798 Hamilton advised his friends in the
government to prepare for war with France, and Congress planned for a
large emergency army and an increase in the regular army. Under his
influence Washington agreed to head the army and by virtue of his
prestige could insist on choosing his generals. Strife between Adams
and Hamilton was followed by defeat of the former for a second term
and by a weakening of the Federalist position.

In opposition to the centralizing tendencies of the Constitution,
Jefferson (1801-9) led a group whose views were reflected in the
Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. He
emphasized the position of the land, the small farmer, and the
labourer against banking and the commercial interests. On his trip up
the Hudson with Madison in 1791 he laid the foundations for the
"longest-lived, the most incongruous, and the most effective political
alliance in American history: the alliance of southern agrarians and
northern city bosses."[10] In contrast with the Federalists who
insisted that survival depended on the sword, Jefferson stated: "I
hope no American will ever lose sight of the essential policy of
interdicting in the seas and territories of both Americas, the
ferocious and sanguinary contests of Europe." "Our first and
fundamental maxim should be, never to entangle ourselves in the broils
of Europe."[11] As a representative of the South, and in spite of his
statement that "our peculiar security is in the possession of a
written Constitution," he accepted the annexation of Louisiana and
acquired the port of New Orleans without asking the question of
constitutional propriety. To an alliance between the city bosses of
New York and the South, he added the West.

[Footnote 10: _Ibid_., p. 88.]

[Footnote 11: Washington, of course, in his Farewell Address had said,
"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any
portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty
to do it."]

After Jefferson's two terms, Madison, also a native of Virginia,
became President (1809-17) and acquired additional territory. On April
14, 1812, Congress formally divided West Florida at the Pearl River,
annexing the western half to the new state of Louisiana, and, a month
later, the eastern half to the Mississippi Territory. In 1813 the
American army forced the Spanish garrison at Mobile to surrender and
took possession. Henry Clay and the Committee on Foreign Affairs
persuaded Congress to declare war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812.
"The conquest of Canada is in your power." "This war, the measures
which preceded it, and the mode of carrying it on, were all undeniably
Southern and Western policy, and not the policy of the commercial
states" (Josiah Quincy).[12] On December 5, 1814, Madison recommended
liberal spending on the Army and the Navy and the establishment of
military academies.

Following the two terms of Madison, Monroe, again a native of
Virginia, and an officer in the Revolutionary Army, became President
(1817-25). The decline of the Federalist party meant that there was no
official opposition, and also no party discipline. The President was
thus left without any device to secure cohesion in Congress. In the
House of Representatives, for example, an Army bill, opposed by the
President and the Secretary of War, was "carried notwithstanding many
defects in the details of the bill by an overwhelming majority."[13]
In 1822 Monroe recognized the independence of the Latin American
republics which had been part of the Spanish empire, and, on the
insistence of John Quincy Adams, included in his statement of the
Monroe Doctrine on December 2, 1823, a protest against the
encroachment of Russians in the northwest.

[Footnote 12: Cited Agar, _The United States_, p. 174.]

[Footnote 13: _Ibid_., p. 200.]

The success of the War of 1812 and the re-election of Monroe in 1820
finally destroyed the Federalist party as a political factor. Decline
in prestige and power of the congressional caucus opened the way for a
free fight in 1824; New England influence was once more reflected in
the election of John Quincy Adams, who like his father, John Adams,
served only for one term (1825-9).

His successor, Andrew Jackson (1829-37), a native of South Carolina,
had suffered at the hands of the British in the Revolutionary War. In
the War of 1812 he had led western militiamen against the Indians of
Georgia and Alabama and destroyed British troops under General Sir
Edward Pakenham in New Orleans. In 1817 he pursued marauding Indians
into Spanish territory, marched to Pensacola, and removed the Spanish
governor. After his invasion of Florida he became military governor.
As a national figure and a popular hero he introduced a system of
military organization to national politics. Beginning in 1825 he built
up a national political machine. A small, divided, virulent, and
undisciplined[14] press which had contributed to the disappearance of
the Federalist party and a monopolistic Washington press were replaced
by an organized party press designed to provide discipline and
propaganda. The _National Intelligencer_,[15] the organ of Jefferson,
Madison, Monroe, and J. Q. Adams, had been the oracle of war sentiment
before and after 1812 and had a wide circulation for daily,
semi-weekly, and weekly editions.[16] In opposition, Jackson and his
followers established media to maintain a close contact with voters.
After his election the _United States Telegraph_ and the Washington
_Globe_ became administrative mouthpieces for partisan purposes.[17]
Rewards were offered to strengthen the morale of the troops; "no
plunder no pay." Political organizers in state politics such as Van
Buren at Albany were brought to the national stage. In 1832 at the
time of the nomination of Jackson for a second term, a system of
nominating conventions was introduced in which a two-thirds rule was
invoked to protect the position of the South. The news value of the
system became evident in the emergence of the presidential candidate
as the chief consideration of politics. Under Jackson and his
successor, Van Buren (1837-41), a representative of New York State,
campaign techniques were elaborated. Veto messages, written up by
journalistic members of the Kitchen Cabinet for popular consumption,
had a wide distribution. The difficulties of the system became evident
when attempts were made to meet the demands of regional groups. The
Tariff of Abominations, and the opposition to Vice-President Calhoun
of South Carolina in the nullification controversy, made the latter a
defender of state rights and led to the enactment of the Force Act by
which the President was given authority to call out the Army and Navy
to enforce laws of Congress. The dragon's teeth of secession were
sown.

[Footnote 14: James Cheetham, an exile from England after the
Manchester riots in 1798, attempted in the _American Citizen_, a daily
sponsored by Clinton, to break the power of Aaron Burr in New York.
William Duane, editor of the powerful Jeffersonian paper, the
_Aurora_, because of a bitter grudge against Madison and Gallatin who
refused to give him a job contributed to the defeat of the Navigation
Act of Gallatin and hastened the outbreak of war.]

