Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

We must not allow ourselves to be lulled into indifference by surface politicians who offer delusive hopes of substantial reform by flimsy measures which deal with symptoms leaving the electorate unswept and ungarnished to continue as the breeding place of the malady. Mr. Bryce, for instance, who is very shy of criticising manhood suffrage, likes to indulge in optimistic imaginings. He says:

“If the path to Congress and the State legislatures and the higher municipal offices were cleared of the stumbling-blocks and dirt heaps which now encumber it, cunningly placed there by the professional politicians, a great change would soon pass upon the composition of legislative bodies, and a new spirit be felt in the management of State and municipal as well as of national affairs.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 75.)

It has also been stated that if the sky would fall we would catch larks. As Shakespeare says, “There is great value in your ‘If.’” The principal “dirt heap,” cunningly placed in the path by the professional politicians is the controllable vote; but Bryce, himself a politician belonging to a “Liberal” party, is very careful to shut his eyes every time he smells that particular dirt heap. But we Americans may as well, and if we desire results, we must, realize that the political oligarchies are irresistible under the present suffrage system; that they have never been defeated in the United States; that their organizations backed by the revenue derived from fat frying, contributions, blackmail, protection money, official fees and perquisites and the sale of offices and appointments have always been found in practice sufficiently strong not merely to hold their own against the public, but to prevent the possibility of any serious attempt to unseat the machine politicians as the masters of the country. In point of fact the rule of the machine politicians is practically unquestioned; and the battles at the polls are and for generations have actually been conflicts between two political machines, between two rival bands of political leaders and their followers, in which the public interest was only indirect. The citizens have the option, of course, either of falling in the rear of one of the political bands and helping swell its numbers and secure its triumph or of remaining aloof; the result in either case will be victory for the politicians on one side or the other.

Not only do the political oligarchies win at the polls by discipline and organization, but they gather strength by the adoption of popular fads and fancies. For example, if some fanatics start an agitation for special reform legislation so-called, the organization may determine to favor it as a means for creating new public offices and patronage for the faithful, and so on. The condition of a community or state desiring to have some notion put into legal effect would be pitiable without the aid of the party organizations. Most of the American people have no clear idea of the working of political machinery; and when they want anything done in politics they are apt to run to the very politicians they habitually denounce. In this way astute political leaders learn the course of the popular currents and can act accordingly, cunningly adjusting selfish motives, taking up popular cries and adding strength and prestige to the plunder bund. They have no principles that stand in the way of their espousing any cause. Is the war feeling rampant or can it be readily developed and made available? The politicians begin yelling for war and waving the banner. Is woman suffrage popular or can it be profitably used? We have a female suffrage plank forthwith put in the party platform by men not one of whom has the slightest belief in it. All this however is conditioned on the proviso that nothing be put forward against the interests of organized politics, for the politicians do not govern by yielding or catering to majorities, but by means of permanent organizations which gather in, build up, compel and control majorities. The organizations also get power by forming public opinion to suit their purposes. Their managers are not concerned in abstract or sentimental questions; but where their interests appear to be involved they are apt to intervene either to create issues or to mould public opinion or to give it a favorable twist in their direction.

Each political body controlled by one of these oligarchies has a moving force far beyond that of the sum of its individual members. The old conception of a constituency composed of voters who each spontaneously forms his individual opinion on all live political questions and expresses it at the polls by his vote was of village origin; applicable at most and only partially to small communities. In all cities and towns of over ten thousand inhabitants the citizen is seldom able to form his own opinion unaided even on matters of local politics. He is not familiar with the city budget, nor with its health conditions, nor with its public works, nor its administration generally; nor with its needs or its program for the ensuing year; nor is he usually personally acquainted with its officials. The larger the city the less each individual knows of its affairs. As to State matters the knowledge of the ordinary voter seldom goes beyond the name and politics of the governor and of the local members of the legislature. The citizen therefore usually needs someone to furnish him his opinions ready made. Indeed, beliefs political or other are seldom spontaneously created in the human mind; they are usually injected into it; and the ordinary citizen receives from without nearly all his opinions on matters not pertaining to his household or his business. Now, the rival organizations in order to catch the Independents, usually a conceited and gullible element, find it convenient to manufacture “political issues”; some trivial, empty controversy is started, often of a personal nature; the politician gives the cue to the newspapers, the papers pass on the tale to the reader, and there you have so-called public opinion. In this way was an opinion fabricated which helped elect Jackson to the presidency; he was wafted into the White House on the wind of lies invented for the purpose, and the process has been constantly repeated ever since. Therefore, the managers of these corrupt political organizations are able through them to materially influence the more honest and intelligent majorities by furnishing them ready-made opinions, which for lack of better they are compelled to adopt.

