Retrospection - Evolution of High Crime

 

January 03, 2019

The evolution of high crime is arrested. In a thousand municipalities we see alight the lamps of transformation disclosing new birth and new being. The fundamental forces of honesty and morality which alone can save from anarchy are again appearing in forms attractive to the eye and hopeful to the heart. The exploitation of national resources for individual benefit is also a thing of the past, and the time will come when individual holdings of any sort of wealth will be limited, not upon socialistic principles, but from the evolution of common-sense.

Meanwhile let us use a little more discrimination in choosing our chief magistrate.

The rulers of nations have not always been men of decency. From the days of those divinely appointed over a chosen people, who mostly did that which was evil in  the sight of the Lord, all through the lives of ancient Asia and modern Europe, whether Pharaohs of Egypt or Caesars of Rome, or of later times called William or Henry, Charles Louis or Edward, comparatively few decent persons can be found among them.

Strange that men who are so many should permit rulers who are so few to degrade them, to grind them into the dust; strange that we, citizens of this high-grade republic, with all our learning and refinement, with all our wealth and opportunity, ever seeking the best, that we should rest supinely under the misrule of demagogues and the spawn of low aliens.

Even for our president we rarely choose the best man, but rather the fittest.  Fittest for what? For reconciliation and compromise.

And yet so strong within us is love of home and country that we would prefer our worst president to the best European monarch. Better than to return to the superstitions and mummeries of kingcraft, that tax labor and pile up a never-to-be-paid national debt to support an idle aristocracy and the ever increasing relatives of royalty, we would return to the realm of apedom and cease calling ourselves men.

The new nationalism promulgated by Theodore Roosevelt carries with it a new code of commercial ethics, a new standard for civic decency. First citizen of the world, though not a professional reformer, no one ever equaled him in reforms; though not a professional states craftsman, few ever excelled him in the management of public affairs.

Three great revolutions were achieved by the personality of three of our presidents; by George Washington a political revolution, by Abraham Lincoln a social revolution, by Theodore Roosevelt a moral revolution. Though our country still remains steeped in political and financial pollution, the work of Roosevelt, the reformer, in its influence encircles the earth, and is as lasting as time. Do not the people of California feel the effects every day, notably in late victories for the right in the state reforms by Hiram Johnson?

Roosevelt made possible the work of Heney, Heney made possible the work of Johnson. Roosevelt made possible a grand career for Taft, but Taft lacked the penetration to see or take advantage of it.

Probably never so many of the American people suffered so great a disappointment in the administration of any one of our presidents as in the case of Mr. Taft. Coming immediately after Roosevelt, with all his promises to his predecessor and to the people who elected him fresh in their minds and hearts, they waited, watching for a sign, until hope died within them as they saw him with his ponderous flesh and sickly smile sink into a quagmire of broken promises and incompetency.

His narrowness of mind was seen in his many petty prejudices, and his lack of judgment in his illogical attitude in regard to leading questions, and the persistent infliction upon the government of persons of damaged reputation which cost the nation much time and money to keep fairly whitewashed. In all of which he displayed the willfulness and petulance of a child, as also in his vetoes like that of the Arizona statehood bill, in which he displayed a brutal indifference to the rights and wishes of a free and independent people acting wholly within their rights.

One might expect, as the higher circles of office-seeking are approached, to see less of that insatiable  greed for office witnessed on lower levels; but in the desire to rule selfishness has no limit.

pages 228-230

Retrospection by Hubert Howe Bancroft (1915)



Here's some interesting history that mirror's today's political landscape:

President Taft

The days of the early 1900s were called the Progressive Movement as Americans fought for issues like more political involvement through the 17th and 19th Amendments, social causes for the poor and downtrodden, as well as measures that would conserve land from the ravages of big industry. Teddy Roosevelt had been the darling of the Progressive Movement, but Taft had neither the stomach for or the character for leading the country from a bully pulpit like Roosevelt had.

Taft did not intend to continue stretching presidential powers like his predecessor. When Taft became president in 1908, everyone thought that he would be as Roosevelt had been. They were wrong.

Failures Abound

Almost from the onset of his presidency Taft proved that he was no Roosevelt. Beginning with the Payne Aldrich Tariff which kept unpopular tariffs high, Taft began to rile the ire of Progressives and Roosevelt. Then, Taft made the ill-fated decision to not only return lands Roosevelt had set aside for conservation back to big industry, he also fired Roosevelt's handpicked head of the Interior Department Gifford Pinchot.

As if his dealings in foreign policy would be any better, Taft then failed to negotiate a trade deal with Canada and then announced his Dollar Diplomacy program. In exchange for economic aid to Latin American countries the United States was to earn fealty from their neighbors to the South. In this he failed as well, and Latin American countries essentially turned their noses up at the idea of having their loyalty bought by the U.S.

Watching from the sidelines was Roosevelt, who became angrier with each of Taft's missteps. Roosevelt began hounding Taft's policies and even Taft personally in the press. Taft's weight ballooned while he was president, and with each failure his weight increased. Roosevelt made fun of his weight, and also made light of his intellect. Taft, sank into the loneliness of the office and found himself without a friend in the Republican Party or among the Progressives. The people-pleaser, had pleased no one.