“Well, I’m just back from the Philippines. I understand them, and thought I’d talk mostly about them.”
Roosevelt threw up his hands. “What in the world are you thinking of? You cannot interest the American public at election-time in the Philippines.”
“If you don’t think they’ll want to hear about the Philippines, what do you suggest they would like to hear about?”
“My currency measures,” said the President. “Talk to them about my currency measures. That’s what they’re interested in.”
So the candidate disregarded what he had written and composed a new set of speeches expounding Roosevelt’s ideas on the currency.
Nevertheless, Taft, as history soon demonstrated, did not recognize the Colonel as his boss. He undoubtedly felt sincere friendship for Roosevelt and was grateful to him, but he had a still stronger appreciation of the responsibilities of his office. Consequently, there soon came about a conflict between Roosevelt’s adherents and Taft’s, in which the machine leaders, having got together the pieces of the broken Hanna oligarchy, aligned themselves with the new President.
What followed is still fresh in the memory of most of us. Senator Penrose, of Pennsylvania, gradually assumed leadership of the national machine; the Senate oligarchy was again in control of the Republican Party. Assured in 1912 that if Roosevelt reëntered the White House he would construct an organization that would be the death of theirs, they fought the most desperate of all fights—the fight for self-preservation. They triumphed; the Colonel resented his defeat and bolted the Party. It is one of the absolute principles of machine politics that the welfare of the machine comes before everything else. It is not necessary to be in office; a boss is often stronger when in opposition, with fewer followers discontented through failure to receive a portion of the spoils of victory; better keep the machine intact and court defeat than win a national election for a party candidate that the machine cannot control. These were the maxims that were applied by both of the rival organizations within the Republican fold—the “regular” Republicans and the Progressives—in 1912; together they polled over 7,600,000 as against the 6,293,000 Democratic ballots; but each considered its organization more important than its candidate. The world can, I think, be grateful: the result was Wilson.
From 1912 onward the Republican senatorial oligarchy mended its fences and repaired its machine. With Penrose for the directing mind, this group included Lodge, Knox, Brandegee, Frelinghuysen, Watson of Indiana, Moses, Spencer, Hale, and Wadsworth. Some of these were bosses in their own states; all were influential with their state bosses. Roosevelt they could not ignore, but, when he died, in 1919, they were left absolutely free-handed, and their National Chairman, Will H. Hays, originally a man of Progressive tendencies, had successfully employed his great talents as an organizer in healing the wounds of the internecine struggle of 1912. They nominated Senator Harding, and he was elected.
What has occurred since is important in this connection only as a side-light on my general contention. President Harding knew the senatorial ramifications from within; he understood the conflict of personal ambitions that, human nature being what it is, went on behind the general community of interest in the Senate group. His position was strengthened by the long illness and subsequent death of Penrose and he could, and did, manipulate these personal ambitions, playing one against the other until he secured a practical stalemate. By this evolution of events President Harding has been relieved of the odium of being controlled by a senatorial oligarchy.
If I have elaborated my observations at some length, it is to show why I am a foe to machine politics. This evil, which can reach as high as Washington, has its roots in the city election precinct. The district leader holds his power either through dispensing minor patronage or by influence with magistrates and political clubs, and, to do this, he must retain the favour of the city boss. This gives the latter a thoroughly organized army that includes even a quasi spy system, and at the same time confers a power unshakeable by anything short of an overt criminal act. Personal criticism of the boss, ostracizing him from the better sort of society, does not help matters, does not harm him. He is content with holding what he has won; the thing to be attacked is not the individual; it is the system, and, in combating that, the serious and practically unchangeable difficulty consists in the fact that very few, if any, self-respecting, high-class men will submit to being bossed. They will not take orders from Crokers or Penroses, Hannas or Murphys; therefore, they enter fields where the final arbiters, the men who have to decide upon their worth and promotion, are of a different calibre, and where the reward for their efforts and work is not dependent upon the whims and fancies of a political boss.