In the second place, we must urge once more that the mere distribution of well-paid municipal positions to party politicians is not necessarily in itself an abuse. When, for instance, in a large city, a Republican is succeeded by a Democratic mayor, he can generally bestow a dozen well-paid and a hundred or two more modest commissions to men who have helped in the party victory. But he will be careful not to pick out those who are wholly unworthy, since that would not only compromise himself, but would damage his party and prevent its being again victorious. If he succeeds, on the other hand, in finding men who will serve the city industriously, intelligently, and ably in proportion to their pay, it is ridiculous to call the promise of such offices by way of party reward in any sense a plundering of the city, or to make it seem that the giving of positions to colleagues of one’s party is another sort of corruption.
The evils of public life and the possibility of criminal practices are not confined to legislative and executive bodies. The judiciary also has its darker side. One must believe fanatically in the people in order not to see what judicial monstrosities occasionally come out of the emphasis which is given to the jury system. The law requires that the twelve men chosen from the people to the jury must come to a unanimous decision; they are shut in a room together and discuss and discuss until all twelve finally decide for guilty or not guilty. If they are not unanimous, no verdict is given, and the whole trial has to begin over again. A single obstinate juryman, who clings to his particular ideas, is able, therefore, to outweigh the decision of the other eleven. And it is to be remembered that every criminal case is tried before a jury. The case is still worse if all twelve agree, but agree only in their prejudices. Especially in the South, but also in the West sometimes, juries return decisions which simply insult the intelligence of the country. It is true that the unfairness is generally in the direction of declaring the defendant not guilty.
The law’s delay is also exceedingly regrettable, as well as the extreme emphasis on technicalities, in consequence of which no one dares, even in the interests of justice, to ignore the slightest inaccuracy of form—a fact whose good side too, of course, no one should overlook. It is most of all regrettable that the choice of judges depends to so large an extent on politics, and that so many judicial appointments are made by popular elections and for a limited term. The trouble here is not so much that a faithful party member is often rewarded with a judicial position, since for the matter of that there are equally good barristers to be chosen from either party for vacant positions on the bench; the real evil is that during his term of office the judge cannot help having an eye to his reëlection or promotion to some higher position. This brings politics into his labours truly, and it too often happens that a ready compliance with party dictates springs up in the lower judicial positions. Only the federal and the superior state courts are entirely free from this.
In a similar way, politics sometimes play a part in the doings of the state attorney. He is subordinate to the state or federal executive, that is, to a party element which has contracted obligations of various sorts, and it may so happen that the state attorney will avoid interfering here and there in matters where a justice higher than party demands interference. Especially in the quarrels between capital and labour, one hears repeatedly that the state attorney is too lenient toward large capitalists. Then there are other evils in judicial matters arising from the unequal scientific preparation of jurists; the failing here is in the judicial logic and pregnancy of the decision.
Finally, one source which is a veritable fountain of sin against the commonwealth is the power of the party machine. We have traced out minutely how the public life of the United States demands two parties, how each of these may hope for victory only if it is compactly organized, and how such organizations need an army of more or less professional politicians. They may be in the legislature or out of it; it is their position in the party machine which gives them their tremendous powers—powers which do not derive from constitutional principles nor from law, but which are in a way intangible, and therefore the more liable to abuse.
Richard Croker has never been mayor of New York, and yet he was for a long time dictator of that city, no matter what Democratic mayor was in office, and remained dictator even from his country place in England. He ruled the municipal Democratic party machine, and therefore all the mayors and officials were merely pawns in his hands. Millions of dollars floated his way from a thousand invisible sources, all of which were somehow connected with municipal transactions; and his conscience was as elastic as his pocket-book. That is what his enemies say, while his friends allege him to be a man of honour; and nothing has really been proved against him. But at least one thing is incontestable, that the system of the party machine and the party boss makes such undemonstrable corruption possible. Almost every state legislature is in the clutches of such party mandarins, and even men who are above the suspicion of venality misuse the tempting power which is centred in their hands in the service of their personal advantage and reputation, of their sympathies and antipathies, and transform their Democratic leadership into autocracy and terrorism. In the higher sense, however, every victory which they win for their party is like the victory of Pyrrhus, for their selfish absolutism injures the party more than any advantage which it wins at the polls benefits it. Their omnipotence is, moreover, only apparent, for in reality there is a power in the land which is stronger than they, and stronger than Presidents or legislatures, and which takes care that all the dangers and evils, sins and abuses that spring up are finally thrown off without really hindering the steady course of progress. This power is public opinion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Public Opinion
We have spoken of the President and Congress, of the organization of court and state, and, above all, of the parties, in order to show the various forms in which the genius of the American nation has expressed itself. It may seem almost superfluous to recognize public opinion as a separate factor in political affairs. It is admitted that public opinion is potent in æsthetic, literary, moral, and social problems, with all of which parties and constitutions have nothing to do. But it might be supposed that when a people has surrounded itself with a network of electoral machinery, supports hundreds of thousands of representatives and officials, has perfected parties with their armies of politicians and legislatures which every year discuss and pass on thousands of laws—it might be supposed that in regard to political questions public opinion would have found its complete expression along official channels, and in a sense would have exhausted itself. Yet this is not the case. The entire political routine, with its paraphernalia, forms a closed system, which is distinct in many ways from the actual public opinion of the country.
It is indeed no easy matter to find under what conditions the will of a people can most directly express itself in the official machinery of politics. Many Germans, for instance, entertain the notion that no government is truly democratic except the cabinet be in all matters dependent on a majority in parliament; and they are astonished to learn that in democratic America Congress has no influence on the election of the highest officials; that the President, in fact, may surround himself with a cabinet quite antagonistic to the political complexion of Congress. But no American believes that politics would represent public opinion any better if this independence of the Executive and his cabinet were to be modified, say in conformity with the English or French idea. The reasons for a discrepancy between public opinion and official politics lie anyhow not in the special forms prescribed by the Constitution, but in the means by which the forms prescribed by the Constitution are practically filled by the nation. In the English Constitution, for instance, there is nothing about a cabinet; and yet the cabinet is the actual centre of English politics. American politics might keep to the letter of the Constitution, and still be the truest reflection of public opinion. That they are not such a reflection is due to the strong position of the parties. The rivalry of these encourages keen competition, in which the success of the party has now become an end in itself quite aside from the principles involved. Personal advantages to be derived from the party have become prominent in the minds of its supporters; and even where the motives are unselfish, the tactics of the party are more important than its ideals. But tactics are impossible without discipline, and a party which hopes to be victorious in defending its own interests or in opposing others’ will be no mere debating club, but a relentlessly strict and practical organization. Wherewith the control must fall to a very few party leaders, who owe their positions to professional politicians—that is, to men who for the most part stand considerably below the level of the best Americans.
The immense number of votes cast in the Presidential elections is apt to hide the facts. Millions vote for one candidate and millions for the other, without knowing perhaps that a few months before the national convention some ten or twelve party leaders, sitting at a quiet little luncheon, may have had the power to fix on the presidential candidate. And these wise foreordainings are even less conspicuous in the case of governors, senators, or representatives. Everywhere the masses believe that they alone decide, and so they do between the nominees of one party and of the other, or sometimes between several candidates within the party; but they are not aware that a more important choice is made behind the scenes before these candidates make their appearance.