USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. V > Part 11
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And they did. The election occurred on November 2, and resulted in the greatest victory for the one party and the greatest defeat for the other ever recorded in American history. The Republicans carried thirty- seven States, including Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. It was the first time that they had ever carried Arizona and Oklahoma, and the only time they had ever carried Tennessee save in 1868. The Demo- crats carried only eleven States, namely: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mis- sissippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia; and in most of these the Republicans made noteworthy gains, electing some Congressmen from the solid south for the first time in a generation. The Re- publicans thus scored 404 Electoral votes, and the
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THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
Democrats only 127-a Republican majority of 277, or more than twice the entire Democratic vote.
Still more impressive, if possible, was the popular vote, with its quite unprecedented majorities. The total popular vote was 26,674,171, its enormous increase over that of 1916 being due to the enfranchisement of women. It was divided as follows :
Harding, Republican, 16,152,200.
Cox, Democratic, 9,147,353.
Debs, Socialist, 919,799.
Christensen, Farmer-Labor, 265,411.
Watkins, Prohibitionist, 189,408.
W. W. Cox, Socialist Labor, 31,175.
Macauley, Single Tax, 5,837.
Mr. Harding's plurality over Mr. Cox was thus 7,004,847, a figure never before approximated. His share of the entire vote was more than 60 per cent, while Mr. Cox's was only a trifle more than 34 per cent. In many States Harding won by more than two to one. The vote by States for the two leading candidates in this phenomenal election was as follows:
Harding. (Rep.)
Cox. (Dem.)
Alabama
74,690
163,254
Arizona.
37,016
29,546
Arkansas.
71,117
107,409
California
624,992
229,191
Colorado
173,248
104,936
Connecticut.
229,238
120,721
Delaware
52,858
39,911
Florida
44,853
90,515
Georgia
43,720
109,856
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Idaho
91,351
46,930
Illinois
1,420,480
534,394
Indiana
696,370
511,364
Iowa.
634,674
227,921
Kansas.
369,268
185,464
Kentucky
452,480
456,497
Louisiana.
38,538
87,519
Maine.
136,355
58,961
Maryland
236,117
180,626
Massachusetts
681,153
276,691
Michigan
762,865
233,450
Minnesota
519,421
142,994
Mississippi
11,576
69,277
Missouri
727,521
574,924
Montana
109,430
57,372
Nebraska
247,498
119,608
Nevada.
15,479
9,851
New Hampshire.
95,196
62,662
New Jersey
615,333
258,761
New Mexico
57,634
46,668
New York.
1,871,167
781,238
North Carolina
232,848
305,447
North Dakota
160,072
37,422
Ohio
1,182,022
780,037
Oklahoma
243,831
217,053
Oregon.
143,592
80,019
Pennsylvania.
1,218,215
503,202
Rhode Island
107,463
55,062
South Carolina
2,244
64,170
South Dakota
109,874
35,938
Tennessee
219,829
206,558
Texas.
114,538
288,767
Utah
81,555
56,639
Vermont
68,212
20,919
Virginia.
87,456
141,670
Washington
223,137
84,298
1
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West Virginia
282,007
220,789
Wisconsin
498,576
113,422
Wyoming
35,091
17,429
Totals.
16,152,200
9,147,353
Concurrently with this Presidential victory the Re- publicans secured greatly increased majorities in both houses of the Sixty-seventh Congress, giving them com- plete control of the government and assuring President Harding of unwavering support. In the Senate they secured 59 seats to the Democrats' 37, and in the House of Representatives 300 to the Democrats' 132 and the Socialists' 1. The event may well be esteemed as having marked an epoch in American political history.
It would require a far more extended survey than the present to give even a brief synopsis of the multi- tudinous acts of legislation and administration which the Republican party has performed for the good of the people through the national government, beside volumes to tell of its achievements in and through the various State and local governments. The present discussion has been confined entirely to national affairs and has perforce mentioned, even briefly, only a few of those great principles, policies, and specific acts that have indicated the general purpose of the party and have been the landmarks and mileposts of its progress.
