Democracy, an American Novel

Chapter IV

Sunday evening was stormy, and some enthusiasm was required to make one face its perils for the sake of society.  Nevertheless, a few intimates made their appearance as usual at Mrs. Lee’s.  The faithful Popoff was there, and Miss Dare also ran in to pass an hour with her dear Sybil; but as she passed the whole evening in a corner with Popoff. she must have been disappointed in her object.  Carrington came, and Baron Jacobi.  Schneidekoupon and his sister dined with Mrs. Lee, and remained after dinner, while Sybil and Julia Schneidekoupon compared conclusions about Washington society.  The happy idea also occurred to Mr. Gore that, inasmuch as Mrs. Lee’s house was but a step from his hotel, he might as well take the chance of amusement there as the certainty of solitude in his rooms.  Finally, Senator Ratcliffe duly made his appearance, and, having established himself with a cup of tea by Madeleine’s side, was soon left to enjoy a quiet talk with her, the rest of the party by common consent occupying themselves with each other.  Under cover of the murmur of conversation in the room, Mr. Ratcliffe quickiy became confidential.

“I came to suggest that, if you want to hear an interesting debate, you should come up to the Senate to-morrow.  I am told that Garrard, of Louisiana, means to attack my last speech, and I shall probably in that case have to answer him.  With you for a critic I shall speak better.”

“Am I such an amiable critic?” asked Madeleine.

“I never heard that amiable critics were the best,” said he; “justice is the soul of good criticism, and it is only justice that I ask and expect from you.”

“What good does this speaking do?” inquired she.  “Are you any nearer the end of your difficulties by means of your speeches?”

“I hardly know yet.  Just now we are in dead water; but this can’t last long.

In fact, I am not afraid to tell you, though of course you will not repeat it to any human being, that we have taken measures to force an issue.

Certain gentlemen, myself among the rest, have written letters meant for the President’s eye, though not addressed directly to him, and intended to draw out an expression of some sort that will show us what to expect.”

“Oh!” laughed Madeleine, “I knew about that a week ago.”

“About what?”

“About your letter to Sam Grimes, of North Bend.”

“What have you heard about my letter to Sam Grimes, of North Bend?”

ejaculated Ratcliffe, a little abruptly.

“Oh, you do not know how admirably I have organised my secret service bureau,” said she.  “Representative Cutter cross-questioned one of the Senate pages, and obliged him to confess that he had received from you a letter to be posted, which letter was addressed to Mr. Grimes, of North Bend.”

“And, of course, he told this to French, and French told you,” said Ratcliffe; “I see.  If I had known this I would not have let French off so gently last night, for I prefer to tell you my own story without his embellishments.  But it was my fault.  I should not have trusted a page.

Nothing is a secret here long.  But one thing that Mr. Cutter did not find out was that several other gentlemen wrote letters at the same time, for the same purpose.  Your friend, Mr. Clinton, wrote; Krebs wrote; and one or two members.”

“I suppose I must not ask what you said?”

“You may.  We agreed that it was best to be very mild and conciliatory, and to urge the President only to give us some indication of his intentions, in order that we might not run counter to them.  I drew a strong picture of the effect of the present situation on the party, and hinted that I had no personal wishes to gratify.”

“And what do you think will be the result?”

“I think we shall somehow manage to straighten things out,” said Ratcliffe.

“The difficulty is only that the new President has little experience, and is suspicious.  He thinks we shall intrigue to tie his hands, and he means to tie ours in advance.  I don’t know him personally, but those who do, and who are fair judges, say that, though rather narrow and obstinate, he is honest enough, and will come round.  I have no doubt I could settle it all with him in an hour’s talk, but it is out of the question for me to go to him unless I am asked, and to ask me to come would be itself a settlement.”

“What, then, is the danger you fear?”

“That he will offend all the important party leaders in order to conciliate unimportant ones, perhaps sentimental ones, like your friend French; that he will make foolish appointments without taking advice.  By the way, have you seen French to-day?”

“No,” replied Madeleine; “I think he must be sore at your treatment of him last evening.  You were very rude to him.”

“Not a bit,” said Ratcliffe; “these reformers need it.  His attack on me was meant for a challenge.  I saw it in his manner.

“But is reform really so impossible as you describe it?  Is it quite hopeless?”

“Reform such as he wants is utterly hopeless, and not even desirable.”

Mrs. Lee, with much earnestness of manner, still pressed her question: 

“Surely something can be done to check corruption.  Are we for ever to be at the mercy of thieves and ruffians?  Is a respectable government impossible in a democracy?”

Her warmth attracted Jacobi’s attention, and he spoke across the room.  “What is that you say, Mrs. Lee?  What is it about corruption?”

All the gentlemen began to listen and gather about them.

“I am asking Senator Ratcliffe,” said she, “what is to become of us if corruption is allowed to go unchecked.”

“And may I venture to ask permission to hear Mr. Ratcliffe’s reply?” asked the baron.

