A History of the Presidency. By Edward Stanwood, Litt.D. (Houghton,
Miffiin, and Co., Boston. $2•50.)—We are sorry Dr. Stanwood has given this otherwise excellent book the title it bears. No American has yet achieved the end of writing an adequate his- tory of American public life. Notwithstanding all the writing of the time, and all the histories which American workers turn out, a real history of the public life of the United States has yet to be written. The writer who will accomplish this task—as it certainly will be accomplished in the future—will have to unfold to us the last chapter in the philosophy of our Western civilisation in the light of history, and with the deep thunder in his ears of a future which no man has yet imagined. It is, therefore, we think, a pity that Dr. Stanwood should take upon himself the risk of needlessly disappointing us. He has given US an admirable history of American Presidential elec- tions. Why should he go out of his way to call it A History of the Presi- dency ? No institution is so closely associated with the real history of America as the Presidency. The election is the one occasion, above all others, when from the Atlantic to the Pacific the people feel their nationhood. Every important question which has agitated the people of the United States during their national life has, as Dr. Stanwood's book shows, come up for discussion, and has had its influence in determining the result in the elections to the Pre- sidency. The history of the office is, in short, the history of American public life. Within the limits mentioned, however, Dr. Stanwood has given us a book which constitutes a record invaluable to politicians, and scarcely less so to students and workers. Although it is in parts necessarily a compilation, its usefulness is not diminished on that account. The "plat- forms " adopted in the various party Conventions (mostly printed at length) are themselves a first-hand record of the development of political principles of great interest. The history of the can- didates, the moves and counter-moves of the wirepullers, and the exhaustive details of the polls, all constitute a political record of the first importance. The ascendency of the party system in national affairs, and the permanence and immobility of the two great opposing political parties, brought out in these details, is as significant a phenomenon in American public life as it is in English public life. Other parties are mere changing fragments. In the election of 1892, for instance, the Prohibitionist candidate received 255,841 votes, and the Socialist 21,532 votes out of a total of over 12,000,000. In the election of 1896, where free silver was the main issue, the can- didates of the two leading parties obtained between them 13,620,000 votes out of a total of 14,657,000. The Socialist candidate obtained 36,373 votes, and the remaining votes were divided between four other fractions. This was one of the most interesting and exciting contests in the history of the United States. How much that will be felt to be characteristic of the whole English-speaking world, and perhaps of that world only, is expressed in Dr. Stan- wood's concluding paragraph in the account of that famous struggle :—" The immediate subsidence of excitement after the result of the election was ascertained, and the good-humoured acceptance of that result by all save a few grievously disappointed leaders of the defeated party, is not a new experience in American political life. We have see it after other historic struggles. The Federalists thought that all was lost when Jefferson was elected. Jackson's triumph seemed to his opponents a victory of evil over good. The Democrats lost faith in popular government when Harrison was chosen. To the supporters of Mr. Tilden the declaration that Mr. Hayes was elected was nothing short of a great political crime. Yet after a momentary loss of temper all these good people recovered themselves, and devoted their energies to the public service with zeal and with un- diminished hope and confidence, So it was in 1896- In some respects the result was the greatest trial of the temper of the defeated party the country has ever known. The aims of the Democratic party were—not to. use the phrase offensively—in a certain sense revolutionary. They were intended to array the weak, the poor, the debtors, the unemployed, against the men who were designated as plutocrats. The failure of such an attack is sometimes almost as dangerous to society as its success. The fact that, when the American peoples had spoken at the polls upon questions which involved the highest interests of society, the decision was quietly accepted as conclusive until a new occa- sion should arise for passing upon them in the orderly American way, is most creditable to them, and a happy augury for the future."
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