Corruption in American politics and life

by Robert C. Brooks

Contemplation of the general evils which may result from corruption suggests the possibility of eliminating it from social life. While such a condition of affairs may be looked upon as an ideal, it will nevertheless remain an ultimate ideal which can be approximated rather than realised, and that only by the most patient, determined, and continued effort. Every social organisation, as we have seen, presupposes the subordination in some measure of personal to broader interests. But no matter how far social integration is carried, and social duty correspondingly emphasised, there will always remain a field for individual effort. Absolute communism in which the state shall be everything and the individual nothing is unthinkable. Even where the individual as such is but little regarded, he will remain a member of small social groups, as e.g., the family or business corporation, the interests of which are almost if not quite as close to him as the interests of his naked ego. The lines bounding the two great fields of individual interest and social interest are variously drawn in different countries and at different times. No doubt they will be redrawn in the future, probably greatly to the extension of social functions if one may judge from the present drift. Always, however, the two great fields will remain, and the best results in each will depend partly upon the activities of the other. In the main these activities do not conflict, indeed they strongly reinforce one another. When the individual pursues his daily work diligently and intelligently, although primarily with a selfish end in view, he is nevertheless adding to national wealth and welfare. So also with most of the activities of the family, the church, the club, and the business corporation. In each of these cases, however, it is inevitable that conflicts will sometimes occur between individual and narrow group interests on the one hand, and broader social interests on the other. These conflicts may gradually take on less selfish and less dangerous forms, but will hardly disappear so long as the character of the individual and the constitution of society remain fundamentally unchanged. The problem of corruption, therefore, is a persistent one. There will always remain the possibility of moral struggle for improvement; there will never be absolute perfection in these extensive and involved relationships.

A very striking implication of the persistent character of the problem may be found in the fact that much of the current terminology of political science implies the presence of corruption as a common factor in the life of the state. To modern students Greek classifications of forms of government appear rather naive, considered simply as classifications, but many of the separate terms employed in them nevertheless remain in general use. Plato, for example, describes the decline of the pure Republic ruled by philosophers who are actuated by the highest motives, first into Timarchy, next into Oligarchy, then into Democracy in the sense of mob rule, and finally into Tyranny. We must infer that in the real world, as the Philosopher saw it, the number of perfect Republics, granting that such beatific political entities or any acceptable approximation to them could exist, would be far less than the number of degenerate states. The common characteristic of all the latter from Timarchy to Tyranny is the predominance of some form of personal or narrow group interest over the highest interests of the state. In other words the great majority of state forms as classified by Plato are to be distinguished by the degree and kind of corruption they exhibit. Aristotle’s distinction between pure forms of constitutions,—Royalty, Aristocracy, and Polity,—and the corresponding perverted forms,—Tyranny, Oligarchy, and Democracy,—is based fundamentally upon the existence of purity or corruption in the sovereign, whether it be composed of the one, few, or many. Dealing as he was largely with actual constitutions, Aristotle makes it clear that in the world as he knew it, the corrupt forms of government, particularly oligarchy and democracy, were much more common than the pure forms, that, in fact, some degree of corruption was frequent, and purity, on the other hand, exceptional in political life. Other classifications of states regardless of their moral condition are, of course, possible. Mr. Seeley has given us one that, for modern purposes, is certainly much more useful than the Aristotelian. The continued use of the latter in common speech and, to a somewhat less extent in historical and scientific discussion, is evidence, however, of a high degree of availability in describing actual political conditions or what are believed to be such. And since this terminology implies the existence of corruption as an ordinary accompaniment of political life, its wide acceptance and continued use strengthens the conviction that corruption in some form is a persistent problem of politics.

While the general problem bids fair to remain with us always, the particular forms and extent of corruption will be subject to change in the future as in the past. History justifies the hope that these changes will be for the better.[25] Many of the grosser forms of corruption current in earlier periods are impossible now. Charles II. was not the only king of his century who accepted corrupt subsidies from foreign monarchs. At the present time it is impossible to doubt that the essential loyalty of the executive heads of the principal civilised countries of the world would be demonstrated unmistakably in case they should be approached by corrupt solicitation from the outside. The modern spirit of nationality and patriotism would wreak tremendous vengeance upon any royal offender against it. The loyalty of contemporary monarchs, however, is probably due in very slight degree, if at all, to the fear of punishment. In addition to the responsibility enforced upon constitutional kings, a keener sense on their part of participation in the national spirit and higher standards both of personal rectitude and of international dealings make corruption of this sort well nigh unthinkable in the modern world. To a large measure also these virtues have been extended over the whole administrative service of civilised states and absorbed as a part of current moral practice. Hence even in the case of inferior officials who have been seduced by foreign bribes, as e.g., the sale of military plans and secrets, a heavy penalty of popular obloquy is added to the severe penalty of the law.

The mention of Charles II. suggests another form of corruption, the earlier wide extension of which is familiar to every reader of history. In times past royal mistresses appeared openly at court, secured titles of nobility and grants of land for themselves, their children, and their favourites, dictated appointments in the civil and military service, and overruled decisions of internal and foreign policy. It may be admitted that the sexual morality of some contemporary monarchs is not above reproach. Yet the evil, so far as it exists to-day, is largely personal, and is chiefly objectionable because of its unfavourable influence upon the family life of the people at large. No modern king ruling over a civilised country, it is safe to say, could openly flaunt his mistresses and allow it to be seen that his passion for them affected his policies as head of the state.