“My reply,” said Ratcliffe, “is that no representative government can long be much better or much worse than the society it represents.  Purify society and you purify the government.  But try to purify the government artificially and you only aggravate failure.”

“A very statesmanlike reply,” said Baron Jacobi, with a formal bow, but his tone had a shade of mockery.  Carrington, who had listened with a darkening face, suddenly turned to the baron and asked him what conclusion he drew from the reply.

“Ah!” exclaimed the baron, with his wickedest leer, “what for is my conclusion good?  You Americans believe yourselves to be excepted from the operation of general laws.  You care not for experience.  I have lived seventy-five years, and all that time in the midst of corruption.  I am corrupt myself, only I do have courage to proclaim it, and you others have it not.  Rome, Paris, Vienna, Petersburg, London, all are corrupt; only Washington is pure!  Well, I declare to you that in all my experience I have found no society which has had elements of corruption like the United States.  The children in the street are corrupt, and know how to cheat me.

The cities are all corrupt, and also the towns and the counties and the States’ legislatures and the judges.  Everywhere men betray trusts both public and private, steal money, run away with public funds.  Only in the Senate men take no money.  And you gentlemen in the Senate very well declare that your great United States, which is the head of the civilized world, can never learn anything from the example of corrupt Europe.  You are right—­quite right!  The great United States needs not an example.  I do much regret that I have not yet one hundred years to live.  If I could then come back to this city, I should find myself very content—­much more than now.  I am always content where there is much corruption, and ma parole d’honneur!”

broke out the old man with fire and gesture, “the United States will then be more corrupt than Rome under Caligula; more corrupt than the Church under Leo X.; more corrupt than France under the Regent!”

As the baron closed his little harangue, which he delivered directly at the senator sitting underneath him, he had the satisfaction to see that every one was silent and listening with deep attention.  He seemed to enjoy annoying the senator, and he had the satisfaction of seeing that the senator was visibly annoyed.  Ratcliffe looked sternly at the baron and said, with some curtness, that he saw no reason to accept such conclusions.

Conversation flagged, and all except the baron were relieved when Sybil, at Schneidekoupon’s request, sat down at the piano to sing what she called a hymn.  So soon as the song was over, Ratcliffe, who seemed to have been curiously thrown off his balance by Jacobi’s harangue, pleaded urgent duties at his rooms, and retired.  The others soon afterwards went off in a body, leaving only Carrington and Gore, who had seated himself by Madeleine, and was at once dragged by her into a discussion of the subject which perplexed her, and for the moment threw over her mind a net of irresistible fascination.

“The baron discomfited the senator,” said Gore, with a certain hesitation.

“Why did Ratcliffe let himself be trampled upon in that manner?”

“I wish you would explain why,” replied Mrs. Lee; “tell me, Mr. Gore—­you who represent cultivation and literary taste hereabouts—­please tell me what to think about Baron Jacobi’s speech.  Who and what is to be believed?  Mr.

Ratcliffe seems honest and wise.  Is he a corruptionist?  He believes in the people, or says he does.  Is he telling the truth or not?”

Gore was too experienced in politics to be caught in such a trap as this.  He evaded the question.  “Mr. Ratcliffe has a practical piece of work to do; his business is to make laws and advise the President; he does it extremely well.  We have no other equally good practical politician; it is unfair to require him to be a crusader besides.”

“No!” interposed Carrington, curtly; “but he need not obstruct crusades.  He need not talk virtue and oppose the punishment of vice.”

“He is a shrewd practical politician,” replied Gore, “and he feels first the weak side of any proposed political tactics.”

With a sigh of despair Madeleine went on:  “Who, then, is right?  How can we all be right?  Half of our wise men declare that the world is going straight to perdition; the other half that it is fast becoming perfect.  Both cannot be right.  There is only one thing in life,” she went on, laughing, “that I must and will have before I die.  I must know whether America is right or wrong.  Just now this question is a very practical one, for I really want to know whether to believe in Mr. Ratcliffe.  If I throw him overboard, everything must go, for he is only a specimen.”

“Why not believe in Mr. Ratcliffe?” said Gore; “I believe in him myself, and am not afraid to say so.”

Carrington, to whom Ratcliffe now began to represent the spirit of evil, interposed here, and observed that he imagined Mr. Gore had other guides besides, and steadier ones than Ratcliffe, to believe in; while Madeleine, with a certain feminine perspicacity, struck at a much weaker point in Mr.

Gore’s armour, and asked point-blank whether he believed also in what Ratcliffe represented:  “Do you yourself think democracy the best government, and universal suffrage a success?”

Mr. Gore saw himself pinned to the wall, and he turned at bay with almost the energy of despair: 

“These are matters about which I rarely talk in society; they are like the doctrine of a personal God; of a future life; of revealed religion; subjects which one naturally reserves for private reflection.  But since you ask for my political creed, you shall have it.  I only condition that it shall be for you alone, never to be repeated or quoted as mine.  I believe in democracy.  I accept it.  I will faithfully serve and defend it.  I believe in it because it appears to me the inevitable consequence of what has gone before it.

