THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE PLUTOCRAT

...The Senate is the servant of the people, and its membership must therefore be the result of the direct choice of the people, because the people created it and pay it to work for the people...

...Murphy was representing the people in Albany, and while the friends of Lorimer were securing their unbreakable hold upon the votes needed to keep a seat at Washington for a man who has done so much, indirectly and unconsciously, for the abolition of the system that has placed him where he is...

...In the debates on the XVIth Amendment we have been able to see this attitude rather plainly principally because the issue itself is so simple and so clear...

...A Republican Member of the Oregon Supreme Court Says: "The Referendum has certainly proved a check on legislative extravagance, and has, to a great extent, prevented legislation in the interests of large transportation corporati ,ns which was, unfortunately, too prevalent previous to the adoption of our legislative amendment...

...He could further devote time and money to paying the salaries of honorable lobbyists who should labor with legislative bodies to secure the enactment of just laws, which would relieve hard-working farmers, struggling shop keepers, mechanics trying to pay for mortgaged houses, and widows who have received a few thousand dollars of life insurance money from their present obligation to support the courts, the militia, and other organs of government that protect primarily the rich man's property and enable him to collect his bills receivable...

...Direct election of Senators does not end the progressive task...

...He has become, in other words, the orthodox "solid citizen," and the "pillar of society...

...The only matter is that we have agreed to live under a regulation which promises that the people—not defined, not limited, observe—The People, that is, have a literal and as it were a vested interest in the Constitution which cannot legally be denied, and which can be betrayed only by the ownership of the Constitution and the means to uphold it by the seigniors, instead of by the people...

...It is only a question of time when every State in the Union will incorporate it, in some form, into their fundamental laws...

...Whether the Senate was intended by the individuals who debated the Constitution at its inception to be the voice or the brake of the people is only of academic interest in this discussion...

...He is at once the exponent and result of that little but immensely powerful cancerous mass of modern feudalists which every right-minded man knows to be a menace to the body politic, social and moral...

...But the little powerfully associated group of feudalists whom we have upon our hands however futilely, attempt to do both...

...it would now seem that our feudalists must learn theirs— and ours...

...And throughout the long struggle we face we must continually have against us what a recent writer has called "the seigniorial mind...

...A Study for the Psychologist THE MATTER is not worth serious treatment for a moment except from the point of view of the political psychologist...

...Voters have usually displayed unexpected discrimination in adopting or rejecting laws proposed, and I am satisfied that this method of legislation is a great educator of the ordinary citizen in the duties and responsibilities of citizenship...

...Why," he asks, "are the people, and who and what were they originally conceived to be...

...He is the kind of man who can have the effrontery to say, as did a prominent anthracite coal operator: "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country...

...A writer in the New York Tribune during the last days of the last session of Congress undertook to protest against the direct election of Senators...

...It would be difficult to account for his remarks if he were not...

...But it is impossible to negative a fact, and we face not a condition but a fact...

...It is second-cousin to Laissez-Faire, and sworn brother to Old Standpattism...

...Was not the Senate rather instituted as the guide of the people than as their voice...

...I think the case is stated...

...In addition to his conservative qualities he is probably a supporter of the church, and a contributor to organized charities...

...The records of the making of the constitution show that that instrument was neither made for nor by the people...

...The owner of the seigniorial mind above quoted is undoubtedly a gentleman of standing...

...It was made by the same class of men, relatively, as those who till very lately have dominated the Senate—the landowning, propertied, seigniorial class...

...He is a man of impeccable morals, judged by ordinary standards, and when his clipping bureau brings him this piece (if it does) he will probably be unable to understand it except as an "unwarranted and malicious attack...

...Must we at the capricious behest of a people thus diminished in political capacity and responsibility surrender the difference in political character wisely established between the United States Senate and the House of Representatives...

...Let him, then, to his further confusion and edification read the suggestions of one who drew up the following list of measures for the support of which normally—not seigniorially— minded citizens might honorably and wisely devote their efforts and time: "He (the rich man) could begin by requiring the assessors to hand him a true bill of his own obligations to the public...

...The mere fact that the people have within their power the right to initiate measures or refer them by referendum, has served as a great cheek upon bad legislation in the Legislative Assembly, and, at the same time, it has furnished a motive for better legislation, to say nothing of the fact that the people have initiated a number of reforms by direct vote, which were defeated by the Legislature, including the Primary system and the method of voting for United States Senators by a popular vote, as well as a number of other measures, all of which I think have been conducive to the general welfare of the State...

...If you can continue to dream after reading it, you are not a seignior...