[Footnote 15: This had been the _Independent Gazetteer_ of
Philadelphia under Joseph Gales, a son of the editor and proprietor of
the _Sheffield Register_, who had left England following a charge of
sedition in 1795. It was purchased by S. H. Smith in 1800 and moved to
Washington.]

[Footnote 16: A. K. McClure, _Recollections of Half a Century_ (Salem,
1902), pp. 37-9.]

[Footnote 17: J. E. Pollard, _The Presidents and the Press_ (New York,
1937), p. 147.]

To meet the type of organization built up in support of Jackson and
Van Buren, an attempt was made to establish a Whig Party, based
chiefly on anti-Masonic feeling,[18] following the contest of 1836. In
New York State, Seward and Weed, to weaken the position of Van Buren
and to exploit the news value of a war hero, secured the nomination of
W. H. Harrison, who had been engaged in a battle with the Indians at
Tippecanoe Creek in 1811, and was promoted to command the Army of the
Northwest in the War of 1812. A vigorous campaign with an emphasis on
such slogans as "log cabin and hard cider" led to his election in 1841
but his death shortly afterwards meant the elevation of the
vice-president, Tyler, a native of Virginia. Texas, which had seceded
from Mexico in 1836, was annexed to the United States near the end of
his administration (1841-5), and formally admitted on July 4, 1845.
The Texas issue defeated Clay's hopes of the presidency in 1844 and
weakened the Whig party.

[Footnote 18: The anti-Masonic party put Seward in the New York State
Senate in 1830, made Joseph Ritner Governor in Pennsylvania in 1835,
and supported an alliance of J. Q. Adams, William Wirt, Francis
Granger, and Thurlow Weed. It carried Vermont for Wirt and Ellmaker,
candidates for President. C. T. Congdon, _Reminiscences of a
Journalist_ (Boston, 1880), p. 29.]

J. K. Polk (1845-9), a native of North Carolina, the first dark horse
ever nominated for the presidency, aggressively pressed for settlement
of the Oregon boundary dispute under the slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or
Fight" and secured recognition of a boundary in 1846. This
aggressiveness was designed to increase the number of states in the
north, to parallel the increase in the south with the addition of
Texas and the acquisition of New Mexico and California. Americans in
California took a hint from Polk and declared an independent state.
Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to occupy the left bank of the Rio
Grande; at length the exasperating Mexicans committed an overt act,
which was followed by a brief successful war. In 1847, in "the spot"
resolutions, Lincoln took an active part in attacking Polk, and to a
resolution of Congress thanking General Taylor, secured the addition
of a rider that the war had been started by Polk "unnecessarily and
unconstitutionally."[19] Polk[20] was accused by the Whigs of forcing
a war to extend the institution of slavery. Opposition to the
aggressiveness of the south in the interests of new territory became
more vocal through the activities of Lincoln and organs such as the
_Chicago Tribune_.

Again to capture the electorate, Thurlow Weed, a skilful journalist
and politician, played an active role in securing the selection of
General Taylor, a native of Virginia, and the hero of Buena Vista
(February 1847). He was selected at the Iowa convention within a month
of his victory and later triumphantly elected. Vice-President
Fillmore, a native of New York, became President on his death in 1850
and like most vice-presidents not in harmony with the policy of the
administration, reversed it. He was sympathetic to the South, and made
the first effort of a president to purge his party by opposing the
nomination of Whig congressmen who had voted against the Clay
compromise.[21] In 1852 the Whigs nominated Winfield Scott, the
general who had led the troops to Mexico City, but he was defeated by
Pierce (1853-7). Newspapers exploited such remarks of Scott as "I
never read the _New York Herald_" and "the hasty plate of soup."

[Footnote 19: See R. S. Harper, _Lincoln and the Press_ (New York,
1951), p. 9.]

[Footnote 20: T. W. Barnes, _Memoir of Thurlow Weed_ (Boston, 1884),
p. 172.]

[Footnote 21: H. L. Stoddard, _Horace Greeley, Printer, Editor,
Crusader_ (New York, 1946), p. 149.]

The long struggle between the North and South was drawing to a close
as the North was no longer able to offset southern influence by such
tactics as nominating generals for President. These tactics had been
to an extent self-defeating since military power was reinforced by
recognition of heroes in elections to the presidency. The Whig
party[22] was replaced by the Republican party supported by the free
soil movement. The plantation system led to the acquisition of Indian
and Mexican lands. The spoils of Mexico were poisoning the political
system--each addition of territory accentuated the rivalry between
North and South. The gold rush in California precipitated a more
intense struggle for control over the first transcontinental railway.
Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War under Pierce, a native of New
Hampshire and a minor national hero at Buena Vista, insisted on a
Pacific railway along the Mexican border linking California to the
Gulf states and opening the trade of Asia to the plantation society.
In the north, on the other hand, Stephen Douglas of Illinois demanded
a route through Nebraska.

Mastery of the South was evident in the nomination and election of
weak northern presidents--Pierce and Buchanan (1857-61), the latter
with the advantage of having refused to wear court dress in
England,[23] and the distinction of being the only president from
Pennsylvania. Compromises between North and South included the
reciprocity treaty with the British colonies in 1854 designed to
extend the influence of the North as a balance to expansion in the
South. Finally the Supreme Court reflected the influence of the South
when it appeared as an agent for southern expansion in the Dred Scott
decision. The nomination of Lincoln from the Middle West by the
Republican party and his election brought southern expansionism to an
end. Robert E. Lee, a contemporary of Jefferson Davis at West Point,
became in 1865 General-in-Chief of the Confederate armies. Withdrawal
of able generals to the southern armies compelled the North to build
up the effectiveness of a widely separated staff, with activities
co-ordinated through the telegraph; the attempt was eventually
successful under Grant. Inefficient military leadership in the North
meant a longer period of war, greater loss of life, and greater
bitterness toward the South. After the savagery which characterized
Sherman's march through Georgia to the sea, reflected in his remark
"War is hell," the prospects of reconciliation were slight. A revival
in the Civil War of the savagery of ideological warfare established
precedents for the twentieth century.

