The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-17
CESARISM AND CARLYLEISM.
Fro1n the N. Y. Tribune

CESARISM AND CARLYLEISM.
From the N. Y. Tribune.
There is a disease which often attacks
highly educated Americans at about the age
of thirty, and which sometimes clings to
them for the rest of their lives. They wake
up some morning with the conviction that
universal suffrage is a failure, and that only
themselves and two or three of their intimate
friends are fit to govern the world. They
announce with dismay that America is vul-
garizing not only itself, but probably the
whole solar system. In some cases, where
the habits and traditions of the patients are
English, the disease finds vent in growing,
and may be called Carlyleism Other victims
belong to the class of good Americans who
have seen Paris before they died, and have
ceased to be good Americans thenceforward.
Their type of the disease is more malignant,
and may be called Casarism.
sssSs,And this disease of reaction is not confined
to stock brokers and statesmen out of Offices
it is just as virulent among the more recluse
orders, as college professors, poets, and
women. Professor Lowell, who twenty years
ago wrote such fine sentiments about poor
mems sons and rich mems sons now grows
as indignant as BldckDO0d's Magazine against
"a system which gives league, because he
can dig, as much influence as Ralph, because
he can think" The Woman's Suffrage move-
ment is perplexed with allies like Mrs. Inger-
soil, of Washington, who is opposed to allow
ing any woman to vote who is not, like her
self, taxed upon small property, and is not
qualified like herself, to fill q Government
clerkship- There is seldom woman's con-
vention where somebody does not feel i'm
PEELED to remark that there are too many
voters already, and that some of them should
be put out of the way to make room for their
betters.
And when men or women once get this
solicitude into their heads, it is seldom got
out again. Men have seen how England has
gradually outgrown the control of the throne;
then of the House of Lords; then of "the
great governing families" and has come to
Gladstone and Disraeli at last. They have
seen French Imperialism disappear in the
crater of a volcano, and the Prussian monarchy
already beginning to climb the sides of one
No matter. You can convert a European
conservative, but an American reactionary
dies hard; the despotisms of the Old World
may crumble before his eyes, while he still
clings to the belief that the nation can only
be saved by limiting political power to him
self and his cousins.
Fortunately the American community, as
whole, remains unconvinced. Where, it per-
sistently asks, are you to draw the line The
barber in Nicholas NickIe6y refuses to shave
a coal HEAVIER, on the ground that you must
draw line somewhere, and he draws it at
bakers. The coal HEAVIER himself, if he had
drawn it, would certainly have drawn it SO as
to include himself, and among all those who
would restrict the suffrage there is not one
who would consent to leave himself outside.
Each restriction proposed, while it vitiates the
principle, still fails to satisfy. Talleyrand said
to the Emperor Alexander, in 1914, that Bona
parte represented principle and Louis XVIII
represented principle, while anything else
was but an intrigue. So among ourselves
C@sarism might represent principle, only
that there is no Caesar. Universal suffrage
represents principles. Between these there
is nothing which has even the dignity of an
intrigue. 'Hc.,.
If we grant that there are in any confInl-
nifty one, two, or a dozen persons who could
govern it better than it governs itself now,
the question still remains, How are those
gifted few to be got at? If they are to select
themselves and each is to recruit an army to
fight it out, we have a South American Gov
I ernment. If they are to be selected by
merely literary examination, then we have q
Chinese type of rulers. But if they are to be
chosen by the popular voice, then we have a
republic after all. This at least aims to COM
bine personal ability with popular
government. There are always a few
persons remarkably fitted for executive
duties-one to command an army, one
to organize schools, one to "swing a rail-
road. Every caucus, every convention,
every election, is an effort to discover those
men, and to put them where they will be
useful. Americans take as readily to the
appointment of committees as to the decision
by majorities, because they are trained to un-
derstand that the many must settle what is to
be done, and the few have charge of the
doing "Teague, who can dig" merely
claims the right to decide at proper intervals
which among the thinking Ralphs shall be put
at the helm. We can spare neither. What
would have become of this nation had
the adjustment of the slavery question been
left to the professors in our colleges? Each
voter stands for his own rights and for those
of his class, if for nothing else, and the
larger the body of voters the less easy to
cajole or bribe them. Because demagogues
hatter the Goa popuR it does not become wise
men to ignore its value. 1t was not an Anne
riean republican, but the shrewdest of French
thinkers, who said, "There is one who
knows more than anybody, and that is Every
body"