This question of the pecuniary income from political sources is even by the Americans themselves seldom fairly treated. There are three possible sources of income. Firstly, the representatives of the people are directly remunerated; secondly, the politician may obtain a salaried federal, state, or municipal office; and, thirdly, he may misuse his influence or his office unlawfully to enrich himself. It is a regrettable fact that the first source of revenue attracts a goodly number into politics. It is not the case with Congress, but many a man sits in the state legislatures who is there only for the salary, while in reality the monetary allowance was never meant as an inducement but as a compensation, since otherwise many would be deterred altogether from politics. But the stipend is small and attracts no one who has capacity enough to earn more in a regular profession. It attracts, however, all kinds of forlorn and ill-starred individuals, who then scramble into local politics and do their best to bring the calling into disrepute. And yet, after all, these are so small a fraction of the politicians as to be entirely negligible. There would be much worse evils if the salaries were to be abolished. There are others who make money in criminal ways, and of course they have ample opportunity for deception, theft, and corruption in both town and country. Their case is not open to any difference of opinion. It is easy for a member of the school committee to get hold of the land on which the next school-house is to be built, and to sell it at a profit; or for a mayor to approve a street-car line which is directly for the advantage of his private associates; or for a captain of police to accept hush money from unlawful gambling houses. Everybody knows that this sort of thing is possible, and that the perpetrators can with difficulty be convicted, yet they occasionally are and then get the punishment which they deserve. But this is no more a part of the political system than the false entries of an absconding cashier are a part of banking. And even if every unproved suspicion of dishonesty were shown to be well founded, the men who so abuse their positions would be as much the exceptions as are those who enter politics for the sake of the salary. We shall return later to these excrescences.
Of the three sources of income from politics, only one remains to be considered—the non-legislative but salaried offices with which the politician may be rewarded for his pains. This is the first and surest means by which the party keeps its great and indispensable army of retainers contentedly at work. And here the familiar evils enter in which are so often held up for discussion in Germany. An American reformer, in criticizing the condition of the parties, is very apt not to distinguish between the giving out of offices to professional politicians as rewards and the later corrupt using of these offices by their incumbents. And as soon as the politician receives an income from the public treasury, the reformer will cry “stop thief.” The so-called “spoils system,” by which the federal offices in the patronage of the President are distributed to those who have worked hardest in the interests of the victorious party, will occupy our attention when we come to the political problems of the day. We shall have then to mention the advantages and disadvantages of civil service reform. But it must be said right here that, however commendable this reform movement may be in many respects, and in none more than in the increased efficiency which it has effected in the public service, nevertheless the spoils system cannot be called dishonourable, and no one should characterize professional politicians as abominable reprobates because they are willing to accept civil positions as rewards from the party for which they have laboured.
It is a usage which has nothing to do with the corrupt exploitation of office, and the German who derives from it the favourite prejudice against the political life of the United States must not suppose that he has thereby justified the German conception of office. Quite on the contrary, no one ever expects the German government to bestow offices, titles, or orders on members of the political opposition, to confirm, for instance, an independent for the position of Landrat or a social democrat for city councillor, while co-operation in the plans of the government never goes unrewarded. Above all, a German never looks on his official salary as a sort of present taken from the public treasury, but as the ordinary equivalent of the work which he does, while the American has a curious conception of the matter quite foreign to the German, which is the ground for his contempt of the “spoils system.” To illustrate by a short example: a state attorney who had been elected to the same office time after time, was asked to renew his candidacy at the coming elections. But he declined to do so, and explained that he had been supported for twenty years out of the public funds, and that it was therefore high time for him to earn his own living by the ordinary practice of law. A German cannot understand this conception, traditional though it is in America, but he can easily see that the man who shares such views as to public salaries will naturally consider it an act of plunder when the party in power distributes the best public posts to its own followers.
