Part 28 (1/2)
The Roosevelt family were in Rome at the end of the ”sixties” and played, like other English-speaking children, on the Pincian Hill. While they were playing at leapfrog word was suddenly pa.s.sed round that the Pope was coming.
”Teddie” whispered to the little group of American children that he didn't believe in Popes--that no real American would; and we all felt it was due to the stars and stripes that we should share his att.i.tude of distant disapproval. But then, as is often the case, the miracle happened, for the crowd parted, and to our excited, childish eyes something very much like a scene in a story-book took place. The Pope, who was in his sedan-chair carried by bearers in beautiful costumes, his benign face framed in white hair and the close cap which he wore, caught sight of the group of eager little children craning their necks to see him pa.s.s; and he smiled and put out one fragile, delicate hand towards us, and lo! the late scoffer who, in spite of the ardent Americanism that burned in his eleven-year-old soul, had as much reverence as militant patriotism in his nature, fell upon his knees, and kissed the delicate hand, which for a brief moment was laid upon his hair. Whenever I think of Rome this memory comes back to me, and in a way it was so true to the character of my brother. The Pope to him had always meant what later he would have called ”unwarranted superst.i.tion,” but that Pope, Pio Nono, the kindly, benign old man, the moment he appeared in the flesh, brought about in my brother's heart the reaction which always came when the pure, the good, or the true crossed his path.
That is almost as good a papal story as that of the Pope whom the great Napoleon brought a virtual captive from the Vatican to grace his coronation as Emperor. The Pope, while moving about Paris, was accustomed to give his blessing freely, for he soon became a very popular character. It happened, however, that one day, while going through the galleries of the Louvre, he unwittingly gave his blessing to a little crowd that contained a fierce, anti-clerical Jacobin and revolutionary. The man showed the greatest disgust and contempt at receiving the Pope's blessing, and retorted with curses on the man who dared implore for him Heaven's grace and favour. The Pope, with his Italian grace and good manners, easily got the best of the scowling brows and the muttered imprecations. He apologised simply and humbly to the man whom he had blessed by mistake and added, ”I do not think, sir, that after all an old man's blessing can have done you any harm.” Quite as little could Roosevelt's boyish kiss make him a votary to superst.i.tion.
I feel for the reasons that I have already given that I am not managing to express my personal feeling about Roosevelt. Yet he is the last man of whom I want to write perfunctorily or even ceremoniously. Therefore, for the time I shall bring my recollections of him to a close by merely noting certain characteristics of the statesman.
The essential quality in Roosevelt was the spirit of good citizens.h.i.+p.
He was a very able politician and party leader. He was also no mean orator in a nation where the arts of the rostrum are specially cultivated and understood. He was a skilled and powerful administrator.
He had a soldier's eye for country and a soldier's heart. What is more, he understood the soldier's spirit as well as did Cromwell. Though a strict disciplinarian, he knew that if you are to get the best out of a soldier, you must make him feel a free citizen and not a fighting slave.
Roosevelt, again, was a man highly qualified to be the personal representative and head of a great nation. He had the dignity of demeanour, the sense of proportion, the knowledge of the world, the instinct for great affairs, together with that universality of comprehension which is necessary to the efficient discharge of high office.
Yet, great as was Roosevelt in all these matters, it was not so much the qualities just enumerated which make, and will continue to make, his memory live in America. Others could rival him or surpa.s.s him on the political stage. He made good citizens.h.i.+p an art. He never tired in enforcing by precept and example the duty which men and women owe to the community. No man, as his life and work showed, can be allowed to keep his good citizens.h.i.+p in watertight compartments. He must not say that he had done his best in his district or city or State, or at Was.h.i.+ngton, and that no more was to be required of him. He must do his duty to the State in all capacities. Duty accomplished in one sphere would not relieve him of responsibility in the others.
Though Roosevelt was a Whig, an individualist, and a man who hated over- centralisation, abhorred administrative tyranny, and loathed _Etatism_, he never failed to pay due homage to the nation personified. To him the Government as representing the community, was something sacred and revered, not merely a committee to manage tram- lines, roads, and drains. Treason to the State was to him the greatest of crimes. When he talked of the National Honour, he meant something very real and definite, and was not merely indulging in a rhetorical flourish. Good citizens.h.i.+p was indeed to Roosevelt a religion, as in a rougher and less conscious way it was to Cromwell and to Lincoln.
CHAPTER XXVI
MY POLITICAL OPINIONS
Though I have been engaged in politics all my life, I have deliberately left my political views, aspirations, and actions to almost the last chapter in my autobiography. That will seem strange to all except my most intimate friends, for I know well that the majority of people who know anything of me regard me as altogether given over to politics.
My reason for a.s.signing so small a place in my memoirs to what has occupied so much of my life is a double one. In the first place, I was most anxious not be polemical. Politics are synonymous with strife, and if I had written a political biography, it would have become the record of a battle, or rather, of many battles, in which I could hardly have avoided saying hard things both of living and dead people. But that was what I most wanted to avoid. The veteran who tells of his old fights is always apt to become a bore. People who disagree with the view put forth think him prejudiced and unforgiving, while those who are with him yawn over a twice-told tale. Further, though I confess to being as deeply interested and as deeply concerned in politics as ever, I have greatly enjoyed a rest from strife. To suffer my mind to turn upon the poles of literature and the humanities is a pure delight. No doubt Marcus Aurelius in his autobiography says that life is more like a wrestling- match than a dance. That was like a Stoic. Instead, I can say _ex animo_ with Mrs. Gamp, ”Them that has other natures may think different! They was born so and can please themselves.” Therefore, I have chosen the point of view of the dance rather than the dust, the oil, and the sweat of the athlete.
