Party loyalty within reason serves a useful purpose. It gives stability to public policy. It holds the party together for future contests. It may mean devotion to principle, if the party stands for some great cause. None-the-less, a blind devotion to party has been the bane of our politics. It has introduced the extraneous issues of national politics into our state and municipal contests. It has kept the unprincipled leader in power. It has countenanced alliances between political machines subservient to the same sinister influences. It has acted as the catspaw of the interests which participate in politics for private gain, the most consistent of non-partisans. The growing independence of the electorate is consequently a hopeful symptom. The greenback and populist movements helped to break the crust of habit in voting, whatever one may think of some of the vagaries for which they stood. The gold democrats in 1896 helped to save the country from free silver, and the independent democrats in New York City, Baltimore and Maryland have repeatedly saved the cause of good government by breaking with their party. The independent republicans in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Philadelphia have done a similar work. The independents in all parties in Toledo and Chicago have greatly improved the tone of municipal government. The results of the referenda in Ohio, Oregon and other states show a disposition on the part of the voters to discriminate. Party organizations give coherency to political action, but the influence of the independent voter is necessary to keep them within bounds.
The increase of the Socialist vote is exerting a wholesome influence, however much one may dissent from some of the cardinal points for which the party stands. It forces people to reexamine the foundations of their political faiths. It obliges the leaders of other parties to revise their platforms. It gives large numbers for the first time in their lives a political cause worthy of their devotion. Some news-dealers like to sell The New York Call for the sake of the cause which it represents. Many corner and bar-room loafers, now that they have become Socialists, are no longer purchasable on election day. A man who handled large sums of Senator Stevenson's money in Wisconsin testified that no money was used in the strong Socialist wards of Milwaukee.
The moral is clear. The remedy for our political ills lies in quickening the general intelligence and in appealing to the idealism latent in the people rather than in a narrow suffrage. The latter will not save
- ↑ Brand Whitlock, "Forty Years Of It," The American Magazine, January, 1913, p. 18.