The case would be somewhat different if the politicians who step into offices were essentially incapable or indolent, though this is aside from the principle in question. Germans have recently become used to seeing a general or a merchant become minister. In America it is a matter of course that a capable man is qualified, with the aid of technically trained subordinates, for any office. And no one denies that politicians make industrious office-holders. And yet the same remarkable charge is always made, that the holder of an office receives a gift from the public chest.
These considerations are not meant as an argument against civil service reform, which is supported by the best men of both parties, although they are not exactly the most zealous party “heelers.” But the superficial assertion must be refuted, that the spoils system shows lack of morality in party politics. No unprejudiced observer would find anything improper in the attitude of those who endure the thankless and arduous labours imposed by the party for the sake of a profitable position in the government service. It would be equally just to reproach the German official with lack of character because he rises to a high position in the service of the government. If this were the true idea, Grover Cleveland, who has done more than any other president for the cause of civil service reform, could be said actually to have favored the spoils system. In an admirable essay on the independence of the executive, he says:—
“I have no sympathy with the intolerant people who, without the least appreciation of the meaning of party work and service, superciliously affect to despise all those who apply for office as they would those guilty of a flagrant misdemeanor. It will indeed be a happy day when the ascendancy of party principles and the attainment of wholesome administration will be universally regarded as sufficient rewards of individual and legitimate party service.... In the meantime why should we indiscriminately hate those who seek office? They may not have entirely emancipated themselves from the belief that the offices should pass with party victory, but in all other respects they are in many instances as honest, as capable, and as intelligent as any of us.”
There are such strong arguments for separating public office from the service of party, that every reformer is amply justified if on his native soil he stigmatizes the present usage as corrupt. But the representation that all professional politicians are despicable scamps because they work for their party in the hope of being preferred for public office, is unjust and misleading when it is spread abroad in other countries. Abuses there are, to be sure, and the situation is such as to attract swarms of worthless persons. It is true, moreover, that even in the higher strata of professional politics there is usually less of broad-minded statesmanship than of ingenious compromise and clever exploitation of the opposing party’s weaknesses and of popular whims and prejudices. Petty methods are often more successful than enlightened ones, and cunning men have better chances than those who are more high-minded. In the lower strata, moreover, where it is important to cajole the voting masses into the party fold, it may be inevitable that men undertake and are rewarded for very questionable services. Nevertheless the association of party and office is not intrinsically improper.
In the same category of unjust reproaches, finally, belongs the talk over the money paid into the party treasury. It is, of course, true that the elections both great and small eat up vast sums of money; the mountains of election pamphlets, the special trains for candidates who journey from place to place in order to harangue the people at every rural railway station, from the platform of the coach—Roosevelt is said at the last election in this way to have addressed three million persons—the banquet-halls and bands of music, and the thousand other requisites of the contest are not to be had for nothing. It is taken as a matter of course that the supporters of the party are taxed, and of course just those will be apt to contribute who look for further material benefit in case of victory; it is also expected that, of course, the larger industries will help the propaganda of the high-tariff party, that the silver mine owners will generously support bimetallism, and that the beer brewers will furnish funds when it is a question between them and the Prohibitionists. But in the endeavour to hurt the opposing party some persons make such contributions a ground of despicable slander. Any one who considers the matter really without prejudice will see not only that the American party politics are a necessary institution, but also that they are infinitely cleaner and better than the European newspaper reader will ever be inclined to believe.
CHAPTER THREE
The President
The President of the United States is elected by the people every four years. He may be re-elected and, so far as the Constitution provides, he may hold the first position in the land for life, by terms always of four years at a time. A certain unwritten law, however, forbids his holding office for more than two terms. George Washington was elected for two terms, and after him Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley; that is, nine out of twenty presidents have received this distinction. No president has served a third term of office, because since Washington declined to be nominated for a third time the conservative sense of the Americans has cherished the doctrine that no man should stand at the helm of the nation longer than eight years.