Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

Such are the ideals and practical workings of the democratic principle of rotation in office, first put in practice by President Jackson and his party managers, animated by the inspiring slogan “to the victors belong the spoils.” It is difficult to imagine any system more calculated than this to establish and encourage inefficiency in public and private life. And though in consequence of the endless changes of officials in the public service, the state and community are always poorly served, the inferior party workers seldom get a turn at the good places; they are just fooled by the higher politicians who, while pretending frequently to surrender the offices, merely exchange them among themselves. Thus the masses are made to suffer all the evils of poor and dishonest public service, without even the small compensation of a fair turn at the spoils.

Vigorous efforts have been made in the past thirty years to obviate some of the mischiefs of the spoils system; especially by the application of the system of civil service examinations to nominations to public office. Under this system which is only applied to certain classified offices, the appointment is supposed to be given to the candidate who passes best in an examination prepared beforehand by a civil service board and open to all applicants. There is neither space nor fitness here for an extended discussion of the merits and weaknesses of this Civil Service Reform plan as it is called. Its one pretended merit is that it takes the appointments “out of politics” as they say, that is out of the control of the political heads of the departments. No more crushing condemnation of our political system could be imagined than is contained in these federal and state statutes which deprive our high officials of the power and privilege of the selection of many of their own subordinates, the most important function of the head of a department. That these chiefs should be furnished with advice and assistance in making appointments where numerous, would be reasonable enough; but that it should be found necessary as by this so-called remedial system is actually done, to deprive them of all choice, direct or indirect, in the selection of their subordinates indicates a shocking condition of things. It means just this that the men whom manhood suffrage puts in command are declared by statute to be unfit to be trusted.

The defects of the Civil Service Reform plan are obvious, and have been repeatedly pointed out. There are two principal ones; defects in material and weakness in organization. All experience shows that mere ability to answer questions is but slim proof of actual fitness for most employments. The minds of the successful candidates are apt to be storehouses of memory rather than factories of living ideas. The tendency of the examination system must be to emasculate the public service, to furnish it with half-hearted hirelings, destitute of initiative; routinists, who secure in their places and deprived of incentive to new achievement, gradually become mere wooden cogs in a lifeless machine. The head of such a force cannot be expected to accomplish much with men not chosen by him nor subject to his censure or removal. Such a civil service will be weak in time of prosperity, and may become intolerable in time of trouble and danger; an institution similar to the bureaucracies of continental Europe or to Charles Dickens’ “Circumlocution Office.” The late Andrew Carnegie, the great iron master, ascribed his success entirely to his tuck and wisdom in choosing his deputies. A political department is really a business organization, and to be efficient, it should have a competent head supported by a force of vigorous men of his own selection; chosen not by book examinations, but for practical capacity, all constantly guided and controlled by him, and inspired with the feeling of mutual responsibility for results. The vice of the Civil Service Reform system is that it entirely lacks the vigor and efficiency thus to be obtained.

No better proof of the hopeless desperation of the American political reformers can be offered than their willingness even to consider the establishment of this bureaucratic system among us. Bryce approves it with the approval of despair:

“Rather, they would say, interdict office holders from participation in politics; appoint them by competition, however absurd competition may sometimes appear, choose them by lot, like the Athenians and Florentines; only do not let offices be tenable at the pleasure of party chiefs and lie in the uncontrolled patronage of persons who can use them to strengthen their own political position.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 609.)

The present writer has been unable to think of anything worse to say of our present system of political appointments than this statement that it is worse than appointments by lot. Let it go at that.

