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1916

THE MAN WHO SWEPT CALIFORNIA

who have secured these positions at an estimated saving to them in fees of over $50,000.

The finest system of highways constructed anywhere has been built and $18,000,000 economically and honestly disbursed.

A State Market Commission. Colonel Harris Weinstock, one of the State's most successful merchants, a man of National reputation, is working out the problem, as Market Director, for the fruit-grower and farmer, of how to market the product of orchard and farm so as to obtain the results of their toil to which they are entitled.

Child labor abolished, and children given a chance to go to school to learn instead of the factory to work.

An eight-hour day for women and the right of suffrage.

The solution of river power and the conservation of overflow waters for the irrigation of arid lands.

Free text-books.

A modern system of wharves for the port of San Francisco.

A corporation commissioner who is doing highly efficient work under the Blue Sky Law in protecting the unsuspecting and too easily deceived public from unscrupulous and designing speculators.

An Industrial Welfare Commission which investigates and deals with the employment of women and minors and secures to women a living wage.

An Immigration and Housing Commission whose duty it is to secure for industrial workers wholesome and sanitary conditions of labor.

Under the administration of Governor Johnson State institutions have been modernized and equipped at great expense, an improvement long needed but always postponed.

Since the beginning of Governor Johnson's administration nearly the entire burden of maintaining the government is met by the various corporations, steam railways, street railways, electric light and power companies, insurance companies, banks, telegraph and telephone companies, and express companies. They pay ninety-five per cent of the cost of government and the remaining five per cent is derived from fees. And it may be said in passing that this ninety-five per cent does not come out of the consumer by increased charges to the people. Instead of being

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raised, the charges of the public utilities companies have been reduced by the decisions of the Railroad Commission as stated. And, notwithstanding this, the corporations have done more business than ever. This illustrates very strikingly how the people of the State were robbed by excessive charges before a "nagging," "demagogic," and "repressive" administration controlled the Gov

ernment.

The published statement, the origin of which was not political, but was made to serve politics, that the per capita tax of California is the second highest of any State, has been unfair to the Government and has placed California in a false position.

The only way to ascertain the per capita for the maintenance of a State Government, proper, and to make comparisons worth while with the per capita of other States, according to Comptroller John S. Chambers, the efficient head of the Department, is to eliminate all transactions in which the State acts either as an agent or a trustee. The Wisconsin Tax Commission, which probably is the ablest commission of the kind in the United States, in a recent pamphlet sustains this view very emphatically. very emphatically. It is the common-sense view, of course. California expends upon

education about $9,000,000 a year, of which sum over $5,000,000 goes for the support of its common and high schools; this is merely collected by the State, as agent, and turned back for the support of the schools.

There is refunded to the various counties and cities on account of the bonded indebtedness of the State, counties, and cities outstanding when the present system of taxation went into effect, and also to certain other counties as reimbursement for the loss of railway property for local tax purposes, nearly $1,000,000 a year. There is also handled for the San Francisco Harbor receipts, say, of $1,500,000 a year, and this money can be used only for harbor purposes, and not for general State purposes. The State is also refunding to the counties, at this time, nearly $900,000, their half of the motor vehicle taxes as collected. Because of wrong assessments, erroneous taxes, etc., a large amount of money is refunded each year, and there are other transactions, agent-like in character, that probably would make the total of such matters $13,000,000 or $14,000,000. Now, by deducting this sum from the gross expenditure of $36,000,000, and dividing the

difference by, say, 3,000,000 (the approximate population of California), you will get a per capita of between $7 and $8. Some difference between $8 and $21!

Thus it was that within a year after Governor Johnson's inauguration every platform pledge had been enacted into law. This was one hundred per cent. More or better could not be done. This justifies Theodore Roosevelt's tribute to this accomplishment as "the most comprehensive programme of con

structive legislation ever enacted at a single session of any American Legislature.”

Here we have the mighty political revolution of a great commonwealth, held as a chattel and exploited as personal property, reformed, regenerated and reconstructed, and reactionary domination in behalf of corporate interests giving place to Progressive control in the interest of the people. Can any American commonwealth show a record in any wise approaching it?

THE LAST STAND OF
OF POLITICAL
BOURBONISM

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE BY FREDERICK M. DAVENPORT During the past nine and a half months Mr. Frederick M. Davenport has been observing for The Outlook the course of political events in the United States. His series of articles on "The Pre-Nomination Campaign" attracted very wide attention, and his diagnosis of the situation proved accurate. Though affiliated with the Republican party as a member of the New York Legislature and with the Progressive party as a candidate for the Governorship of New York, and now an enrolled Republican again, he has proved his understanding of the point of view of the Democratic party under President Wilson's leadership. His article on President Wilson was recognized by Democratic leaders as a fair and broad interpretation of the President. During the Presidential campaign he traveled through the West on the Hughes trips as a staff correspondent of The Outlook, and his acute observation of political conditions in the West will be remembered by The Outlook's readers. In the following piece of special correspondence Mr. Davenport interprets the election in the light of his experiences during the campaign.