[Footnote 22: The Whigs failed to capture the popular vote. Daniel
Webster was alleged to have said that they should "come down into the
forum and take the people by the hand," words which were printed
innumerable times in the largest type in Democratic newspapers.
Governor J. A. Clifford, on the other hand, imprudently called the
Democrats "poor in character and meager in numbers." Congdon,
_Reminiscences of a Journalist_, p. 61.]

[Footnote 23: Pollard, _The Presidents and the Press_, p. 293.]

At the end of the Civil War a national army had emerged to serve a
national state. The President and executive were supreme above the
states. Washington became the significant capital and state
governments became less important. The South was invited to join a
vastly different union than that she had left, but in turn the war had
created a solid and a different South from the one which had left the
union. Ideological warfare had been carried to great lengths. The
North imposed a peace more bitter than war. The Republican party, as a
result of the costs of civil war and victory, became a sacred cause to
New England, the farmers of the Middle West, veterans concerned with
pensions, and negroes. Andrew Johnson (1865-9) was finally disregarded
as President. In spite of the Constitution, the President was deprived
of control of the Army and governments in the South which had been
elected in 1865 were replaced in 1867 by military rule with the whole
area divided into five military districts each under a major general.
Grant, trained as a general, became the head of an executive which had
been built up by a skilful politician but which had deteriorated under
Johnson who followed the precedent of vice-presidents in reversing
policy. Like Jefferson Davis, Grant carried the dominating qualities
of a soldier into the administration of civil affairs (1869-77). He
was thwarted in his ambition to annex San Domingo in the south by
Sumner, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, who
long served as a focus of northern bitterness, following the savage
physical attack on him by Brooks of South Carolina on the floor of the
Senate,[24] and who insisted on the acquisition[25] of Canada to the
north.

With the aggressive support of Union veterans of the Grand Army of the
Republic, Hayes, a brigadier general under Sheridan, was elected to
the presidency by a narrow margin in 1876 (1877-81). In his fight with
the Senate, the telegraph became an effective instrument in the
mobilization of public opinion. He acquired control of the appointive
power and "the long domination of the executive by the Congress was at
an end" (H. J. Eckenrode). Grant had been unable to restore the South
to white rule because of the Army and the bitterness following the war
but under Hayes, as a result of the cohesiveness of white southerners
in the Democratic party, the retreat of the North from the South was
begun. It was finally ended in 1894 and the negro was left a
third-class citizen, legally free, but deprived of his vote. On the
other hand Hayes began the unfortunate precedent of using his power
over federal troops to break strikes in West Virginia, Pennsylvania,
and Maryland.

[Footnote 24: See Congdon, _Reminiscences of a Journalist_, p. 253.]

[Footnote 25: _The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography_
(Boston, 1918), p. 275.]

Hayes was followed by James A. Garfield, a brigadier general at
Shiloh, who to become President defeated General Winfield Scott
Hancock, a Union commander at Gettysburg, "a good man weighing 280
pounds" (W. O. Bartlett, in the _Sun_). Garfield, supported by
Whitelaw Reid of the New York _Tribune_, had defeated Conkling and the
New York _Herald_ in the attempt in 1880 to nominate Grant for a third
term.[26] The appointive powers conceded to Hayes led to a concern
with the introduction of civil service reform but since domination of
the Senate necessitated a rigid control over patronage, a strict merit
system was impossible. Factors responsible for the murder of Lincoln,
vicious personal bitterness, the war, disappearance of an interest in
great causes, and the growth of the spoils system culminated in the
assassination of Garfield,[27] the defeat of Blaine and the election
of Cleveland, and the return of the Democratic party. (Arthur,
Vice-President under Garfield, became President in 1881, but contrary
to the usual practice did not change his policy.)

[Footnote 26: Pollard, _The Presidents and the Press_, pp. 480-6.]

[Footnote 27: Agar, _The United States_, p. 533.]

On its return to power in 1885 the Democratic party and its President,
though relatively free from the hatreds exploited by the Republican
party, was inexperienced and undisciplined. A forceful leader,
Cleveland (1885-89, 1893-7) strengthened further the position of the
executive in opposition to the Senate. He was defeated by his tariff
message of December, 1887, and by Benjamin Harrison (1889-93),[28] a
grandson of President William Henry Harrison elected in 1840, a great
grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the last
of the aristocrats in American politics, and a brevet major at the end
of the Civil War. The unpopularity of the McKinley Tariff and the
depression contributed to the re-election of Cleveland as president in
1892. Inexperience and lack of discipline in the party, and
continuation of the depression were to defeat him. Neglect of monetary
reform and an emphasis on the tariff, incidental to the revival of
southern influence, led to Bland's warning to Cleveland, in the
"parting of the ways speech" in 1893, and a breach between eastern and
western Democrats. The weakness of Cleveland in the party was not
unrelated to various tactics designed to strengthen his position as
President. Although a Democrat he followed the precedent of Hayes in
sending federal troops to stop the Pullman strike in Chicago and
destroyed the last vestiges of state sovereignty which had maintained
the safety of commerce depended on the power of the state.[29] Richard
Olney,[30] his Secretary of State, held "any permanent political union
between a European and an American state unnatural and inexpedient"--a
statement of interest to Canadians. He sent instructions of an
inflammatory nature to the American minister in London regarding the
dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela, and Cleveland sent a
message to Congress which revived feelings of antagonism against
Britain. The Navy was rehabilitated and Mahan's writings on naval
power developed as an important influence.

[Footnote 28: J. S. Clarkson, assistant Postmaster-General, a former
teacher and journalist, is said to have distributed 38,000 post
offices and to have secured the election of Harrison in opposition to
Blaine. Herbert Quick, _One Man's Life_ (Indianapolis, 1925), p. 220.
"In numerous instances the post-offices were made headquarters for
local party committees and organizations and the centers of partizan
scheming. Party literature favorable to the post-masters' party, that
never passed regularly through the mails, was distributed through the
post-offices as an item of party service, and matter of a political
character, passing through the mails in the usual course and addressed
to patrons belonging to the opposite party, was withheld; disgusting
and irritating placards were prominently displayed in many
post-offices, and the attention of the Democratic enquirers for mail
matter was tauntingly directed to them by the post-masters."
(Cleveland.) Cited by Agar, _ibid_., p. 550.]

