Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

The foregoing instances of New York municipal scandals are more than sufficient for the purposes of this chapter. For an extended account of some of the evils and problems of American municipalities the reader is referred to Eaton on Government of Municipalities, published in 1899, and to other works herein referred to. But you cannot (says Steffens) put all the known incidents of the corruption of an American city into a book; and it is probable that a mere sketch of all the actual discovered and known American municipal frauds and malpractices committed or culpably permitted in the past eighty years would fill many large volumes. The statements of the writers hereinbefore quoted in proof of the deplorable failure of American municipal government, though necessarily general in terms are sufficient and convincing; and the specific instances herein mentioned were given not so much to sustain this undisputed general testimony as to illustrate it; and as a local map or sketch may aid a traveller to call to mind the ground traversed in past years, so here to assist the memory of the reader as to the details and quality of frauds and rascalities notorious in their time, and with the story of which he is or has been more or less familiar.

Nor will the limits of this volume permit an attempt to set forth an account however slight of the various futile efforts made from time to time to reduce the stream of municipal corruption. They have all failed because they did not reach the source of the flow. In some American cities an attempt at a qualified dictatorship has been made; instead of the election of all civic functionaries, as required by the logical application of the manhood suffrage doctrine, the plan has been adopted of electing only a mayor, for four years, and giving him the unqualified power of appointment of all other city officials. Instead of the annual election of say ten heads of bureaus, or departments, a year, making forty appeals to popular wisdom, we have thus in four years only one such call for the vox populi. This is on its face a complete admission of the failure of manhood suffrage; and in reality, this one-man system has always been adopted after some disgusting exposure of rottenness in city government had demonstrated that failure. Bryce furnishes a chapter, written by Mayor Low, a reform mayor of Brooklyn, advocating this sort of dictatorship, which was in use during his incumbency. Low says that the local city legislative bodies have almost everywhere abused their powers. This fact is notorious. Local self-government of cities by boards of aldermen, or city councils, elected by the people under the manhood suffrage system, has been productive of so many grotesque blunders, shameful wastes and robberies, beside neglect and mismanagement of city affairs, that it has been frequently thrown into the discard, and replaced by boards, commissions, superintendents and other appointive officials, as proposed by Low. But according to the manhood suffrage theory this is all wrong and the municipal legislatures chosen by the people, boards of aldermen, common councils (it used to be a joke among the young men to call them “common scoundrels”) or what not should have power to lay, collect and expend all city taxes. But every one knows that if that were done, a perfect riot of extravagance and plunder would forthwith ensue followed by insolvency, disorder, and finally anarchy. Take the City of New York for instance, where the Board of Aldermen, which is the municipal legislature, is elected by manhood suffrage, and give that body the power of governing the city which logically belongs to it upon the manhood suffrage theory, and in one month’s time, demoralization would be apparent; the police and fire departments unreliable, fire insurance rates doubled, expenses mounting upward, the air filled with political scandals, and the city’s credit stunned and languishing. Such is no doubt the opinion of probably nineteen New York business men out of twenty, based upon history, traditions, experience and observation. If manhood suffrage be right in principle, the government of cities by representatives chosen at ward or district elections would be the most successful feature of the American democracy; for all the adjuncts of a working democracy, public schools, newspapers, conferences and discussion of political questions abound in the city more than in the country; but the contrary is the case. All these advantages are offset and more by the simple fact that the controllable vote is greater in the city than in the country. As to city government by officials appointed under legislative authority, that too has always failed for the reason that it has always been corrupted by the legislative taint. Most of Tweed’s plundering was done with legislative sanction.

There is nothing in the American atmosphere nor in the American blood to prevent a pure civic administration. This appears by the actual experience of the City of Washington. In 1867 Congress established municipal government by manhood suffrage in the District of Columbia. “Under these “conditions unrestricted suffrage produced extravagance, corruption “and other incidents of bad government.” (Lalor’s Cyclopedia, Suffrage.) Result, that in 1878 Congress had to abolish elections in the District and to go back to the system which had been adopted in 1798 of a government by an appointed board of three commissioners. “Nevertheless” (says Eaton) “the City of Washington, under this new system, has “had the most economical, efficient, and respectable government “of any city in the United States.” (Government of Municipalities, p. 156.) Here the appointing power is absolutely free from the influence of the controllable vote or of any vote of the people of Washington. This instance shows clearly that the mischief in our popular system lies in the electorate itself. Meantime the people of Washington are to be congratulated that they are free from the brutality and roguery of a universal suffrage popular government.