Incidentally we remind our readers that in The Outlook for October 25, under the title of 'Political Miracles in California," was printed an account of the situation in California, from which we quote the following sentences:

“No one . . . questions the election of Governor Johnson to the Senate. According to one of our correspondents, no one guesses his majority as so little as a hundred thousand.' . . . The Old Guard attempted to capitalize Mr. Hughes's visit and to make it useful for their own return to power. . . . The Old Guard were not thinking of Mr. Hughes, but of their own political rehabilitation. . . Almost anything-except the defeat of Governor Johnson-can happen to California. . . . California might be ordinarily termed normally a Republican State. California, however, is doubtful to-day because there are many independent voters . . . who feel that President Wilson has had a hard time of it, and has done well to keep the country out of war, and they intend to vote for him. . . . Even those who believe that the State will be carried by Hughes admit that the vote is likely to be close."

Mr. Davenport's account of the situation in California from a Republican point of view is based on facts that were recognized before the election.-THE EDITORS.

T

HE Far West turns out to be the crux and the surprise of the election. It was not cold to Mr. Hughes when he campaigned in that section of the country. The audiences which he met were everywhere large, eager, attentive, and thoughtful. But the aftermath of his visit, particularly to Washington and California, seems to have been unhappy. And the reason for it now

begins clearly to come into vision. The Bourbon escort and leadership of the existing Republican organization, which Mr. Hughes was practically forced to accept in certain pivotal States or else go again into the headbreaking business which had disrupted the Republicans in 1910 and 1912, appears to have been misunderstood and misinterpreted in its relation to the candidacy of the Repub

1916

THE LAST STAND OF POLITICAL BOURBONISM

lican nominee. And thereby hangs a tale of much human interest because it throws light upon the future of political parties in the United States.

When Mr. Hughes arrived in San Francisco, the primary elections, which two weeks later resulted in the overwhelming nomination of the Progressive Governor Johnson' as Republican candidate for United States Senator, had not yet been held. Mr. Hughes was escorted in San Francisco and later through the State by a few Republican gentlemen, at that moment in regularly elected control of the inner party machinery, who were remarkable examples of the blind and irreconcilable Bourbon in politics. They had no more conception of what the free and independent citizens of the great State of California were thinking of than a six-weeksold baby.

And they were not anxious about learning. Their whole idea seemed to be to retain control of the party machinery for their own ulterior purposes. During the Hughes tour of the State they did two things in broad daylight which, as it turns out, a large number of Californians deeply resented.

In the first place, they flouted and treated with indignity Johnson and certain of his leading lieutenants who were vigorously supporting the Republican candidate Hughes. They gave out word to the newspapers and in private conversation that the very presence of Johnson at any Hughes meeting would be resented by them, and would be an injury to the party and the country! Of course Johnson kept away from the Hughes meetings, and the situation was so bitter and so tense that Hughes felt that he could not do anything about it without making things worse. As it turned out two weeks later, Johnson carried the very primaries of these narrow Republican gentlemen by a large majority of Republican votes, and appears to have won the Republican United States Senatorship on the 7th of November by the tremendous majority of two hundred thousand. At the same time the National Republican ticket seems to have lost the State.

And the other matter which these Republican gentlemen engineered in San Francisco was so unbelievably dull and stupid that it may seem incredible. But the evidence is in. Mr. Hughes was to be the guest at a

An article on Governor, now Senator-elect, Johnson appears on another page.-THE EDITORS.

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business men's luncheon at the Commercial Club. A large number of the waiters of San Francisco were on strike for the right to organize and for a union basis of employment. The waiters of the Commercial Club were publicly reported to have offered to return to serve Mr. Hughes and his party if an offensive placard declaring against their hopes and purposes might be taken down from the lobby of the club while they were at work upon the Hughes luncheon. These same Republican Bourbons who, with their friends, controlled the action of the club as they did the machinery of the party, refused to yield an inch even for the time being, and drafted a force of non-union waiters from some outlying restaurant in the city, Much of this Mr. Hughes did not know until afterward, and none of it did he know until just before he was taken to the luncheon, too late to withdraw without seeming to have done so under conditions of great discourtesy as well as under labor duress. But what shall we say of the political instincts or ordinary horse sense of these Republican gentlemen who thereby lost by their narrow, stupid spirit and blundering acts the city of San Francisco by a large majority, and thus the State and perhaps the Nation?

