Meantime the politicians, not content with the original operation of manhood suffrage on the spoils of office, have bethought them of adding to the fruits of these operations by increasing still further the number of elective offices. It has been easy to persuade to this move many of that small number of intelligent voters who trouble themselves about such matters. The pretence of extending the sway of democracy and liberty which has always been used to cover schemes of public plunder was found sufficient once more. On this pretence the administrative and judicial offices of various states were made elective instead of appointive as formerly. As Ostrogorski says (Idem, p. 25):
“The democratic impulse which carried Jackson into power had forced the way, in the constitutional sphere, for two important changes: the introduction of universal suffrage, and the very considerable extension of the elective principle to public offices,”
Under this system which still obtains in many states, scores of state, county and municipal offices are offered at every election to the choice of the mass of electors who on approaching the polls find themselves called on to select in addition to the members of the state legislature and Congress and state governors, a dozen or a score of administrative officials and judges. Sometimes they are invited to vote for an attorney-general, a state engineer and surveyor, a state treasurer, a state comptroller, half a dozen judges and justices, a district attorney, a sheriff, a mayor, a city treasurer, a couple of coroners, besides a governor, a state senator, and assemblymen and aldermen, say twenty in all. Sometimes as at an election in St. Louis, the list contains thirteen city officials to be elected, besides state officers and congressmen. In the cities of Ohio it sometimes includes an average of twenty-two officers at each yearly election. In a small town near New York there are about fifteen local offices to be filled at an election besides a dozen or two state and federal offices and so on throughout the Union. “Let the people rule,” say the politicians, because when the people attempt to rule by choosing administrative officials, it is really the politicians who make the choice. It is doubtful if there ever was a voter, even a professional politician, who was sufficiently well acquainted with each of the candidates on such a ticket and with his duties to enable him to decide intelligently upon his merits as compared with his rivals. Certainly not one in a hundred is competent to do so. Remember, too, that the voter has no real choice in the original selection of these candidates; that they are all chosen before the election by party managers in secret conclave, and forced through the primaries by the power of the machine; that if the voter rejects one rogue or incapable whom he happens to know or has heard of, he can do no more after all than to vote for the other party candidate who is quite likely to be likewise of the same evil stripe. The reader can see that manhood suffrage applied in this way is an infallible method of making easy and safe the selection of incompetent rascals for public office. For what the voter usually does in such case is to vote the whole party ticket, rogues, fools and all, realizing that if he fails to do so the rival set of scamps and incompetents will be the sole gainers.
Subsequent to 1850 and by degrees the army of American politicians became more and more skilled and specialized in their craft; they became highly organized and disciplined; having leaders, officers, rules and traditions. Men went into politics in youth as a profession, grew old and rich in its practice, and trained up their deputies and successors. The political leader became known as the Boss; a group of Bosses as a Ring; a combination of Rings as the Machine whose power is sometimes irresistible. Especially after the Civil War (1865) the power of the bosses increased, and they habitually after that time distributed nominations, collected assessments, and gave orders to state legislatures. The system thus perfected has continued to the present day and is everywhere working smoothly. The American people have now practically ceased resistance to the bosses. In a letter addressed to Francis A. Walker signed by William Cullen Bryant, Carl Schurz and others, dated April 6, 1876, reference is made to “the widespread corruption in our public servants which has disgraced the republic in the eyes of the world and threatens to poison the vitality of our institutions.” On March 31, 1876, Schurz writes to Bristow: “We have been so deeply disgraced in the estimation of mankind by the exposures of corruption in our public servants, and the faith of many of our people in our institutions has been so dangerously shaken.” David Dudley Field of New York, writing in 1877, says:
“The corruption of American politics is a phrase in everybody’s mouth, not only in this country, but in others.... We see offices claimed and bestowed not for merit but for party work, and as a natural consequence we see the public service inefficient and disordered. We see venal legislatures and executive officers receiving gifts.... We see legislatures, state and federal, guaranteeing monopolies to corporations and individuals, making gifts of the public lands and bestowing subsidies from the public treasury; we see the plunder of local communities by what is called local taxation, and we see demagogues clamoring for largesses under pretense, perhaps, of equalizing bounties, or other equally dishonest pretenses.... The condition of our civil service is a scandal to the country.... Taking the country together two-thirds of the present official force would do all the work needed and do it better than it is now done.”
And proceeding, he spoke of politics as then pursued as a branch of business, and the office holders as a band of mercenaries who were the supporters of misgovernment. (Corruption in Politics; International Review, Jan., 1877.)
Physicians tell us that from a source of disease, however small and obscure, a disordered tooth for instance, an infection may spread through the body until despite its apparent vigor, it in undermined and finally destroyed. The corruption begun in the electorate, has spread beyond the political system and has reached and invaded business life. This progress is so easy to trace that every business man in the country is familiar with it. Political leaders and bosses are purchasable and so are often machine-made legislators. Hence the two-fold evil, on the one hand the bribery of legislators and public officials, and on the other, threats and acts of oppression by the latter so as to compel business to pay tribute. These practices are so notorious and instances of them are so familiar, many of them referred to in this volume, that at this point it is sufficient to call attention to their frequency and extent. Again quoting Bryce:
“In the United States the money power acts by corrupting sometimes the voter, sometimes the juror, sometimes the legislator, sometimes a whole party; for large subscriptions and promises of political support have been known to influence a party to procure or refrain from such legislation as wealth desires or fears. The rich, it is but fair to say, and especially great corporations, have not only enterprises to promote but dangers to escape from at the hands of unscrupulous demagogues or legislators.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 614.)
In 1889 George William Curtis, referring to the United States, approvingly quoted the saying of a United States Senator made in 1876 that “the only product of her institutions in which she surpassed all others beyond question was her corruption.” In 1890 he said that political corruption “has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished.” In 1891 Curtis said that “corruption in our politics was never felt to be so general, so vast and penetrating, as during the last quarter of a century.” In the Omaha Populist platform of 1892, it was declared that:
“We are meeting in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the Legislators, the Congress and touches even the ermine of the bench. People are demoralized.... The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes.... From the same prolific womb of political justice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.”