We might have dwelt upon the reduction of postage rates, the establishment of the money order system, the
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
development of the railway mail service and the free delivery system, which have made our postal service the best in the world; the artificial propagation and distribution of food fish; the free distribution of seeds and other measures for the promotion of agriculture; the International Copyright law, which has removed from the publishing trade the imputation of piracy, and which protects at once the property rights of authors and the business interests of American publishers; the National Bankruptcy acts, which relieved thousands of unfortunate men of their burdens and enabled them to regain business prosperity; the Circuit Court of Appeals, which has greatly expedited and facilitated legal processes ; the Pure Food law and inspection sys- tem and the meat inspection system for safeguarding the health of the people; the freeing from tax of denatured alcohol for use in the arts; and the national quarantine system against contagious diseases.
It was the Republican party that empowered the Interstate Commerce commission to fix railway rates, that penalized rebates and other discriminations, that prohibited the abuse of railway passes, that made sleeping cars, express companies, and pipe lines common carriers required to serve all patrons impartially ; that built the Panama canal; that reorganized the consular service on the merit basis; that created a permanent Census Bureau; that brought the telephone and tele- graph systems under government control under the Interstate Commerce act; that created the postal savings bank system; that incorporated the Red Cross ; that conserved coal lands by reserving to the govern-
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THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
ment title to the deposits, while agricultural entries of the surface lands were permitted; that established the national forestry system; that provided for publicity of campaign contributions; and that promoted the irriga- tion of arid land areas.
Other Republican measures for the general good were the reorganization of the lighthouse service; the creation of a Bureau of Mines to lessen the dangers of operatives in that industry; the extended application of safety devices on railroads; the imposition of heavy penalties for the interstate white slave traffic; strong regulations for the prevention of accidents at sea; the parole of Federal prisoners whose conduct after con- viction warrants clemency; the conservation of water- power sites ; the creation of a Commission of Fine Arts; the creation of national parks. The record of Repub- lican achievement is the record of the nation's progress.
Mention has been made of various minor parties that have disported themselves in every Presidential campaign. There have been many more, the very names of some of which are forgotten. They have run their little courses and passed away, like the "Quids" and "Hunkers" and "Barnburners" and "Silver Grays" and others that represented divisions in the major parties rather than separate organizations. The chief record that they have made has been one of vain futility. Free soil was secured and vindicated, but not by the ephemeral Free Soil party. Slavery was abolished, but it was not the Abolition party that did the great work. The Union and the Constitution were preserved, but not through the efforts of the Constitu-
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
tional Union party. After the stormy passions of the war had passed, liberal principles of reconstruction prevailed, but it was not the Liberal party that enforced them. Prohibition has been enacted, but the Prohibi- tion party has never secured a single Electoral vote. Woman Suffrage has triumphed, but the Woman Suf- frage party has never seriously figured in an electoral campaign.
The lesson is obvious and, as it was suggested at the beginning as something to be illustrated in this history, so it may be recurred to at the close as something that every chapter in the record emphasizes. The American government is a government through parties, and through two major parties and them alone. It is thus alone that responsibility can be fixed and stability assured. A multiplicity of parties, no one having a majority, is the regular political order of things in the continental European countries-with the necessary result of frequent changes of ministry. Under our sys- tem it might not cause changes of cabinets, but it would conduce to all manner of "deals" among the various factions, would diffuse instead of centering responsi- bility, and would make public affairs the subject of dicker and bargain.