[Footnote 29: McClure, _Recollections of Half a Century_, p. 131.]

[Footnote 30: He threatened the _World_ with application of a statute
of January 30, 1799, in complaint of its influence on the conduct of
Great Britain in relation to the Venezuelan controversy. J. L. Heaton,
_The Story of a Page_ (New York, 1913), pp. 112, 122.]

The vigorous note to Great Britain was designed to attract Irish votes
since the Democratic party in the North had been built up around the
Irish American element in New York State.[31] The words "Rum, Romanism
and Rebellion" used by a supporter of Blaine had contributed to the
latter's defeat in 1884.[32] In turn the outcome of the election of
1888 had been influenced by a letter which Sackville-West, British
Minister in the United States, was tricked into writing to the effect
that the interest of Great Britain would be best served by the return
of Cleveland.[33] In that election the charge of subservience of the
Democratic party to the Southern Confederacy had been heard for the
last time. In 1896 the free silver campaign of the West drove the gold
standard Democrats in the East out of politics and weaker elements of
the party came to the surface.[34]

As a nominee of the Democratic party reflecting the demands of the
West for monetary reform, Bryan was defeated by W. J. McKinley
(1897-1901) who had served as a private, and was a brevet major at the
end of the Civil War. The war mania, developed over the Venezuela
dispute, persisted and led to demands for war with Spain. This
Congress declared in April, 1898. "McKinley had in part given in to
public pressure, for fear of disrupting his party and losing the
autumn elections."[35] "From the Rio Grande to the Arctic Ocean there
should be but one flag and one country!" was the cry of Henry Cabot
Lodge. Regarding the Philippines, McKinley decided that "there was
nothing left for us to do but take them all, and to educate and uplift
and civilize and christianize them," a process involving a long period
of hostilities with the Filipinos.[36] The Hawaiian Islands were
annexed, partly because they would be needed to defend the
Philippines. In the peace treaty Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain.

[Footnote 31: W. J. Abbott, _Watching the World Go By_ (Boston, 1933),
p. 74. J. Y. McKane, a Coney Island boss, failing to secure benefits
from Cleveland, became very active in opposition to him. James L.
Ford, _Forty-Odd Years in the Literary Shop_ (New York, 1921), pp.
345-6.]

[Footnote 32: As Thomas Nast had done effective work as a cartoonist
in the election of Grant, Bernard Gillam particularly with "The
Tattooed Man" in _Puck_ was effective in his support of Cleveland.
Ford, _Forty-Odd Years_, p. 299. Conkling's refusal to support Blaine
in the words "I am not in the criminal practice" gave weight to the
attack.]

[Footnote 33: Abbott, _Watching the World Go By_, p. 103. Cleveland
asked for his recall. This probably served as a counter move to a
release of a story in England in 1887 of the possible purchase of the
Maritimes by the United States which was cabled as a scoop for
American papers.]

[Footnote 34: J. D. Whelpley, _American Public Opinion_ (London,
1914), p. 18.]

[Footnote 35: Agar, _The United States_, p. 624.]

[Footnote 36: _Ibid_., p. 625.]

During the war in Cuba, Theodore Roosevelt, God's gift to
newspapermen, who had raised the Rough Riders, and, with the
assistance of Richard Harding Davis as war correspondent, secured
important space on the front pages of newspapers, became a centre of
attention.[37] He was elected Governor of New York State, became
Vice-President in McKinley's second term, and President (1901-9) on
the latter's assassination. This was attributed to an incendiary
press, particularly the writings of Bierce and the Hearst papers,
which supported the Democratic party.[38] Such was the background for
a belief in power for the central government; "I achieved results only
by appealing over the heads of the Senate and House leaders to the
people, who were the masters of both of us."[39] Cleveland gave out
messages on Sunday evenings[40] to get more space in the Monday papers
and Roosevelt exploited the practice following the development of
Sunday papers by making important statements on Sunday and compelling
the dull Monday papers to feature them.[41] He prepared speeches well
ahead of time in order that they could be distributed to all
newspapers before public delivery and the expenses of telegraphing
them be avoided.[42] The interest of newspapers in his activities was
a result of his sense of news, and of his concern with trust busting,
which implied defeat of the International Paper Company as a trust,
and lower prices of newsprint. "I took the canal zone and let Congress
debate." The Panama had "a most just and proper revolution."[43] In
spite of Congress he sent the United States fleet to the Pacific to
impress the Japanese. Under pressure from Roosevelt the Canadian claim
in the Alaska boundary dispute had been sacrificed.[44] Regarding the
appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, Roosevelt wrote: "he [a
judge of the Court] is not in my judgment fitted for the position
unless he is a party man, a constructive statesman...."[45] His
position was summed up in his statement: "... I did greatly broaden the
use of executive power."[46]

[Footnote 37: Commenting on Roosevelt's Rough Riders, Mr. Dooley
wrote: "'Tis 'Th' Biography iv a Hero be Wan who Knows.' ... If I was
him I'd call th' book 'Alone in Cubia.'" Elmer Ellis, _Mr. Dooley's
America_ (New York, 1941), p. 145.]

[Footnote 38: Abbott, _Watching the World Go By_, p. 139.]

[Footnote 39: Agar, _The United States_, p. 639.]

[Footnote 40: Pollard, _The Presidents and the Press_, p. 517.]

[Footnote 41: Abbott, _The United States_, p. 244.]

[Footnote 42: Oscar King Davis, _Released for Publication: Some Inside
Political History of Theodore Roosevelt and His Times, 1898-1918_
(Boston, 1925), p. 102.]

[Footnote 43: Agar, _The United States_, p. 650.]

[Footnote 44: _Ibid_., p. 626.]

[Footnote 45: _Ibid_., p. 644.]

[Footnote 46: _Ibid_., p. 638.]