[Ill.u.s.tration: J St Loe Strachey at Newlands Corner aetat 45]
But though I do not want to fight my political battles over again, either in regard to Home Rule or the fiscal controversy, I realise that my readers will, at any rate, expect me to say something about my political views. Further than that, there are one or two things which, if unsaid, would undoubtedly give a false impression of the writer of this book.
The pivot of my politics is a whole-hearted belief in the principles of Democracy. I mean by this, not devotion to certain abstract principles or views of communal life which have had placed upon them the label ”Democratic,” but a belief in the justice, the convenience, and the necessity of ascertaining and loyally abiding by the lawfully-expressed Will of the Majority of the People. By using the phrase ”lawfully expressed” I do not mean to suggest any pretext for evasion. On the contrary, I use the words in order to prevent and avoid evasion. A good many people who call themselves Democrats, or believers in the Popular Will, such, for example, as the leaders of the French Revolution, the apologists for the Russian Soviet, and the men from whose lips the words ”Proletariat” and ”Proletarian” are constantly falling, do not, when it comes to the point, want to obey the Will of the Majority of the whole People, but only the majority of a certain arbitrarily selected section of the people. They are, in fact, willing to recognise the Will of the People only when this accords with their own will--that is, with what they believe ought to be the Will of the People. When I use the expression ”the Will of the People lawfully and const.i.tutionally expressed,” I use it to avoid this false democracy.
To put it quite frankly, I am willing to bow to the maxim, ”Vox populi, vox Dei” as long as the ”vox populi” is the genuine thing and not obtained by falsity or fraud, by corruption or coercion.
Though I am prepared to bow loyally to the Will of the People, whether I personally agree with it or not, I, of course, have a right, nay, a duty, to do my best to bring the Will of the People in accord with what I hold to be right, just, and likely to promote the welfare of the nation. I retain, that is, the right to convert, if I can, a minority view into a majority view. If any section of the people try to prevent me from exercising this right of conversion, then I believe that the sacred right of insurrection arises.
It is possible that it arises also in the attempt to prevent me from exercising the rights of conscience, that is, the right to think and to express my views. The rights of conscience are not, in my opinion, pooled and placed at the command of the majority, as are the _actions_ and _behaviour_ of the units that make up the State.
The Will of the People even cannot command the minds of men and women.
That region is under an eternal taboo, which even the majority must not attempt to violate. If they do make the attempt, they must expect resistance. Christ taught us to ”render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,” but a man's conscience is not one of Caesar's perquisites.
So much for the abstract basis of Democracy. Of the convenience of following out and obeying the Democratic principle I have as little doubt as I have of the moral obligation involved. What, in my view, is wanted in the State is h.o.m.ogeneity. Such h.o.m.ogeneity, or, shall I call it completeness of the admixture of the elements which const.i.tute the State, is essential. The fullest and strongest sanction for the laws is the security of a State, and where can you get a sanction fuller and stronger than the Will of the Majority?
The point is best seen in a simple ill.u.s.tration. Suppose that among seven people in a railway carriage the question arises as to whether the window is to be put up or down. As it must be settled one way or the other, if order is to be preserved, the only just way is to go by the Will of the Majority. If five people want it shut and only two want it open, the will of the five must prevail. That, of course, does not prove that the five have given a sound decision from the hygienic point of view. They have, however, come to a settlement, and it is obvious that the maximum of convenience rests in respecting that settlement. It has the superior physical power behind it. If, however, any gentleman or lady in the carriage can give a discourse upon the advantage of fresh air, which will bring over three of those who originally voted in the majority, then the policy can be changed.
With these views, it is no wonder that I have always found it impossible to feel much sympathy with the people who say that Democracy is on its trial and must be judged, like any other form of government, by its results. This either means too much or too little. No doubt it may be argued that, if the Will of the People properly expressed was to elect a single man as dictator and invest him with the power of deciding in all matters of detail, you might still have a Democracy, though it looked like a Monarchy. But these are abstract points. For practical purposes in a European community there can, in my opinion, be no doubt as to the convenience of basing, in the last resort, your system of government upon the Will of the People, as it is based, in theory, at any rate, in England and in America.
I admit, however, that when you come to apply your principles in practice the problem alters. Nothing is more obvious in our great modern communities than the fact that the people cannot rule themselves directly. Though they could meet in the Agora of Athens and decide the fate of the Athenian Republic, or in the meadow of the Gemeinde at Appenzell, or any of the other small Swiss cantons, in a country with even only a couple of million of people, you must rely on the Representative System. In other words, though the many must will the direction in which the State shall move, it is only the few who can make that will executive.
Now comes the difficulty. As the advocates of Proportional Representation have been telling us for so many years, the Representative System may actually place the control of the Government in the hands of a minority. Again, though men may be elected to do one thing, they may in practice do another. Representative a.s.semblies are often swayed, not merely by the voice of the orator, but, what is even a more serious matter, by the voice of the minority. Also, as Mill pointed out, under the party system applied to the Representative System, you are liable to be ruled not by a majority, but by a majority of a majority. Your Parliament is split up into two parties--the lefts and the rights. The lefts are not completely h.o.m.ogeneous. Therefore they have to decide on their course of action by a vote within their party.
But if the party is nearly divided, it may well be that the majority of the majority is a small minority of the whole. But things are even worse than that when party loyalty is maintained, as is usually the case.