CHAPTER XIV

BRIEF REFERENCE TO MANY NOTED DISCLOSURES OF GOVERNMENTAL CORRUPTION MOSTLY IN STATE AND FEDERAL AFFAIRS SINCE THE INSTITUTION OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE IN THE UNITED STATES.

It is an unpleasant task, that of dragging to light past records of malversation in office, and it is nearly equally unpleasant to inspect them after production; and though it be necessary for the purpose in hand to set before the reader a number of instances of such misdeeds, the tale will be condensed and shortened as much as possible, down almost to a mere enumeration of the scandals referred to. Most writers, native and foreign, who have undertaken to criticize official delinquency in this country, have been content to rely upon their readers’ general knowledge of the facts. The present writer is aware that his readers also are probably already prepared to give from memory and tradition a general assent to the accusations herein contained, but he wishes for present purposes to refresh this recollection and to fortify this tradition. After all, most of us have but a dim remembrance of even the most interesting details of past history; that is why each generation repeats the mistakes of the last one. The distinguished Spanish philosophical novelist Blasco Ibañez has been frequently heard to say that nations learn but little by their mistakes; that when disaster comes the people cry aloud in pain, anger and indignation, and make strong resolves of future amendment; but when the trouble passes they forget alike the lessons learned and the good resolutions taken. The writer earnestly desires to create in the minds of his readers such a feeling of indignation as can only arise from a clear and definite realization of the facts, and yet it is impossible to give them in detail; the volume would be too great. The scandalous instances referred to in this chapter and elsewhere in this book are but a very small part of the story of popular misgovernment in the United States under the manhood suffrage régime, and even if to them were added every other instance of official misconduct discovered or published for the period we are considering the whole would fall far short of a full measure of the mischief done, for it would amount to no more than a recital of its superficial indications and symptoms. We all know that gross but hidden corruption may long fester in the body politic, or in a public institution, unknown to the world at large, until disclosed by some flagrant display, which like a spot on the surface of an apple reveals the decay and putridity within. And so here, the whole American political system has been corrupted by the virus of the controllable vote; and these scandals are but the eruptions denoting the diseased inward condition. Besides this, the reader is asked to bear in mind that the instances here given by no means constitute a complete record; they are only a few of the most important publicly disclosed cases. No attempt was made at thorough research or investigation; only those are mentioned which are generally known, and which came readily to the writer’s memory, or appeared on a cursory examination of a few publications; whereas out of one hundred discovered, an average of but ten are publicly denounced and but one judicially convicted. Here are only the large and important, only the national and state plunder conspiracies; the misdeeds of the chiefs and masters; for each one of these there have been a hundred smaller thefts, pilferings and frauds; a thousand village, town and county knaveries. Below or attached to each chief were scores or hundreds of subordinates or followers; how many of them escaped the contagion of the evil example of their leaders and superiors? These half hundred scandals about to be set down in this chapter, properly considered, do not merely represent the trespasses of fifty individuals; they really show forth the misconduct and depravity of a class and the corruption and disgrace of an entire political system.

The Golphin claim for $43,000 was an old revolutionary claim originally made not against the United States, but against Georgia. In 1835 a politician named Crawford became attorney for the claimants on a contingent fee of one-half. In 1848 a bill authorizing its payment out of the U. S. Treasury was passed through Congress without discussion, and the claim was paid in full. In 1850, this same Crawford being Secretary of War, the Treasury Department was induced by some one to pay the claimant $191,000 for back interest in addition to the principal already paid. Of this sum Crawford received $94,000. The names of three cabinet officers were smirched by the scandal which ensued on the discovery of the facts.

A majority of the Wisconsin legislature of 1856 was bribed to vote for a valuable land grant to the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad Company. Stocks and bonds to the amount of $175,000 were distributed among thirteen senators, and $335,000 among members of the Assembly. The Governor received $50,000; his private secretary $5,000, and other officials corresponding sums all in bonds of the company. (Rhodes, III, p. 61.)

“The investigation of the scandal of the Milwaukee and La Crosse Railway Company in Wisconsin (1858) showed that about $900,000 worth of bonds had been distributed among legislators and prominent politicians in the state. Conditions like these have probably obtained in all the states at some time or other.” (Reinsch, p. 231.)

In 1857 three members of the National House of Representatives were proved guilty of corrupt practices, and resigned their seats to avoid expulsion.