Editor's Table [pp. 345-352]

18'3.] EDITOR'S TABLE. 345
EDITOR'S TABLE.
THE London Spectator, whose arguments
in behalf of the politicians we com mented upon last week, thinks that the su periority of men of affairs over those of
science is established, because, while great
discoverers are often forgotten, public lead ers are firmly fixed in men's memory. No
one will dispute that rulers and conquerors
enlist the dramatic appreciation of the world,
while the silent worker-out of principles is
unknown or forgotten; but we cannot dis cover how this fact affects the relative value
of the services rendered by the two classes,
while we do see in it why the world should
amend its judgments and regulate its sympa thies by means of a better knowledge. It
has recently been frequently pointed out by
philosophical writers that history, so called, is
misnamed-that catalogues of kings, records
of court intrigues, and annals of military
movements, do not make history in any
just sense. The estimation of these things
needs to be lowered, and the public intelli gence brought to perceive that the genesis of
principles, the growth of laws, the progress
of thought, the development of society, con stitute the only truly valuable portions of
history. The current estimate of politicians
in the past specially needs to be revised, be cause the welfare of the future depends great ly upon a marked subordination of this class.
However important may have been the ser vices of the politician in times gone by, we
trust the days of his influence and power are
numbered; we hope to see the decline of his
star, and his eventual remanding to a second ary place in the economy of society.
At present the politician fills a place
in the social horizon far transcending his
importance. All the world hangs upon
his doings, discusses his theories and his
projects, watches his movements, listens to
his utterances, and gossips about his intrigues. Glance at things at Washington,
and the relation of the press and of the
whole public to the doings there! We see
scores of correspondents transmitting to
the journals in every section elaborate reports of idle personal squabbles in the congressional chambers. We find ponderous
sheets and almost endless books and pamphlets devoted to recording debates that, for
the most part, relate to party discipline, to
distribution of spoils, or to contests for office.
Who shall or shall not be collector of the
revenues at New York, or who shall distribute the mails at Philadelphia-or some
matter of similar import-is continually agitating the country from one end to the other.
Issues of this character fill thousands of
newspapers with rumors and discussions,
load the mails with correspondence and
pamphlet-speeches, keep busy an army of
telegraph - reporters, and fix the attention
of the whole nation upon the actors in the
senseless struggle. Is there any thing else
in the world so full of noise and sound, heat
and agitation, in behalf of a matter so utterly
insignificant? From the assembling of Con gress until its adjournment, all its doings are
watched with a public concern which, to the
philosophical observer, is supremely absurd.
Rarely, indeed, do the political doings at the
Capitol involve issues of any real importance.
There is a little tinkering of the tariff, and
an immense gathering of representatives of
all sorts of interests to secure the tinkering
to their special advantage; there is a vast
crowd of hungry office-seekers flowing into
the lobbies of Congress and the antechambers
of the departments; there are levees and din ner-parties by the high officials; there are a
great number of bills for the promotion of
private ends continually urged upon the at tention of the learned legislators; there are
fierce debates between wise leaders that agi tate each political faction to its centre; there
are revelations of frauds, and explanations
that explain them away, and more explana tions that explain the explained; there is an
immense fund of gossip and scandal furnished
for the delectation of idlers all over the land
-and can any man say what there is more?
And the men who take part in this drama of
fuss and fustian are held up as shining lights.
There is scarcely an instance where one of
them exhibits a scientific knowledge of the
subjects which he discusses; rarely an oc casion where one throws light upon any of
the vexed social problems into which they
thrust their crude legislation. Many of them
have genius for debate; are brilliant leaders
of faction; know admirably how to manage
elections and create public opinion-but what
statesman is identified with any principle?
Who is an acknowledged authority in politi cal economy? Who has mastered the wages
question? Who understands the operations
of finance and the laws of money? Who even
understands the principles of free government?
What politician, for instance, could have writ ten Mill's essay on Liberty? What politician
anywhere analyzes, sifts, reaches the inner
meaning? Who does or can expound or explain primary principles in politics? They are
'almost altogether men who desire power; who
are enamoured of the public admiration that I
follows their useless vocation; they are politicians in that lower sense which means
schemers and intriguers.'In the future of
America this class must be subordinated,
if we hope to advance to a high plane of
intellectual life. Men of ideas, of investigation, of scientific training and thought, of
philosophical analysis, must fill the higher;
places in public thought. The politicians
must be accepted as the necessary instruments of administering government, but
whose doings are worth little more the attention now bestowed upon them than are
the enactments in a police-court. We want
men of high personal character for all official
places; but wise guidance for public action
never did come from the political body, and
henceforth we should look for it only to those
who think out problems in their closets.
In the administration of law we require men
of the largest intellect and highest probity;
if our judges may be called politicians, then
in this direction politicians should suffer no
abridgment of power nor decay of influence;
but the judiciary is more scientific than
political in its training; at least it commonly
has and should have the exact scientific mind
and the philosophical insight-and with these
qualities we may safely intrust it with the
highest public duty - the administration
of justice. If it is argued that the makers
of laws should have no secondary rank to
those who administer laws, we reply that
statute laws are commonly little more than the
cumbersome experiments of politicians, while
the common law is the embodiment of trained
philosophical analysis, and is one of the few
things from the past of endurable value.
When the limited uses of government are
recognized, the influence and the power of
the politician subordinated, and the public
intelligence directed to the study ofgrinciples
rather than to the partisanship of factions,
we may hope for a more healthy public senti ment and a wiser public record.
Nothing so much excited the indig nation of Charles Dickens, on his first visit to
this country, as the state and system of our
prisons; the "American Notes" abound in
harrowing tales of the cruelty dealt out to
those whom he found incarcerated in the
Tombs and in Philadelphia; and he took
pride in pointing a contrast between English
and American jails, wholly favorable to the
former. That was more than thirty years
ago; yet it is worth while to inquire, in this
year of grace 1873, whether the English sys tem of detention is quite perfect? Dr. Hes sel, a young German pastor, who can claim
some experience in the matter, has certainly
made up his mind that it is not. This rever end gentleman, being about to sail from Margate, as the chaplain of a party of German
emigrants, happened to be present wheyn
certain witnesses came down to recognize, if
possible, the murderer of poor Harriet Buswell, in Great Coram Street, on Christmaseve; and, strangely enough, two of the witnesses pointed him out without hesitation as
the criminal. Dr. Hessel was thereupon
marched off to London by the police, and
locked up in a Bow-Street cell. In vain he
protested that, on the night of the murder, he
lay ill in bed at an hotel distant from the sene
of the crime, which he could prove, not only by
his wife, but by half a dozen other witnesses.
He must await the regular process of English
law to vindicate his innocence. He found
the regular process of English law to be any
thing but comforting to a man falsely accused
E-DITOR'S TABLE.
1873.]
345