In 1909 W. H. Taft, the nominee of President Roosevelt and the
Republican party, became President (1909-13). He had been Governor of
the Philippines from 1900 to 1904, Secretary of War after 1904 when he
successfully reorganized work on the Panama Canal and was described as
"an amiable island, completely surrounded by men who know exactly what
they want." He attempted to secure the passage of a reciprocity treaty
in 1911 but the attitude of President Roosevelt in the Alaska boundary
dispute had done much to stimulate hostility leading to its defeat in
Canada. The increasing power of the executive, following Hayes and
Cleveland, was accompanied by the emergence of the Speaker as an
important channel between the executive and Congress. T. B. Reed
became the Speaker in 1889, when the Republicans captured both houses
and the presidency; a continuous representative from Maine, he was
responsible for a marked increase in the importance of the position.
The weakness of the Democratic party, and the position of the Speaker,
first in the case of Reed and then in the case of Cannon, in the
Republican party, precipitated a revolt in the latter party in 1910.
After that date, the Speaker was excluded from membership in the Rules
Committee of the House and lost his power to appoint its Standing
Committees. As a result the President had no one person with whom he
could deal, and bitterness between factions of the Republican party
led to the emergence of ex-President Roosevelt with a Progressive
party and the election of President Wilson in 1912.

The election of President Wilson (1913-21) was not only a result of
the difficulties of the Republican party but also of the steady
improvement in the discipline and solidarity of the Democratic party.
Champ Clark's blunder in coining a phrase which was used with such
telling effect in Canada against the reciprocity treaty in 1911 helped
to defeat him as a nominee of the Democratic party.[47] Woodrow Wilson
was a native of Virginia, and his election, first as Governor of New
Jersey, and then as President, pointed to a return of southern
influence in the Democratic party. The long period in the wilderness
was followed by aggressive legislation in the fields of both tariff
and monetary reform. In Wilson's second term, begun with a narrow
majority, patronage played an important role in maintaining the
discipline of the party. After the outbreak of war, Wilson, according
to Lindsay Rogers, became King, Prime Minister, Commander-in-Chief,
party leader, economic dictator, and Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs. In the words of Josephus Daniels, "My party has the
responsibility of this war." Exclusion of Republicans from the peace
delegation meant that Wilson's promises became party politics.

[Footnote 47: C. B. Davis, "_The Great American Novel----_" (New York,
1938), p. 146. Josephus Daniels claimed that he would have won with
the radio as Hoover did later. See James Kerney, _The Political
Education of Woodrow Wilson_ (New York, 1926).]

The overwhelming burdens of the war on the executive took their toll
in the breakdown of the President's health, in the defeat of the
League of Nations by Congress, and in the nomination of Warren Harding
from Ohio (1921-3), "the fine and perfect flower of the cowardice and
imbecility of the Senatorial cabal that charged itself with the
management of the Republican convention" (_New York Times_).[48]
Colonel George Harvey had played an important role in the election of
Wilson but the latter feared the possible charge of support by New
York interests, especially J. P. Morgan and Co. That his fear was
justified is evident in the fact that he was given the nomination by
the Democratic party partly as a result of Bryan's attack on Champ
Clark's reliance on New York support. The alienation of Harvey by
Wilson was followed by his aggressive interest in the election of
Harding and by his appointment as Ambassador to the Court of St.
James.[49] Roosevelt had regarded settlement of the Irish question as
"most essential to the furtherance of friendship between America and
Britain"[50] and Harvey took an active part in establishing the Irish
Free State and weakening support of the Irish vote to the Democratic
party. He was instrumental in carrying out the views of the British
and Americans in bringing to an end the Anglo-Japanese alliance by a
four power treaty.

The death of Harding in office meant the elevation to the presidency
of Coolidge from New Hampshire (1923-9). The religious issue was
important in the defeat of Al. Smith[51] as it had been in the defeat
of Seward[52] by Lincoln at the Republican convention in Chicago in
1860. The defeat of Hoover (1929-32) was in part a result of the
jealousy of correspondents of the preferred position given to one of
their number, Mark Sullivan, the difficulties of developing effective
relations with the press in various administrative departments, and
exploitation of this fact by Charles Michelson in a smear Hoover
campaign. Libel laws were avoided by resort to the privileges of the
_Congressional Record_.[53]

[Footnote 48: Cited Agar, _The United States_, p. 675.]

[Footnote 49: See W. F. Johnson, _George Harvey_ (Boston, 1929), pp.
286 ff.]

[Footnote 50: A conversation with Sir Joseph Ward, Prime Minister of
New Zealand, in 1909. Hon. Sir James Kirwan, _My Life's Adventure_
(London, 1936), p. 226.]

[Footnote 51: For a striking account of the implications of the
Coolidge statement "I do not choose to run" for the final disposition
of the Sacco Vanzetti case see _We Saw It Happen_ ed. H. W. Baldwin
and Shepard Stone (New York, 1938).]

[Footnote 52: Seward had been elected Governor in New York in 1838
with the support of the Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes and had urged
a division of the school fund between Catholics and Protestants with
the result that he antagonized the strong American native party in
Pennsylvania. McClure, _Recollections of Half a Century_, p. 216.]

[Footnote 53: Pollard, _The Presidents and the Press_, pp. 743-5.]

The disastrous results of the bitter aftermath of the Civil War shown
as late as in the uncomfortable position of President Wilson and the
attitude of the Republican party toward the peace treaty, were
ultimately evident in the successive readjustments of the terms of
peace, in the collapse of 1929, and the election of President F. D.
Roosevelt, formerly Governor of New York. He exploited to the full the
systematic efforts of Theodore Roosevelt to rid the name of
association with the aristocracy.[54] Extensive control over
patronage, the advantage of radio in appealing to the people over the
head of Congress, and the disciplined support of labour enabled him to
dominate the party until his death and enabled the party to dominate
Congress to the present. "The radio ... the supreme test for a
presidential candidate" was Roosevelt's "only means of full and free
access to the people."[55] He was extremely sensitive to public
opinion especially the opinion of religious groups.[56] The picture
changed from one of a little-regarded presidential office and a
supreme legislative branch under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover and the
strong position of business interests represented by lobbies, to one
featuring a strong executive and a vast patronage to executive
agencies.[57] In 1938 enormous relief funds were shifted toward
preparation of armaments.[58] Even the Supreme Court which, as Chief
Justice Hughes remarked, says what the Constitution is, generally
sympathetic to the legislative branch of government, after a bitter
struggle[59] became more sympathetic to the executive. Finally the
transfer of the Bureau of the Budget from the Treasury Department gave
the President access to all activities of the government.

