Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1906-01-26
The Doom of Political Autocracy

There comes an hour in the move
ment of events when causes which
have long been unobtrusively and
sometimes without observation un-
dermining decayed systems suddenly
bring those systems down with Il
crash. Every bad system contains in
itself the seeds of reaction which it
sooner or later sets in motion: tyranny
in all forms breeds rebellion against
itself, and though the day of fate is
sometimes long postponed, it newt
ably arrives. 1t has arrived in Russia
for blind and stupid autocracy, deaf
to innumerable voices of warming
spoken for years past, and to signs of
the times which all the races Of the
world have read: and it has come in
America to the blinded and stupid
bosses of political machines whom
the gods have made mad in order
that they may be destroyed. When a
political boss is in possession of a
State, a county, or a district, his
power seems unshakable to the super
! fetal observer, and the boss comes to
| hold the opinion that it is unshak-
able. AS matter of fact, any tide
of public indignation may sweep away
the foundations of his authority in a
single day. This has happened again
and again in the history of the coun-
try: for party machine created by
boss is always and everywhere, under
free governments, an artificial and
temporary thing put up over night
like scatfolding for procession, and
taken down in an hour when it has
served it's time. There have been
times in the last twenty years when
it has seemed as if any rebellion
against the boss in any State were
pract ically hopeless, as it has seemed
in Russia, from the time of TOurgue-
netf to the beginning of the present
movement for liberation, that the
aut tocracy could not be destroyed.
The strength of the boss in this
country has been the negligence, in
difference, and criminal neglect of the
voting population. When the voters
were aroused the boss has gone. This
is what has happened in many parts
of the United States today, much as
reyolts are breaking out in many
parts of Russia. These outbreaks
may be quelled for the moment by a
show of arms, but they are the fore
runners of revolution which will be
like an avalanch. The day Of boss
rule and machine politics in America
is rapidly drawing to close. 1t has
been the most dishonorable and un-
interesting episode in our political
history, to be explained, doubtless, by
the historians of the future as an alb
dat ion of political functions brought
about by too great absorption with
personal interests. Individual OppOr-
tunity in this country during the
past quarter of century has been so
alluring and so unprecedented in the
magnitude of the material prizes
which it has offered that men have
forgotten their duty to the State,
and, because of what Mr.. Kidd once
characterized in the columns of The
Outlook as ''lack of civic self-sacri
fice" the government of good many
States has gone into commission and
has been carried on under irresponsi-
BILE rulers.
The boss and machine systems are
doomed, for three reasons:
They involve the denial of the right
of self-government, the abandonment
of political responsibilities, the sur
render of public liberties. In half
dozen States, conspicuously in New
York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and
Missouri, there has been no truly free
government for many years past. New
York has been ruled by a Hill, a
Platt, an Odell, or Murphy, with as
complete Indifference to public inter-
ests, popular convictions, and the de-
sires Of the voters of the State as if
these irresponsible rulers held their
places by divine right or by military
authority. The people OF New York
have allowed their policies to be de-
term ned by group of men who
were sometimes not even in public
life, held no official positions, were
paid no salaries, clothed by no au-
thority, elected by no exercise of the
suffrage. Measures of the highest
Importance have been decided upon
in secret conclaye, pushed through
the Legislature practically without
discussion, under instructions to
legislators who have been mere pup
pets responding to the strings that
were pulled from behind. The busi-
ness of the State has been transacted
out of sight, on the back stairs, in
whispering-galleries and the people
of the State have been led like sheep,
and like sheep they have paid the
penalty. Greater enemies this coun-
try has never had than men like
Platt, Odell. Addicks, and Quay. who
have transformed free governments
into autocracies, annulled the funda-
mental charters Of the country, and
made popular government an object