The thoughtful American citizen will therefore affiliate himself with one or the other of the two great parties that have survived the births and deaths of scores of ephemeral organizations, the two great parties to which must be credited all the good and against which must be charged all the evil in our government for the last two-thirds of a century. "I have," said Pat-
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THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
rick Henry, "but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past." It is by that wise rule that thoughtful American citizens will judge the party whose record has here been briefly reviewed, to decide whether it is the party to which the future inter- ests of the nation are most safely to be entrusted, with a serene assurance that so long as its principles and prac- tices prevail "government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
GEORGE ALEXANDER GLYNN
George Alexander Glynn, born Oswego, N. Y .; educated in public schools; worked on Oswego newspapers until 1890, when he came to Syracuse as a member of the staff of the Syracuse Herald, of which he was city editor for 16 years and managing editor for two years, resigning his office to become executive secretary to Horace White when the latter took office as gov- ernor in October, 1910; superintendent of the bureau of water, Syracuse, N. Y., 1911-1912; executive auditor under Governor Whitman, 1915; chairman of the republican state committee, 1916-
LAFAYETTE B. GLEASON
Lafayette B. Gleason, clerk of the senate; born at Delhi, N. Y., May 20, 1863 ; graduated Yale university, 1885; admitted to the bar, September, 1887; practiced in Delhi until 1891; since then has practiced in New York City; chairman of Delaware republican county committee, 1889-1890; journal clerk New York state senate, 1889-1891; 1894-1901; assistant clerk of the senate, 1901-1905; clerk, 1905-1910; chairman of the speakers bureau of the republican state committee since 1896; secretary of all state conventions of the republican party since 1892; since 1906 secretary of the republican state committee; attorney for the state comptroller, 1913-1921; attorney for the state tax commission 1921-
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RAY BURDICK SMITH
Ray Burdick Smith, lawyer; born town of Cuyler, Cortland County, N. Y. December 11, 1867; educated district school No. 6, town of Lincklaen, Chenango county, DeRuyter academy, Caze- novia seminary graduating 1886, Syracuse university one year, Yale university graduating 1891, A. B., Phi Beta Kappa, Yale Lit. editor, John A. Porter prize, Cornell law school one year; studied law, admitted to bar, 1893; practiced since in Syracuse, N. Y .; committee clerk state senate 1894-1895 and state con- stitutional convention, 1894; supervisor 14th ward Syracuse 1896-1900; ass't clerk state assembly, 1898-1907; clerk, 1908- 1910; ass't sec'y republican state committee 1906-1907; vice chairman and chairman Onondaga republican county committee 1896-1910; counsel legislative committees on revision of charter of second class cities and of Greater New York charter; dele- gate state constitutional convention, 1915.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY By WALTER W. SPOONER
CHAPTER I THE PARTY OF THE PEOPLE
1791-1801
T HE Democratic party has had an uninterrupted existence of one hundred and thirty years. Founded in 1791 with Thomas Jefferson as its chief sponsor, it attracted immediately the enthusiastic and affectionate support of the masses of the people, who were determined that the institutions and govern- ment of the United States should have the character of a democracy and not an aristocratic system based upon the superior presumptions and pretensions of a few. Its development was so rapid that at the national elec- tions of 1792 it secured control of the popular branch of Congress and cast 55 of the total 132 Electoral votes for President and Vice-President. In 1796 it lacked but two votes of the number required to decide the result in the Electoral College; and in 1800 it won a triumphant victory, electing the President and Vice- President and also a marked majority of the members of each house of Congress. Thus established as the ruling power of the nation, it was so maintained by the people, nearly always by overwhelming majorities, for an unbroken period of forty years, when it experienced a temporary reverse without, however, any abatement
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
of its vitality or deviation from its original principles or character. Those principles and that character, distinguishing it as the party of the masses of the people in composition, instincts, action, and general accepta- tion, it has since preserved through all the vicissitudes of its fortunes.
Such are the outstanding facts of the origin, rise, and position of the Democratic party. Without the addi- tion of another word they might well explain its great part in shaping the institutions and directing the destinies of the country, and its continuance in full vigor and prestige to the present day as an affirma- tive and aggressive force of politics and government. On account of its popular nature and following it spontaneously rose, flourished, still flourishes, and, its adherents on principle firmly believe, will continue to flourish so long as the American nation endures.