[Footnote 54: E. C. Bentley, _Those Days_ (London, 1940), p. 198.]

[Footnote 55: R. E. Sherwood, _Roosevelt and Hopkins_ (New York,
1950), pp. 184, 186-7. Every word in his speeches was judged not by
appearance in print but by effectiveness over the radio and careful
attention was given to accurate timing in relation to the number of
words and the rate of delivery (pp. 217, 297). It is significant that
before the radio no pre-eminent orator ever succeeded in reaching the
presidency. A. K. McClure, _Our Presidents and How We Make Them_ (New
York, 1900), p. 88. It might also be noted that Blaine and Tilden were
the only men who managed their own campaigns for the presidency and
that both were defeated. _Ibid_., p. 312.]

[Footnote 56: Sherwood, _Roosevelt and Hopkins_, p. 384.]

[Footnote 57: R. G. Tugwell, "The New Deal: The Decline of
Government," _Western Political Quarterly_, June 1951, pp. 295-312.
For a study of the conflict between presidential and congressional
authority over the administration see C. S. Hyneman, _Bureaucracy in a
Democracy_ (New York, 1950).]

[Footnote 58: Sherwood, _Roosevelt and Hopkins_, p. 101.]

[Footnote 59: J. Alsop and T. Catledge, _The 168 Days_ (New York,
1938).]

The disequilibrium created by a press protected by the Bill of Rights
had its effects in the Spanish American War, in the development of
trial by newspaper, and in the hysteria after the First World War.
Holmes wrote "when twenty years ago a vague tremor went over the earth
and the word socialism began to be heard, I thought and I still think
that fear was translated into doctrines that had no proper place in
the Constitution or the common law." The effects of this hysteria were
registered in the influence of the press on legislatures and on the
Supreme Court (notable dissents only prove its strength). As a result
power shifted increasingly to the executive and involved reliance of
the executive on force. In the words of Brooks Adams: "Democracy in
America has conspicuously, and decisively failed in the collective
administration of common public property."

The power of the President in his control over patronage and party was
not only enhanced by the radio but also by military considerations.
The importance of the military factor strengthened the possibilities
of leadership by a single person with power to intervene in war in
spite of public opinion and of Congress. He was compelled to exercise
wide discretion to lead or to force Congress to recognize and to
accept his power and position. The position of the Democratic party
and the President in the First World War, and in the Second World War,
particularly as a result of the radio which widened the gap between
the executive and the legislative branches, made it necessary to rely
on important intermediaries--House in the case of President Wilson and
Hopkins in the case of President F. D. Roosevelt.[60] In Great Britain
by way of contrast the Prime Minister had the support of coalition and
of Parliament. The solidity of the parliamentary tradition made it
possible to defeat and to re-elect Churchill whereas the continued
dominance of the Democratic party, while facilitating the transfer of
power from Roosevelt to Truman, meant that changes could only be made
in personnel, including members of the Cabinet. Americans were amazed
at the necessity of Churchill's maintaining constant touch with the
British Cabinet in drawing up the Atlantic Charter in Newfoundland in
contrast with the independence of Roosevelt.

[Footnote 60: Sherwood, _Roosevelt and Hopkins_, pp. 931-3. Ickes
complained in 1940 that Hopkins had "never even attended a county
meeting and wouldn't know how to get into one. Now here he is taking
over a national convention. It's disgraceful." J. A. Farley, _Jim
Farley's Story: The Roosevelt Years_ (New York, 1948), p. 297.]

In the conduct of foreign affairs, a lack of continuity,[61]
incidental to the importance of individuals, and in spite of the
encouragement given to careermen in the Rogers Act of 1924,[62] was in
strong contrast with the continuity evident in Great Britain and in
Russia. This made for less attention to Europe, especially since the
importance of interests in Latin America meant greater concern with
ministers from these countries, particularly as they were men of
ability and industry.[63] Difficulties in conducting negotiations with
English representatives were evident at Bretton Woods, Washington and
Savannah. English negotiators were constantly faced by Americans with
the statement that they could not get that through Congress. The
judgment of American negotiators as to the political tolerance of
Congress and of public opinion became a determining consideration.

[Footnote 61: The diplomatic corps was an adjunct of the spoils system
and the football of politicians. See Whelpley, _American Public
Opinion_, pp. 113, 121.]

[Footnote 62: See Drew Pearson and R. S. Allen, _Washington
Merry-Go-Round_ (New York, 1931), p. 140.]

[Footnote 63: _Ibid_., pp. 30, 46.]


III

The conflict between Cavalier and Roundhead, between absolute monarchy
and absolute parliament, in England was transferred to North America.
The southern colonies established at an earlier date reflected the
influence of aristocratic organization and the northern colonies the
influence of Puritan organization. The demands of the northern
colonies for independence with relation to trade were paralleled by
demands of the southern colonies for independence in relation to land.
In the Revolutionary War the experience of George Washington in the
colonial wars with the French became the basis for his appointment as
military leader and in turn as President for two terms. He was
followed by John Adams, a representative of New England, for one term.
From 1801 to 1825 the three Presidents, Jefferson, Madison, and
Monroe, each with two terms, were natives of Virginia. John Quincy
Adams from New England served for one term and Andrew Jackson, a
native of South Carolina, for two terms. He was followed in 1837 by
Van Buren of the same party, the first President to be chosen from the
middle colonies, who served one term. By this time the middle and
northern colonies had built up the Whig party and succeeded by
emphasizing military prestige in securing the election of General W.
H. Harrison, followed by Tyler, a native of Virginia. The latter was
followed by J. K. Polk, a native of North Carolina, and nominee of the
Democrats. The Whigs nominated another military hero, while his
laurels were still green, General Taylor, a native of Virginia, and
again secured his election. In 1852 and in 1856 the Democrats
succeeded by nominating weak northern Presidents, Pierce and Buchanan.
Before 1861 all but two of fifteen administrations represented the
Democratic party and of the thirteen nine were served by southern
presidents. The Jefferson revolution from 1800 to 1860 was followed by
Republican policy from 1860 to 1932.[64]