...It is one of the many evidences that show that there is, within the fundamentally democratic America, a feudal America...

...This much, then must be conceded to our seignior...

...I consider the Initiative and Referendum a safe and practicable method of enacting legislation, and will further add that I think it has come to stay...

...Still there is some moralizing to come, some lessons to be noted that will be invaluable in the work yet on our hands...

...He is the kind of man who can look about upon the order which has created him, and after a little observation, graciously pronounce it good...

...The Senate was conceived, as the Tribune correspondent rightly says, as a brake rather than as a voice, and for years this state of things continued, partly through the non-enfranchisement of the propertyless voter, and partly through the momentum of the initial dominance of the Senate itself, a dominance, as just stated, which is no longer quite so irresponsible in theory or in practice...

...Further, in all likelihood he is wont to point with satisfaction to the magnificent millions spent by the possessors of billions in endowing colleges, religious institutions, and worthy projects...

...Finally, if these two expenditures did not sufficiently diminish his surplus, he could purchase newspapers and pay editors to educate the public in sound principles of social justice, as applied to taxation and to various other matters...

...But the academic is important in this case because it is little known...

...The issue in effect is the Preamble, and may be expressed thus: "The Constitution was made for the people and by the people...

...But it can be used as a touchstone for the kind of mind that you, the reader, possesses...

...The seigniorial attitude which is his explains the psychology of the perfectly honest and sincere standpatter, honest and sincere, that is, within his limited lights the man who clings to outworn theories not so much because they are ideal ones as because they have never damaged him, however much wrong they may be wreaking elsewhere...

...His letter bears a date which synchronizes with the moment when Mr...

...And in confronting this fact we have also noticed and are about to correct one of the faults in our institutions which has helped to make it possible...

...This of course is only a stupid dream, and not a practical suggestion...

...the fact that the preamble miscarried does not form an argument of precedent that the miscarriage is right, or that it shall continue...

...There is little further to say, because, in spite of this kind of protesting, the people have learned their lesson and acted upon it...

...It does not matter in the smallest whether "it was originally intended" that the people as we have them today should be the non plus ultra of the government...

...The Seigniorial Mind IF OUR seigniorial friend could prove that the people whose condition he vividly pictures were responsible for their ignorance, their moral and political deterioration, for their being "slaves to their bread-and-butter necessities," and converts to "distorted notions of property and civil rights," if he could show that this environment and all that it necessitates had been the chosen life of the people and not one forced upon them by the class which he represents, then he would have made one step in proving that the people should not be trusted with votes to use against their overlords...

...It is thoroughly worth while to understand, in order that we may be able to meet, the point of view of any section of the community which is able to interfere with our purposes...

...the lower strata of our native population deteriorated morally and politically by the life in the great cities, and the conditions surrounding work in the factories and mines, slaves of their bread-and-butter necessities and converts to distorted notions of property and civil rights and duties...

...A Democratic Member of the Oregon Supreme Court Says: IN MY OPINION the Initiative and Referendum has been instrumental in giving the people of this State more wise and progressive legislation than they would have secured under the representative system only...

...The "Pillar of Society" BRIEFLY, the seigniorial attitude of mind is the attitude of the successful magnate—or his follower—who has got beyond the mere money grubbing state, and has begun to find that, because of his accumulations, he is supposed to have a certain amount of public authority and responsibility...

...This correspondent is frankly seigniorial...

...In our democracy there ought to be no place for the seignior, yet, paradoxical as it may seem, it is a necessary product of a certain section of this democracy...

...Signed) THOMAS A. MC BRIDE, Associate Justice Supreme Court...

...I feel satisfied that it has 'come to stay' in this part of the Union...

...This mental attitude is one of the insidious enemies confronting the public man today...

...Moreover, to realize that it exists is to be prepared against it aforetime...

...It is practically all over but the voting, and now that the Senate has been wholesomely revised, the voting will be right...

...But the argument for the popular election of Senators is not at all affected by this concession...

...While several laws lately passed by the Legislature have been found defective and contrary to the Constitution, none of those passed by direct legislation have failed to stand the test of constitutionality...

...To deny this doctrine is first to deny the Constitution, and second, to deny the people...

...This fact is important to recognize and analyze, because every day we must meet it and contend with it...

...Signed) WILLIAM R. KING, Associate Justice...

...The people were never meant and conceived to be the non plus ultra of our government, especially not the people as we have them today, in this country a heterogeneous mass of natives and foreigners of all climes, the large percentage of immigrants, ignorant and only slowly assimilable...