Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-06-23
BUREAUCRACY.

per OF great importance cOmplleu Dy
the editors Of the New York Herald.
1t is simply list of federal office
who fill places on the State
and county committees of the Re
publican party in certain States.
We approach the subject with
much diffidence in our ability ade-
quately to impress the subject on the
attention of our readers; for the
state of things partially exposed by
this publication grew up so imper-
eeptibly, and our people have be
come so ACCUSTOMED to it, that they
have learned to look upon it as
matter of course, and to find it al
most inconceivable that things
should be otherwise; and yet it has
succeeded I'm completely reversing
the constitutional action of our gov
eminent, so that while in theory the
executive has simply the province
of carrying out the will of congress,
it dictates through its employers
who shall sit i'm congress and while
the constitution has reserved to the
States all legislative powers except
those explicitly conferred on con-
gress, this everywhere intrusive ex-
ecutive sends its satellites into State
and county and district conventions,
and federal Office-hOlders dictate the
platforms and nominations of our
primary meetings, so that the dis
trict, the county and the State be-
come nothing, the existing admin
istration at Washington everything.
When De Tocqueville, the great
French political writer, was here
more than forty years ago, the point
Of contrast which struck him be-
tween our institutions and those of
France was that, whereas political
power in France emanated from the
central government and radiated
through the Departments, Com
munes and Municipalities tillitacted
upon the people, in this country it
commenced with the people who
acted upon the primarymeetingsi in
townships, civil districts, and coun-
ties, and those in their turn upon
the State Legislature and the State
elections, and finally the State or
CARNATIONS upon the Federal gov
eminent. In other words, political
influence is centrifugal in France,
centripetal in America-lCdS centri-
petal in America perhaps we had
better say, as if De TOcqueville had
witnessed the wonderful machinery
by which Mr.. Chandler acted upon
and organized the office-hOlders as
an electoral agency in our last presi-
Dental election, he would have
been struck with no such contrast
as that which gave origin to his
great work on Democracy in Ameri
ca. He would have seen a bureau
cratic machinery not very far from
successful in setting aside the stern
popular condemnation of the Radi-
ical rule of the last eight years, and
so rendering unnecessary the device
Of the returning boards and the
electoral commission for setting
aside the election itself.
The French system is easily de-
scribed. The whole country is di-
vided into departments and the de-
partments into communes, cores
pOnding to OurStates and counties,
and these are administered by exc
cutive officers, called projects, APP
pointed by the central government.
The mayors of cities are also APP
pointed by the eXecutiveOf the CEN
trail government, and these officers
have much greater power than our
elected governors, sherriffs and may
Ors. They direct the minutest af-
fairs of life-a man cannot hire
post horses without the authority of
the project or mayor; public meet
ings of any sort cannot be held eX-
cept by his order. He designates
which of the candidates at an cleo
ton is the favOrite of the govern
ment, and such power has he in all
the transactions of life that there is
scarcely a man in his commune
whom he is not able to benefit or
injure in some way or other accord
ing as he votes for the government
candidate or his adversary. This is
called bureaucratic from the 6lEedlGc
or business offices of the public func-
tiOnaries who administer it; all its
principle is Capitalization, and it
may be said that under all the diff
ferent dynastie5 which have pre-
vailed in France during the last
century it has been substantially the
same. Ligitimist, Orleanist, Impe-
perialist Republican governments,
have not attempted to change it;
the extreme Republicans under
Gambetta are at last clamOring for
decentralization.
In theory, how different from all
this is the political procedure in the
United States ? Here the people
elect their own mayors and alder
men, their sheriffs, governors, &c,
and their State Legislature. All
questions of State or federal inter
ests are discussed in district meet
ings, county conventions, State con-
ventions, and the political forces act
from the circumference to the CEN
tire; they are centripetal, while in
the French system they are centri-
fugal, or act from the centre towards
the circumference. III theory, we
say, the two systems show a strik-
ing contrast, so striking that when
De TOcqueville was in this country
he considered it the leading charac-
teristic of the nations, ard it be-
came the central idea of tine work
which he wrote.
But in practice, under the manipu-
lation of our present executive, is