The dominance of representation from the South and especially
Virginia, and of representation from the Army in the period prior to
the Civil War, was a reflection of the dynamic power of the plantation
system and its demand for more and better land. The weakness of the
Spanish, Indians, and Mexicans made it possible for an aggressive
government to steadily expand its territory to the west. Expansion of
territory to the southwest gave an impetus to parallel expansion to
the northwest to be accomplished with an occasional extension of
territory at the expense of the British, for example in Maine and
Oregon, and at the expense of the Russians on the north Pacific coast.
In the race for land to the west and with its disappearance, the South
attempted to expand territory for the slave trade along the northern
border of the southern states. The friction eventually led to the
outbreak of civil war or the war between the states.

[Footnote 64: McClure, _Our Presidents and How We Make Them_, p. 21.]


With the end of the Civil War presidents were elected from the North
and were again largely representative of the successful northern army.
The aggressiveness of the North was checked by growing nationalism in
Canada evident in controversies, over the fisheries centring around
the Washington Treaty, the Alaska boundary dispute, and the
reciprocity treaty of 1911. It took new forms in a continuation of the
war against Spain and was effective in the addition of new territory.

Broadening of the powers of the executive such as those boasted about
by Theodore Roosevelt and the improvement of communication notably in
radio strengthened the position of the President. Control over vast
sums following the depression and continued during the war enabled the
President to control the party. The seven principles of politics, five
loaves and two fishes, were handled more effectively. Patronage and
assistance in elections were distributed in accordance with the record
of the roll calls in Congress.[65] In the election of presidents
directly by majority vote was registered the importance of the middle
class urban vote, especially of New York, and the election of
senators, following the abolition of election by caucus,[66] two from
each state representing predominantly a rural middle class, increased
the possibilities of friction.[67] The House of Representatives also
reflected the influence of the urban vote but its size left it exposed
to vicious partisan and predatory interests and to manipulation under
stupid rules such as prevailed under Cannon and after 1925 under the
Longworth Snell Tilson triumvirate.[68] It has been described as the
greatest organized inferiority complex in the world.

[Footnote 65: George Michael, _Handout_ (New York, 1935), p. 73.]

[Footnote 66: For a criticism of the direct primary see C. J.
Stackpole, _Behind the Scenes with a Newspaperman: Fifty Years in the
Life of an Editor_ (Philadelphia, 1927).]

[Footnote 67: A. N. Holcombe, _The Middle Classes in American
Politics_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1940), p. 104.]

[Footnote 68: Pearson and Allen, _Washington Merry-Go-Round_, pp.
217-19.]

With the tendency toward increased power in the executive and the
increasing importance of urban centres the policy of parties is less
dependent on a single figure in the presidency. Family names will
probably persist as a factor in the selection of presidents--to
mention Harrison, Roosevelt and Taft--and the dangers of
assassination[69] will be checked by strengthening of the secret
service. Formerly vice-presidents were selected as representatives of
a defeated minority within the party and were consequently in a weak
position when they rose to the presidency.[70] From 1800 to 1900 only
one vice-president, Van Buren, was elected in his own right to the
presidency.[71] More recently the Vice-President has become a regional
representative intended to support the President as a representative
of a densely populated state. Garner from Texas supplemented Roosevelt
as did Wallace from Iowa and Truman from Missouri. Since 1900 three
Vice-Presidents have been elected in their own right: Roosevelt,
Coolidge, and Truman.

The importance of New York State and of the possibilities of rapid
advance in political life by attacks on corruption explained the
prominence of Tilden who attacked the Tweed ring and as Democratic
candidate opposed Hayes; of Cleveland who made his reputation in
Buffalo; of T. R. Roosevelt, who was New York police commissioner; of
Charles Hughes, Republican candidate in opposition to Wilson, who came
into prominence in the insurance investigation; and of Dewey with his
prosecutions. The intensity of the struggle in New York[72] was
evident in the efforts of Hearst to become mayor and governor and
eventually president. Coolidge emerged as a national figure in the
Boston police strike. Perhaps the comparatively healthy state of New
York in spite of the scale of its problems has been partly a result of
its possibilities in the making of reputations by attacks on
corruption.

[Footnote 69: The influence of anarchism and the Colt revolver on the
disappearance of apparent dictatorships in business and in governments
has never been given careful study. See Emma Goldman, _Living My Life_
(New York, 1934).]

[Footnote 70: H. L. Stoddard, _As I Knew Them: Presidents and
Politicians from Grant to Coolidge_ (New York, 1927), p. 123.]

[Footnote 71: McClure, _Our Presidents_, p. 25.]

[Footnote 72: The Democratic party in New York State became a
political workshop of the United States and leaders throughout the
United States after 1925 were urged to organize along the lines of New
York, especially in giving women an equal voice on committees. The
feminine vote became an important factor in 1932 and in 1936. See
James A. Farley, _Behind the Ballots: The Personal History of a
Politician_ (New York, 1938), pp. 55, 160.]