This is not the only country where men are dazzled by a vision of rotation in office. The golden dream of public place as an idle refuge, to be occupied in turn by lucky politicians, with opportunity for respectable theft, is much indulged in in Cuba and the Central and South American republics, and assists in the promotion of revolutions in those countries. They feel there, that a bright and active man in a good office, ought to be able in from three to five years to steal his share, and should then be willing to retire in favor of someone else. For similar reasons, a political party should go out every few years and give the others a chance. This doctrine is accepted even by independent onlookers of those countries, who often sympathize with the hungry outs in their natural desire to get their turn at the public chest. And this is why, when President Menocal’s first Cuban term of four years expired, the opposition felt so outraged that he and his party should not be willing to rotate out of office, that a revolution would probably have supervened had it not been for the Platt Amendment. The faults of foreigners are very conspicuous in our eyes, and therefore the reader will surely agree that these foreign gangs of political adventurers, whose only thought of their country is to drain her blood, are a scurvy and contemptible lot, whose greed and lack of patriotism are abominable. As for our own professional office seekers, now planning for their next turn it is safest to say nothing; they may be our masters in a few days or months, and prudence is a profitable virtue.

CHAPTER XX

THE EFFECT OF THE OPERATION OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE HAS BEEN TO GIVE A LOWER TONE TO AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE.

There is a quality in an individual, an association of individuals, a community or a public institution, which though difficult to describe in exact terms is everywhere well recognized as something valuable and important, and is often referred to as “tone” or “style” or “distinction.” A youth who goes to college, travels, and then enters on a business career acquires in ten years a different “tone” from his homekeeping brother. It is not merely dress, or manners, or education; it is separate from all these; it produces an effort comparable to that of the toning up of a musical instrument, and applies to the man’s acts, gestures, and thoughts; giving him a different and mayhap higher place in the world and in the regard of his fellows. So we find clubs, associations, communities whose tone is higher or lower than others, and are therefore esteemed or contemned accordingly. The tone of an institution sensibly affects its character; we feel its influence and are affected by it. No one for instance, can visit the Supreme Court of the United States or West Point Academy without immediately appreciating the superior tone or atmosphere of the institution. And so the government of a nation, its public life, has a tone, an atmosphere which all the world recognizes as higher or lower in quality than that found elsewhere. The tone of the administrations of the early presidents from George Washington to John Quincy Adams, covering a period of forty years, was high; all the world recognized the fact; Americans were proud of it; it was something of a value not to be measured by dollars, nor by power or cleverness; it was a fine emanation of the lofty ambitions and high traditions of our governing class; it meant that our country was ruled and represented by gentlemen. We all somehow realize that that tone and atmosphere have vanished; they are mere memories, like the old stage coaches, knee breeches and hoopskirts of our ancestors; and now we have a low tone in almost every department of public life; in some of them it is even mean and vulgar. It is not necessary to offer proof of this statement, the fact is practically involved in much that has been already presented to the reader in this volume; it is something which everyone can confirm who has had much contact with public officials, or who is familiar with the daily current reports concerning their character and methods. The knavery that has been systematically perpetrated here, under the name of politics for the last three generations, could not possibly have gone on, without a distinct degradation of the moral and social tone of our political life. Lord Bryce though a liberal in politics has discovered that the attempt of the multitude to govern involves the danger of “A certain commonness of mind and tone, a want of dignity and elevation in and about the conduct of public affairs, and insensibility to the nobler aspects and final responsibilities of national life” and that such a tendency is more or less observable in the United States; and he adds, “The tone of public life is lower than one expects to find it in so great a nation.... In no country is the ideal side of public life, what one may venture to call the heroic element in a public career, so ignored by the mass and repudiated by the leaders. This affects not only the elevation but the independence and courage of public men; and the country suffers from the want of what we call distinction in its conspicuous force.” (Bryce, American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 583-585.) The language of this criticism is mild, in accordance with the style of the book, which is that of studied friendliness and compliment to the American people and government; but the plain truth is there, though the accents are gentle. Lord Bryce was disappointed to find a people whom he elsewhere describes in this same book as generous, high-minded and patriotic, in the political control of a lot of low politicians. The learned author, in common with some American writers, professes to be at a loss to account for this sad state of things; there has been a remarkable shutting of eyes to the sins of manhood suffrage. But it is impossible to deny that the low public tone which we have all observed and all regret came in with that institution.