It must not be imagined that any part of the general public clearly understands this situation. The state of mind of the Better Element of the Republican side has been seen. The good Democrats are equally distressed. The distinguished citizen ardently desires to oust the Republican ring. He subscribes year after year to the campaign fund of his own party, and declares that the defalcation of the town treasurer has given it the opportunity of a generation. The Democratic organization takes his money and accepts his moral support, and uses it to build up one end of the machine. It cries, “Reform! Reform! Give us back the principles of Jefferson and of Tilden!”
The Boss-out-of-Power must welcome all popular movements. He must sometimes accept a candidate from a citizens’ committee, sometimes refuse to do so. He must spread his mainsail to the national party wind of the moment. His immense advantage is an intellectual one. He alone knows the principles of the game. He alone sees that the power of the bosses comes from party loyalty. Croker recently stated his case frankly thus: “A man who would desert his party would desert his country.”
It may be remarked, in passing, that New York city reached the Happy Family stage many years ago. Tammany Hall is in power, being maintained there by the great mercantile interests. The Republican party is out of power, and its organization is kept going by the same interests. It has always been the ear-mark of an enterprise of the first financial magnitude in New York that it subscribed to both campaign funds. The Republican function has been to prevent any one from disturbing Tammany Hall. This has not been difficult; the Republicans have always been in a hopeless minority, and the machine managers have understood this perfectly. Now if, by the simple plan of denouncing Tammany Hall, and appealing to the war record of the Republican party, they could minimize the independent vote and hold their own constituency, Tammany would be safe. The matter is actually more complex than this, but the principle is obvious.
To return to our country town. It is easy to see that the railroad is pouring out its money in the systematic corruption of the entire community. Even the offices with which it has no contact will be affected by this corruption. Men put in office because they are tools will work as tools only. Voters once bribed will thereafter vote for money only. The subscribing and the voting classes, whose state of mind is outlined above, are not purely mercenary. The retired grocer, the florist, the druggist, are all influenced by mixed motives, in which personal interest bears a greater or a smaller share. Each of these men belongs to a party, as a Brahmin is born into a caste. His spirit must suffer an agony of conversion before he can get free, even if he is poor. If he has property, he must pay for that conversion by the loss of money, also.
Since 1865 the towns throughout the United States have been passing through this stage. A ring was likely to spring up wherever there was available capital. We hear a great talk about the failure of our institutions as applied to cities, as if it were our incapacity to deal with masses of people and with the problems of city expansion that wrecked us. It is nothing of the sort. There is intellect and business capacity enough in the country to run the Chinese Empire like clockwork. Philosophers state broadly that our people “prefer to live in towns,” and cite the rush to the cities during the last thirty years. The truth is that the exploitation of the continent could be done most conveniently by the assembling of business men in towns; and hence it is that the worst rings are found in the larger cities. But there are rings everywhere; and wherever you see one you will find a factory behind it. If the population had remained scattered, commerce would have pursued substantially the same course. We should have had the rings just the same. It is perfectly true that the wonderful and scientific concentration of business that we have seen in the past thirty years gave the chance for the wonderful and scientific concentration of its control over politics. The state machine could be constructed easily, by consolidating local rings of the same party name.
The boss par excellence is a state boss. He is a comparatively recent development. He could exist only in a society which had long been preparing for him. He could operate only in a society where almost every class and almost every individual was in a certain sense corrupted. The exact moment of his omnipotence in the State of New York, for instance, was recorded by the actions of the State legislature. Less than ten years ago, the bribing of the legislature was done piecemeal and at Albany; and the great corporations of the State were accustomed to keep separate attorneys in the capitol, ready for any emergency. But the economy of having the legislature corrupted before election soon became apparent. If the party organizations could furnish a man with whom the corporation managers could contract directly, they and their directors could sleep at night. The state boss sprang into existence to meet this need. He is a commercial agent, like his little local prototype; but the scope of his activities is so great and their directions are so various, the forces that he deals with are so complex and his mastery over them is so complete, that a kind of mystery envelops him. He appears in the newspapers like a demon of unaccountable power. He is the man who gives his attention to aiding in the election of the candidates for state office, and to retaining his hold upon them after election. His knowledge of local politics all over a State, and the handling of the very large sums of money subscribed by sundry promoters and corporations, explain the miracle of his control.
The government of a State is no more than a town government over a wide area. The methods of bribery which work certain general results in a town will work similar results in a State. But the scale of operations is vastly greater. The State-controlled businesses, such as banking, insurance, and the State public works, and the liquor traffic, involve the expenditure of enormous sums of money.
The effect of commercialism on politics is best seen in the state System. The manner of nominating candidates shows how easily the major force in a community makes use of its old customs.
The American plan of party government provides for primaries, caucuses, and town, county, and State conventions. It was devised on political principles, and was intended to be a means of working out the will of the majority, by a gradual delegation of power from bottom to top. The exigencies of commerce required that this machinery should be made to work backwards,—namely, from top to bottom. It was absolutely necessary for commerce to have a political dictator; and this was found to be perfectly easy. Every form and process of nomination is gravely gone through with, the dictator merely standing by and designating the officers and committee-men at every step. There is something positively Egyptian in the formalism that has been kept up in practice, and in the state of mind of men who are satisfied with the procedure.