The President cognizant of his power must be constantly alert to the
implication of policy for voting strength. In foreign policy the
results have been evident in several directions. Timing has been
carefully worked out in relation to voting or rather voting has been
carefully planned in relation to time. A rigid time arrangement
compels an emphasis on manoeuvrability or the settlement of issues
when the effects will be most evident in relation to votes. Mr. Truman
immediately before the election in 1948 decided to recognize Palestine
and to strengthen the position of the Democratic party in New York
State of which Mr. Dewey was Governor. A period of tension and war
enormously increases the executive power. The opposition is prevented
on the large vague grounds of security and military secrecy from
discussing effectively the most crucial element of policy. During the
war Republicans were appointed to the Cabinet and bi-partisan
responsibility in foreign affairs was assumed. The argument about
swapping horses in midstream has proved difficult to answer. It might
be answered by nominating a general, let us say Eisenhower, but West
Point has never produced good politicians, and he may be content with
actually having more power than the President. F. D. Roosevelt, with a
personal interest in the Navy, left Army experts with much greater
freedom of decision.[73] Such freedom, however, tends to throw the
President into the hands of the armed forces. The two-thirds rule
regarding treaties in the Senate has been effective in checking the
foreign policy of presidents and has been exploited by German,
Russian, and Clan-na-Gail delegations,[74] but it has been of little
avail with the development of the United Nations and the power of
armed force. Indeed the Senate has shown considerable readiness at the
demands of the party to co-operate with armed forces.

In the twentieth century the enormous development of industry
accentuated by war has greatly enhanced the problems of the executive.
Use of the blockade and the threat of blockade has increased
dependence on domestic industries. "An all-round increase in armed
forces" has been necessary "to mitigate unemployment." We must have
"war to solve unemployment in order to ensure against internal
anarchy, instead of war solely to protect employment (ordered life)
against external aggression." "The dependence on war has become even
more vital to our economic system than the dependence of war on
industry." "Should an enemy not exist he will have to be created."[75]
"A war cannot be carried on without atrocity stories for the home
market."[76]

[Footnote 73: Churchill exercised much greater control over the army.
See Sherwood, _Roosevelt and Hopkins_, p. 246.]

[Footnote 74: Count Cassini, a Russian minister, and Von Holheben, a
German minister, appealed successfully through the press to the Senate
against presidential policy. _The Education of Henry Adams_, p. 375.]

[Footnote 75: Fuller, _Armament and History_, pp. 164-5.]

[Footnote 76: Bentley, _Those Days_, p. 184.]


IV

These remarks have been made by one who does not pretend to understand
the United States and who cannot appraise the significance of the
party struggle as part of the domestic scene. But we are required in
the interests of peace to make every effort to understand the effects
not only of the actions of the United States but also of our own
actions. We have never had the courage of Yugoslavia in relation to
Russia and we have never produced a Tito. We have responded to the
demands of the United States sometimes with enthusiasm and sometimes
under protest. Members of the British Commonwealth struck back against
the Hawley-Smoot tariff in the Ottawa Agreements. But we have been a
part of the North American continent. The enormous increase in the
production of wheat on this continent in the last century was directly
related to the Russian revolution, the rise of agrarianism in Germany,
of higher tariffs in France and of marked adjustments in England.
Germany imposed a tariff on sugar to secure independence in supplies
of sugar, drove down the prices of cane sugar, contributed to the
outbreak of revolt in the Spanish American colonies, and enabled the
United States to take full advantage of the break-up of the Spanish
empire.[77] The immigration quota of American legislation in 1924
accentuated the population problems of Italy and contributed to
fascism. The silver purchase agreement of 1934 and the consequent
destruction of the Chinese monetary system were related to the
revolution in China. The protectionist policy of North America and the
difficulties of penetrating the American market compel the United
States to export dollars and at the same time make it difficult for
other countries to acquire dollars. As a result there is resort to
enormous expenditure on armament. In the words of the late Carl
Becker, what we didn't know hurt us a lot.

[Footnote 77: See Brooks Adams, _America's Economic Supremacy_ (New
York, 1900), pp. 36-41.]

A written constitution with its divisive nature established by the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, centralization under
Washington and Adams, decentralization from Jefferson to Lincoln, and
centralization after Lincoln, first under the Republican party and
later the Democratic party, so that at one time there has been a
weakening of the power of the executive and at another a strengthening
of that power depending largely on the dominant medium of
communication, stand in sharp contrast with the unwritten constitution
of Great Britain and the undivided power of the Prime Minister
responsible to Parliament. In the United States parties are "devoted
to the search for compromise between sectional, class, and business
groups" and are "frankly uninterested in logical programs or 'eternal'
principles."[78] The practice of representation from party rather than
regions characteristic of Great Britain finds no expression in the
United States.[79] "The most profound of American political thinkers
saw in the perpetual search for compromise between selfish interests
the basic principle of free government." In the words of Calhoun, "the
negative power ... makes the constitution,--and the positive ... makes the
government. The one is the power of acting;--and the other the power
of preventing or arresting action. The two, combined, make
constitutional government."[80] The emphasis on negation, the constant
fear of Leviathan, of the encroaching state, has been offset by the
promotion of strong government by war and industrial revolution.[81]
Under the American Constitution reliance on force has become
increasingly necessary whereas under the British, following the brief
period in which Parliament was dominated by Cromwell and the army and
the period in which the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, force
has been increasingly subjected to the authority of Parliament. A
general as Prime Minister of England would be unthinkable, though the
influence of the army and navy are not to be disregarded, whereas in
the United States a general as President has been regarded almost as a
rule. Ostrogorski has quoted the remark that God looks after little
children, drunken men, and the United States. I hope it will not be
thought blasphemous if I express the wish that He take an occasional
glance in the direction of the rest of us.

[Footnote 78: Agar, _The United States_, p. vii.]

[Footnote 79: The fathers were particularly concerned to avoid the
borough system of England. "State law and custom have practically
established that a representative must be a resident of the district
from which he is elected." See D. A. S. Alexander, _History and
Procedure of the House of Representatives_ (Boston, 1916), p. 5. As a
result the mobility of the ablest individuals has been checked,
whereas in England parties have been much more effective in attracting
and securing the election of the ablest individuals irrespective of
residence.]

[Footnote 80: Agar, _The United States_, p. vii.]

[Footnote 81: _Ibid_., p. xiii.]

[Transcriber's Note: certain typographic errors were corrected]


[End of _The Strategy of Culture_ by Harold A. Innis]