A low tone is the sign and indication of low ideals, which dwelling with and in a man or institution influence his or its thought, act and self manifestation. The ideals of cheap and common men, and of those who live by catering to them, are alike cheap and common. There is a politics which consists of a study of principles applied to government; in that pursuit the ideals are necessarily lofty; it was their presence which gave the tone to the administrations of the first six presidents. There is a politics which consists in a systematic pursuit of jobs and places; it is that which has mainly characterized the administrations from Jackson downwards. The resultant loss to the nation is additional to that caused by the waste, inefficiency, mismanagement and political despotism already described; and though this lowering of tone is of course implied in the decline of political morals heretofore discussed, it yet constitutes a separate and additional public misfortune. We can imagine a moral descent without a corresponding falling off in outward behavior, as in the French Court of Louis XV; but in our country, the two declines have been contemporaneous. Much will have to be done before this can be corrected, but one remedy is absolutely essential, and that is the elevation and perfection of the electorate. The degradation of the tone and destruction of the old-time dignity of American political life which we all so much deplore is the work of manhood suffrage, immediately followed it, belongs to it and is inseparable from it. If we would restore tone and dignity to our politics we must begin with the electorate; we must create a body of unpurchasable voters; men who have shown that they are free from the ordinary temptations of corrupt politics by earning a good living in other ways which they have preferred to politics; men pecuniarily independent, who have a stake in the country; something, nay much to lose, and nothing to gain by misgovernment; men, therefore, whose ideals in government matters are purity and efficiency. By that class of prosperous middle class men, high ideals may be and always have been adopted; they are of the proper combination of energy, capacity and independence. It is impossible for most men to cultivate lofty ideals when they are hourly struggling for a mere subsistence; one cannot think philosophically when he is in actual need, nor when in danger of being in need. No part of the burden of government should be put upon such shoulders as those of the needy class, the residuum, the derelicts, the pecuniarily unfortunates or incapables of our civilization. We can only elevate our political tone to the level of the time of Washington and John Quincy Adams by elevating our electorate to the plane which it occupied when it selected them and others of their type to represent it in the high places of government. CHAPTER XXI