In this discussion of the record and claims of the Democratic party it is believed the reader will discover no illiberal spirit toward other parties, past or present, and especially none toward its successive great com- petitors, the Federalist, National Republican, Whig, and Republican parties. It is no derogation from any of these parties to say that without exception they had their beginnings in certain proposals of specific policy more or less circumscribed in capabilities of popular appeal, and either attended or in time reinforced by pronounced class tendencies with reciprocal class predominance in their control. The essential virtues of the Democratic party are that it sprang from no extemporization of particular policies, but from the
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THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
elemental and embracing conception of the equal rights of all; that this has uniformly been its cardinal doctrine; and that its course respecting public condi- tions and questions has characteristically been so inde- pendent of class control or favor as to render the party peculiarly unattractive to selfish special interests, as well as to those individuals who incline to the ancient theory of government as the rightful possession of "the rich, the well-born, and the able"-that is to say, the rich and well-born, with whom the able, according to that theory, are necessarily identified.
"The rich, the well-born, and the able." These were words used by John Adams (Works, Boston ed., 1851, IV, 290) in designating the proper sorts of people to be entrusted with the responsible powers of government. It was in complete harmony with their spirit that the Federalist party was established and always conducted. That organization was the first, and, for a time, the only national party of the United States. As indicated by its name, it claimed to be the embodiment of the forces that had fought so strenuously, and, in the end successfully, for the replacement of the old feeble . Confederation of the States by a Federal government with a coordinated and solid system of central adminis- tration headed by a national Executive, the President. But the original Federalists of the Constitutional con- vention of 1787 comprised diverse elements represent- ing conflicting principles of political thought, opposed views concerning the practical details of the national institutions to be created, and varying local interests and preferences. Of these diverse elements, some were
174
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
extremely conservative, almost monarchical, in their opinions and proposals; others were of differing de- grees of liberalism, tending, in the main, to the idea of decided reservations of rights to the States and the people at large. The contest resulted in a variety of compromises; without them the Constitution could neither have been adopted by the convention nor ratified by the required number of States. The more liberal elements of the convention succeeded in impress- ing their principal ideas upon the Constitution; and the tendency of that instrument toward thoroughly satisfying popular desires was emphasized by the prompt addition to it of the first ten amendments, collectively known as the "national bill of rights."
After the ratification of the Constitution, accom- plished in the summer of 1788 by the votes of all the States except North Carolina and Rhode Island (both of which ratified later), the differences of opinion that had marked the struggle were quickly composed, and even those who had actively opposed the Constitution, known as Anti-Federalists, became its loyal supporters. The Anti-Federalists never constituted a formal party, but were a potent factor in their brief day. Patriotically accepting the issue of the contest, they merged into the unanimous constituency that elected Washington to the Presidency in the early part of 1789 and that stood ready to participate, to the fullest extent permitted by the institutions of the time, in political action for the welfare of the united country and the happiness of its inhabitants.
It was natural that those who had been positively
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THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
concerned in framing the Constitution and securing its adoption should assume the responsibility of launching and administering the national government, and become the dominant force in the resulting party development. Washington desired to avoid all party associations and favor, and accordingly chose as his chief advisers two men of diametrically opposed views-Thomas Jefferson, whom he appointed Secre- tary of State, and Alexander Hamilton, who was given the post of Secretary of the Treasury. But the Feder- alist political organization, in entering upon its career as the party of the government, adjusted itself automat- ically and immovably to ideas that repelled not only the great body of the former Anti-Federalists, but also many of the sincerest and ablest of the original Feder- alists of the formative constitutional period-including James Madison, who had exerted the unquestioned pre- dominating influence in constructing the Constitution.