Democracy asserts the fact that the masses are now raised to a higher intelligence than formerly.  All our civilisation aims at this mark.  We want to do what we can to help it.  I myself want to see the result.  I grant it is an experiment, but it is the only direction society can take that is worth its taking; the only conception of its duty large enough to satisfy its instincts; the only result that is worth an effort or a risk.  Every other possible step is backward, and I do not care to repeat the past.  I am glad to see society grapple with issues in which no one can afford to be neutral.”

“And supposing your experiment fails,” said Mrs. Lee; “suppose society destroys itself with universal suffrage, corruption, and communism.”

“I wish, Mrs. Lee, you would visit the Observatory with me some evening, and look at Sirius.  Did you ever make the acquaintance of a fixed star?  I believe astronomers reckon about twenty millions of them in sight, and an infinite possibility of invisible millions, each one of which is a sun, like ours, and may have satellites like our planet.  Suppose you see one of these fixed stars suddenly increase in brightness, and are told that a satellite has fallen into it and is burning up, its career finished, its capacities exhausted?  Curious, is it not; but what does it matter?  Just as much as the burning up of a moth at your candle.”

Madeleine shuddered a little.  “I cannot get to the height of your philosophy,” said she.  “You are wandering among the infinites, and I am finite.”

“Not at all!  But I have faith; not perhaps in the old dogmas, but in the new ones; faith in human nature; faith in science; faith in the survival of the fittest.  Let us be true to our time, Mrs. Lee!  If our age is to be beaten, let us die in the ranks.  If it is to be victorious, let us be first to lead the column.  Anyway, let us not be skulkers or grumblers.  There! have I repeated my catechism correctly?  You would have it!  Now oblige me by forgetting it.  I should lose my character at home if it got out.  Good night!”

Mrs. Lee duly appeared at the Capitol the next day, as she could not but do after Senator Ratcliffe’s pointed request.  She went alone, for Sybil had positively refused to go near the Capitol again, and Madeleine thought that on the whole this was not an occasion for enrolling Carrington in her service.  But Ratcliffe did not speak.  The debate was unexpectedly postponed.

He joined Mrs. Lee in the gallery, however, sat with her as long as she would allow, and became still more confidential, telling her that he had received the expected reply from Grimes, of North Bend, and that it had enclosed a letter written by the President-elect to Mr. Grimes in regard to the advances made by Mr. Ratcliffe and his friends.

“It is not a handsome letter,” said he; “indeed, a part of it is positively insulting.  I would like to read you one extract from it, and hear your opinion as to how it should be treated.”  Taking the letter from his pocket, he sought out the passage, and read as follows:  “’I cannot lose sight, too, of the consideration that these three Senators’ (he means Clinton, Krebs, and me) are popularly considered to be the most influential members of that so-called senatorial ring, which has acquired such general notoriety.  While I shall always receive their communications with all due respect, I must continue to exercise complete freedom of action in consulting other political advisers as well as these, and I must in all cases make it my first object to follow the wishes of the people, not always most truly represented by their nominal representatives.’  What say you to that precious piece of presidential manners?”

“At least I like his courage,” said Mrs. Lee.

“Courage is one thing; common sense is another.  This letter is a studied insult.  He has knocked me off the track once.  He means to do it again.  It is a declaration of war.  What ought I to do?”

“Whatever is most for the public good.” said Madeleine, gravely.

Ratcliffe looked into her face with such undisguised delight—­there was so little possibility of mistaking or ignoring the expression of his eyes, that she shrank back with a certain shock.  She was not prepared for so open a demonstration.  He hardened his features at once, and went on: 

“But what is most for the public good?”

“That you know better than I,” said Madeleine; “only one thing is clear to me.  If you let yourself be ruled by your private feelings, you will make a greater mistake than he.  Now I must go, for I have visits to make.  The next time I come, Mr. Ratcliffe, you must keep your word better.”

When they next met, Ratcliffe read to her a part of his reply to Mr. Grimes, which ran thus:  “It is the lot of every party leader to suffer from attacks and to commit errors.  It is true, as the President says, that I have been no exception to this law.  Believing as I do that great results can only be accomplished by great parties, I have uniformly yielded my own personal opinions where they have failed to obtain general assent.  I shall continue to follow this course, and the President may with perfect confidence count upon my disinterested support of all party measures, even though I may not be consulted in originating them.”

Mrs. Lee listened attentively, and then said:  “Have you never refused to go with your party?”

“Never!” was Ratcliffe’s firm reply.

Madeleine still more thoughtfully inquired again:  “Is nothing more powerful than party allegiance?”

“Nothing, except national allegiance,” replied Ratcliffe, still more firmly.