The idea of these gentlemen clearly was that there was likely to be a landslide back toward Republicanism, and that they could keep their control and rule in the same old spirit in the future as they had in the past. You would think they would know better now. And yet already men of their type in different parts of the country are beginning to say: "No matter, the war will end within the next quadrennium, we shall have hard times, and the country will rush into the arms of our kind in 1920." Blind leaders of the blind, they steer again toward the ditch! Hard times may come, but the Republican party will need more than that to win another National election.

Those great Republican States like California and Washington and Utah and Kansas and Ohio and Minnesota are gone permanently unless a new type of leadership shows itself continuously in the Republicanism of those commonwealths. And Maine and Massachusetts, and particularly New Hampshire, are in the same dangerously parlous condition. They are very near the border line. Give the Wilson Administration four years more to establish itself in the Far West and in the East, with always a solid block

of 149 electoral votes from the South to count upon, and it will be only with the greatest care and breadth of leadership that the Republican party can again attain National prestige and effectiveness.

In the

And it was not simply California. great Republican State of Washington, while Mr. Hughes was in the State, Poindexter, the Progressive United States Senator from that commonwealth, was offensively snubbed and pushed out of sight by the Bourbon leaders. Shortly afterward Poindexter won the nomination for United States Senator in the Republican primaries, and in the election the other day was the only important Republican elected in the State, and by a very large majority. In the Governorship and the Presidency the commonwealth of Washington went Democratic.

The great Republican State of Ohio suffered in much the same way by the narrow vision and selfish political individualism of certain of the high Republican candidates for office and certain leaders of the Republican organization. In that State the Republican candidate for Governor, for United States Senator, and for President, all swept down the valley of destruction together.

In Indiana, on the other hand, where the finest spirit and sound judgment were shown by the reconstructed Republican organization under the leadership of a young statesman, Will H. Hays, of Indianapolis, the people responded gladly, and Indiana is probably permanently out of the Democratic column, in which it has been most of the time since the Civil War. The Republican organization was broadened and deepened in every part of the State, and the liberal and tolerant and unselfish leadership carried everything before it. And this in a State where Taggart and Marshall were at the moment everywhere supreme.

It is the last stand of political Bourbonism in the United States. Of course Bourbonism has come to a complete end in the Democratic party. The South is not Bourbon. It is only belated.

The Democratic organizations of New York, Illinois, and Indiana were Bourbon, but they are completely unhorsed in Democratic councils by the returns of the election. The second Administration of Woodrow Wilson will be perverted not at all by the activities of the Northern and Western party Bourbon. Whatever factional or sectional mistakes are made will be those of a belated South or of a too eager democratic West.

It is the last stand of Republican Bourbonism. The fallacy in President Wilson's speech to young men at Shadow Lawn during the campaign lay in his supposition that the Republican party was to remain in the control of a reactionary group. No matter which way the election had resulted, that would have been impossible. Hughes elected, impossible. Hughes defeated, equally impossible. And the election returns disclose it.

The problem of the Republican party in the next four years is to win back its own great States in the West. Bourbon politicians may still hold a measure of influence in certain industrial States of the East, but their day is over in the West. Certain great and naturally Republican States of the West the Republican party must have in order ever to win back National prestige and success. And therefore the leadership must be liberal to the core, and be clearly so in every part of the United States. A new spirit and a new strength and purpose will have to be introduced into the Republican organization from one end of the country to the other. For the next four years will probably be the final test of whether the Republican party is to survive as a great party of National, efficient, liberal leadership for the whole people.

The party cleavage in America in the next generation is to be, I think, not at all between reactionaries and liberals. A country of tremendous vitality, we have been growing rapidly in political education and information during the last two decades. The whole country is fast becoming a great liberal country, and no party whose leadership is narrow and selfish and hangs back in the breeching will have a look-in during the coming years of the twentieth century.

The reactionaries in American politics are being eliminated almost as rapidly as the reactionaries in American theology were eliminated during the last generation. Nearly all theologians are liberal theologians now. Very soon nearly all politicians will be liberal politicians. And the cleavage of the two great parties will be, not between reactionaries and radicals, but between a conservative and efficient liberalism, on the one hand, which wishes to advance only as fast as the new policies can be safely assimilated and administered by the American people, and, on the other hand, a radical liberalism which is impatient of delay and wishes to advance at all hazards and without recourse. But the day of the Bourbon is done.

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Mr. Jo. Davidson, the sculptor of this bust, is a native of New York City, but has spent much of his life abroad in the study and practice of his profession. His home in northern France has served recently as a hospital for wounded French soldiers, and Mr. Davidson himself only lately returned from the front. President Wilson gave several personal sittings at the White House to the sculptor for the making of this 1

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