These distasteful ideas upon which the Federalist party laid its foundations centered in the belief that a controlling aristocratic element was inseparable from any effective and stable scheme of government. The founders and leaders of that party, while agreed upon the general conception of a republic as the only possible system for the American commonwealth, favored a strictly aristocratic republic-one conducted by "the most important people." They desired and expected the executive administration, the Senate, and the judiciary to be invariably constituted from the more "select" classes, and thus together to present an impreg- nable front to all attempted intrusions by the masses
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
into the sphere of government proper. Admitting to the full, however, the justice, and, indeed, the need of a certain popular balance as a check upon possible despotism and as a general preservative of active liberty, they conceded the lower house of Congress to the public at large. It was their firm understanding and express contention that a formally selective- amounting to an aristocratic-character for the execu- tive, Senate, and judiciary was wholly intended, and practically in terms prescribed, by the constitutional provisions which kept the choice of those branches remote from popular action; while they held that the contrariety of the arrangement for electing the House of Representatives only accentuated the fundamental nature of the Federal institutions as aristocratic in all potent respects but with a "democratical mixture" for necessary dilution.
The reader will observe that the Federalist party's proposed application of the American governmental system was an approximation to the underlying plan of the British constitution-notably in the particular of a rigid exclusion of the ordinary people from association with the more dignified and authoritative stations of power.
Alexander Hamilton, undoubtedly the strongest intellectual force of the Federalist organization, and also the most masterful personality in formulating and directing its basic principles and early policies, was deeply enamored of the British system, and regarded democracy as an unmixed evil. As a member of the Constitutional convention he submitted a plan of
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THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
government which proposed life tenure of office (subject to good behavior) for the President and Senators, appointment of the Governors of the States by the national administration, and an absolute veto power for each Governor. He was troubled by the thought that inherently the Constitution and government were too weak. After the downfall of the Federalist party he wrote (1802) : "I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric [the Constitution]. Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me." Horrified at the excesses of the French Revolution, he apprehended their repeti- tion in America by the triumphant democracy. In one of his last letters (July 10, 1804) he referred to democracy as "our real disease"-the manifestation of a virulent poison.
`John Adams, another of the preeminent Federalist fathers, maintained that the democracy should be ad- mitted to participation in affairs only with great caution and severe constriction. An erudite scholar, he rein- forced his arguments by an elaborate array of historical precedents and deductions, demonstrating that pure democracy had ever been incapable of becoming the foundation or inspiration of a powerful state. Descant- ing upon this theme in one of his ablest political treatises ("A Defence of the Constitutions of the Government of the United States of America"), he says : "It is no wonder then that democracies and demo- cratical mixtures are annihilated all over [the continent of] Europe, except on a barren rock, a paltry fen, an inaccessible mountain, or an impenetrable forest." Yet
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POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
he considered it creditable and beneficial to England and America that they received and utilized democracy as a "mixture." This expressed the limit of Adams's condescension to democracy.
It expressed moreover the limit of the Federalist party's condescension. Condescension is the proper word; for in spirit the course of concession to democracy was purely expedient and never marked by tolerant recognition. The natural right of a few favorites of fortune and their satellites to be the con- trolling persons, was the supreme idea of all true Federalist partisans. Distrust and scorn of the masses of the people, in their political capacity, as "the vulgar," "the rabble," "the mob," and-most abhorrent name of all-"the democracy," were instinctive to the Federalist nature. To "curb the unruly democracy" was esteemed by the Federalists a primary necessity of sound and orderly government.
But the material out of which the American state was to be fashioned for the satisfaction and power of the superior classes as presumed by the Federalists, was exceedingly ill adapted to that undertaking. Traditions and precedents of government were quite incapable of practically interesting the populace or its many brilliant leaders, except as they were considered good or bad from previous actual experience in America itself. Aristocratic administration under the crown of England by royal Governors and Councils, with the merely nominal limitation of republican Legislative Assemblies, had been the uniform system in the Colonies and had produced nothing but grievances,
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