To resume: this is the situation. The independent vote being divided by honest and therefore shifting opinion, is not and never can be permanently organized. The controllable vote can be and is permanently organized on the basis of cupidity; and its organization is such that it not only controls the entire election machinery but is able to create, manage and use for its own purposes a considerable share of the public opinion of the country.

Thus it is that the politicians are firmly intrenched in power. And what is the extent and character of that power? Is it limited either in extent or by responsibility to the people? Neither. Within the limits of the state and federal constitutions the power of the political oligarchies is absolute and uncontrolled except so far as one political organization chooses to oppose or to interfere with the other. It is part of the common talk of the careless optimists among us and of the constant prattle of the newspapers that the people rule when they choose to do so; that the overwhelming majority are wise and good people, and that when they “rise in their might” they can and will set all things straight. The newspapers for their own purposes assist the illusion of popular choice at elections, and print declamatory rubbish of this sort to flatter their readers and to keep up their interest in the political game so that they will continue buying the papers. This claptrap has a mischievous effect, for it tends to prevent the people from realizing their real situation. The picture, were it a true one, of a community, relieving its ordinary dull submission to misgovernment and plunder by occasional bursts of rage is far from flattering to the electorate; but the facts are even worse; for the public never does “rise in its might” to overthrow its ruling oligarchy. It merely changes, or pretends to change one ruling band or machine for another. Nor do the politicians usually cater to the public, nor do they need to do so nearly as much as some of us fondly imagine. The common talk about our office holders being public servants is cant and humbug. The prevalent popular conceit that the politicians as a class need public support, and must and do defer to the public in order to exist, lacks support in the facts, though it derives some color from the appeals frequently made to the electorate for votes by parties or political machines. For though the voter always has a choice between two or more candidates, he is never permitted to go outside of the ranks of the political oligarchy, which exists and flourishes despite popular criticism and dislike.

Most of the office holders are practically independent of the people. In the cities especially, they occupy salaried places, obtained by the use of back stairs or secret influence. They could of course be ousted by a united public demand, but such demand as that is in most cases inconceivable and will never be made; no one but the politicians know these men, or have in mind the particulars of their duties and appointments: and none but politicians would have the patience or skill to manage a public movement to oust them. As a matter of fact few of them ever are finally expelled from political life; they are merely transferred from time to time from one job to another. To one who knows, it is often pathetically ludicrous to hear a voter incensed by the tyranny or incapacity of some office holder threaten to withhold his vote from him “next time.” The irate citizen will probably forget all about “next time,” or will never hear of its having arrived; or the next office will be an appointive one, higher up. Even if he do carry out his threat it will be like putting a straw down in an elephant’s path; the question whether the object of his wrath will go on the ticket will be decided not as the result of a public discussion, but of a secret conference, and whether elected or defeated, the majorities will be mostly composed of myriads of voters who have blindly obeyed the will of the machine and scarcely noticed the name of the candidate. The protest of the individual voter if too much emphasized, is most likely to injure himself. Even a great daily city newspaper usually finds it a hopeless task to attempt to down the machine or its candidates; indeed, the latter have been known to triumph over four or five dailies united. Sometimes an office holder is detected in a scandalous transaction and the machine deems it prudent to temporarily retire him; but if his dirty work was done for the organization’s behoof and benefit, he may soon be seen occupying a still higher appointive office, or placed on the state or county ticket at a presidential election and voted into power by an immense self-satisfied and innocent majority of the very people who a year or two ago condemned him mercilessly, and who in the meantime have actually forgotten his name.

This situation should be clearly understood, because there are in this country millions of people so blind, ignorant or innocent as to imagine that the public at large are really participants in the whole business of politics and government when in fact they have no share in it whatever. Let the reader who doubts this statement attempt to interfere as an amateur in politics. He will find it impossible to do so and that he cannot interpose with any, even the slightest effect except by himself joining one of the political gangs or parties, becoming one with them, submitting to their rules and methods and aiding in their schemes to purchase and manage the controllable vote. To the ordinary voter, and to the mass of millions of voters, to that populace which foolishly believes itself the ruler of the nation it is forbidden even to know what politicians intend or are doing. Each voter may meekly attend at the polls and ratify what one machine or the other has already determined on, but there he must stop. If he attempts to do more, to protest or to air his opinions he will be ignored; and if he persist he will be treated with the scorn and contempt due to a meddling fool.

The fact of the absolute control of our government by a political oligarchy has been frequently recognized and commented upon. Here, for instance, by a recent writer who favors the principle of a property qualification: