Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

If the reader will peruse the list of measures passed or considered by Congress or his state legislature for the current year, he will perhaps be able to judge whether his representative in Washington or in the state capital is competent to deal with such matters. Not one in a hundred is fit for the job. For most of the subjects of legislation the average public representative has had no previous training whatever. And if after long service he happens to become proficient in any of them, the chances are that he will be sent back to private life by the vote of a manhood suffrage constituency under orders of the district boss. As a consequence it is well known that the legislative output is and has been for generations past very inferior indeed. The abuse of state legislation is dealt with elsewhere in this volume; it is so notorious that it needs no proof, and is so vast that its complete discussion is far beyond the compass of this work. The reader experienced in politics is probably well aware that Ostrogorski is right, in his brief summary (p. 374): “The laws are made with singular incompetence and carelessness. Their number is excessive, running into volumes each session; but they are mostly laws of local or private interest. The motives which enter into the making of these laws are often of an obviously mercenary nature.” (Democracy.)

Before the German war the state legislative output in the United States was about fifteen thousand enactments per year, of which about one-third were public or general laws and the remaining two-thirds special and local statutes. This year it is probably greater. In a recent single session of Congress upwards of twenty thousand bills and resolutions were introduced, of which about five thousand were passed, including nearly two thousand public or general laws. Probably nine-tenths of this legislation is unnecessary and a large part of it is undoubtedly vicious.

The just resentment of America’s business men is being constantly voiced at the manner in which business interests are being flouted by the doctrinaires and demagogues to whom our political system entrusts the reins of government. The following extracts from the address of Otto H. Kahn, before referred to, will serve to illustrate some phases of this attitude of business towards politics:

“A somewhat similar case is the railroad legislation which Congress enacted under the Taft administration. That legislation represented the tearing to shreds and the subsequent recasting, patching up and ill-devised piecing together by Congress of a carefully thought out, though, in my opinion, by no means faultless measure, which had been introduced with the backing of the Administration. You all know the result. The spirit of enterprise in railroading was killed. Subjected to an obsolete and incongruous national policy, hampered, confined, harassed by incessant, minute, narrow, multifarious and sometimes contradictory regulations, that great industry began to fall away. Initiative on the part of those in charge became chilled, the free flow of investment of capital was halted, creative activity was stopped, growth was stifled, credit was crippled....”

“What we business men protest against is ignorance, shallow thought or doctrinairism assuming the place belonging to expert opinion and tested practical ability. We protest against sophomorism rampant, strutting about in the cloak of superior knowledge, mischievously and noisily, to the disturbance of quiet and orderly mental processes and sane progress. We protest against sentimental, unseasoned, intolerant and cocksure ‘advanced thinkers’ being given leave to set the world by the ears and with their strident and ceaseless voices to drown the views of those who are too busy doing to indulge in much talking. And finally do we protest against demagogism, envy and prejudice, camouflaging under the flag of war necessity and social justice in order to wage a campaign through inflammatory appeal, misstatement and specious reasoning to punish success, despoil capital and harass business.”

And further on:

“We deny the suggestion that patriotism, virtue and knowledge reside primarily with those who have been unsuccessful, those who have no practical experience of business, or, be it said with all respect, with those who are politicians or office holders.”

This remonstrance of Mr. Kahn is but a sample which might be multiplied by the hundreds. It is typical of a constant stream of complaints which business men in all parts of the country are continually uttering. The universal testimony of our merchants, manufacturers and financiers is that neither at the federal or state capitols do they find men either capable of understanding the rules and operations of business or willing to study them, or interested in the business prosperity of the people. If the reader will but examine a list of members of any legislative body he will understand the cause of this deplorable situation. Let him study the names of the delegation at present representing in the state legislature the immense interests of the City of New York, her commerce, manufactures, wealth and population. She ought to be represented there by the class of honorable and successful active or retired merchants; financiers of high standing; manufacturers of note and ability and leaders in the professions; by publicists; scholars, and men of the first prominence in labor organizations; to be or to have been a member of a state legislature should be a badge of honor. On that list he will probably find not one name known outside the ranks of petty ward politicians; and men of the high character above described would feel it as a stigma to have it said that they had served in a legislative body.

Next, as to the judiciary. It is the property of evil to spread, and it is one of the curses of the manhood suffrage system, that not content with control of the legislature which is properly elective, it seizes upon and degrades the judicial and administrative branches of government which are both naturally appointive. Its effect upon the judicial bench has been necessarily bad, frequently covering the ermine with the mire of politics. During the period from 1865 to 1873 so many of the judges sitting in New York City were notoriously unfit and corrupt, that their doings furnished material for a great scandal. The state supreme court judges, elected by manhood suffrage, were the most conspicuous sinners, but many of the inferior judges, including those appointed by a manhood suffrage mayor, were equally unworthy. Bryce visited one of those courts, probably about 1870, and this is what he saw:

“An ill-omened looking man, flashily dressed and rude in demeanor, was sitting behind a table; two men in front were addressing him; the rest of the room was given up to disorder. Had one not been told that he was a judge of the highest court of the city, one might have taken him for a criminal. His jurisdiction was unlimited in amount, and though an appeal lay from him to the Court of Appeals of the State, his power to issue injunctions put all the property in the district at his mercy.”