Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/453



grown people in America do not need to be treated, in political arguments, like children. Yet what but nursery discipline do they get at this moment, when the editors and orators of each party portray their own leader as a demi-god, and his rival as a brute and monster? The vice of American public speaking and writing, in hot political campaigns, is a want of faith in the candor of the people, and even an unwillingness to credit them with common-sense. The cynic will reply that this is right, as most people take their opinions from the stump and the press, and, with them, chameleon-like, change their hue.

But the cynic's is an unjust judgment. There is no grosser mistake than that which regards the electoral people of our thinking Republic as Coriolanus did the "mudsills" of Rome. The fatal error, apparently, of one noted public man of our day, has been his inability to credit the people with judgment or intelligence, and his avowed contempt for those whom he calls by that vile phrase "the masses." When he makes a popular speech it is laboriously silly. He imagines it to be finely condescending; but his hearers usually fear he is a little crazy. His public acts have been of the same sort, and are otherwise unaccountable. Not much wiser, however, are the "slang-whanging" editors and orators who believe the people to like nothing that is not "hot and strong"—violent, vindictive, unjust, and preposterous.

The great fear of most speakers and writers is that they may concede too much to "the enemy." They hesitate to trust their readers with the plain truth. Most of them believe their cause is good, in a fair view of the facts—but then it would be so dangerous to admit anything! They commonly do not dare to put the truth as they believe it; and, instead, avoid all concessions. It was so during the war. Every skirmish, if favorable, was declared a battle; every unfavorable battle, a "reconnoisance." After every foiled cavalry raid it was said, "the object of the expedition is accomplished." Every defeat was styled a "blessing in disguise." Every morning the backbone of the rebellion was discovered to be broken. It was seldom the case that an editor was found candid enough, and, above all, trustful enough, to say "beaten," when beaten it was. Indeed, if some adventurous critic who believed with his whole soul in the sure, ultimate triumph in the Union cause, should say so, and yet commit the crime of adding that it had been set back by this or the other failure, his brethren of the press fell upon and beat him.

The partisan slavery of the "free press" of America is sometimes rather grievous; and that terrible stigma fastened upon the sin of kicking over the party traces—namely, "You never know where to find that man"—is equally hard to bear. Nevertheless, it is fairly supposable that an editor or an orator might rely upon the candid judgment of the people, and still be accounted faithful to his party. Readers are not all the simpletons which self-conscious editors, noting that even their writings are acceptable, suppose they must be. They do not insist upon coarse personalities and vulgar epithets; still less are they afraid to trust their reason with a fair statement of the political issues in controversy. They can admit a great deal of good to the other side, and prefer their own. They can admit the personal worth of opposite candidates, and yet vote for the representative of their own political principles. That is a frame of