As another illustration of the disappearance of certain forms of corruption once extremely common the famous case of Lord Bacon may be cited. His offence as Lord Chancellor consisted not in the taking of presents from suitors, for to do so after judgment was the open practice of the time. Inadvertently, however, Bacon accepted a present before a case was decided, and this was made the basis of the charge of corruption which brought about his downfall. The morality of the time had reached a stage at which it perceived clearly the corrupting effect upon the judicial mind of presents in advance of a decision, and held them to be bribes. It had not reached the modern point of view that the expectation of a present after giving decision is also corrupting, particularly since the present of one of the litigants is very likely to be larger than that of the other. One can safely maintain that the open receipt of presents by judicial officers of higher rank is extremely rare in English speaking countries and in Western Europe at the present time. Judges of our own lower courts are sometimes accused of truckling to the party influences to which they owe their election, but so far as it exists this is a much more subtle and surreptitious form of corruption than present giving, or as it would frankly be called nowadays, bribe-giving by litigants.[26] Any approach, or even appearance of approach, to offences of the latter sort would call forth sharp expressions of condemnation. In his “Four Aspects of Civic Duty,” President Taft presents a very striking and acute argument on the necessity of the exercise of extreme circumspection by judicial officials which will serve to illustrate the progress in morals from Lord Bacon’s time to the present:

“A most important principle in the success of a judicial system and procedure is that the administration of justice should seem to the public and the litigants to be impartial and righteous, as well as that it should actually be so. Continued lack of public confidence in the courts will sap their foundations. A careful and conscientious judge will, therefore, strive to avoid every appearance from which the always suspicious litigants may suspect an undue leaning toward the other side. He will give patient hearing to counsel for each party, and, however clear the case may be to him when stated, he will not betray his conclusion until he has heard in full from the party whose position cannot be supported. More than this, it not infrequently happens, however clear his mind in the outset, that argument, if he has not a pride of first opinion that is unjudicial, may lead him to change his view.

“This same principle is one that should lead judges not to accept courtesies like railroad passes from persons or companies frequently litigants in their courts. It is not that such courtesies would really influence them to decide a case in favour of such litigants when justice required a different result; but the possible evil is that if the defeated litigant learns of the extension of such courtesy to the judge or the court by his opponent he cannot be convinced that his cause was heard by an indifferent tribunal, and it weakens the authority and the general standing of the court.

“I knew of one judge who indignantly declared that of course he accepted passes, because he would not admit, by declining them, that such a little consideration or favour would influence his decision. But in the view I have given above a different ground for declining them can be found than the suggestion that such a courtesy would really influence his judgment in a case in which the railroad company giving the courtesy was a party.”[27]

The intimate relation between present giving and bribery, suggests another illustration somewhat similar to the preceding. Readers of the famous diary of Samuel Pepys are familiar with the fact that in his official capacity as Clerk of the Acts and Surveyor General of the Victualling Office he often accepted presents. In one instance we find him quoting with grave approval the sage observation of his patron, Lord Sandwich, to the effect that “it was not the salary of any place that did make a man rich, but the opportunity of getting money while he is in the place.”[28] Venal as it may appear to the modern reader Pepys undoubtedly lived up to this precept, and owed to its consistent practice the very considerable property which he afterwards amassed. Yet one would be over hasty to conclude that the author of the “Diary” was an arch corruptionist. On the contrary he was so distinctly superior, both in efficiency and honesty, to most of his colleagues, that he won much well-merited recognition and succeeded in retaining office practically throughout the whole Restoration period in spite of the many upheavals and intrigues of that troublous time. While Pepys frankly admits that he accepted presents he insists that he never forgot the “King’s interest.” The manifest danger of allowing an official to measure in this way the quality of service due a sovereign, does not seem to occur to the diarist. On the other hand, he refers frequently, and usually in terms of condemnation, to many contemporaries in the administrative service who, at least in his opinion, were much less scrupulous than they should have been in determining the “King’s interest.” Thus he records the utterances of a certain Cooling, the Lord Chamberlain’s secretary and a veritable drunken roaring Falstaff of corruption, who boasted that “his horse was a bribe, and his boots a bribe; and told us he was made up of bribes, as an Oxford scholar is set out with other men’s goods when he goes out of town, and that he makes every sort of tradesman to bribe him; and invited me home to his house, to taste of his bribe wine.”[29] Sometimes, indeed, Pepys became involved in transactions where the “King’s interest,” as he measured it, received less than its due share of attention. We find him fearing investigation in such cases, and withdrawing from them with the resolution not to allow himself to become similarly involved again. Yet on the whole there is every evidence of a conscious feeling on his part of rectitude superior to the administrative morals of the time. That it was largely justified in spite of the receipt of gifts may be seen from Dr. Wheatley’s comment to the effect that “public men in those days, without private property, must have starved if they had not taken fees, for the King had no idea of wasting his money by paying salaries. At the time of Pepys’s death there was a balance of £28,007, 2 s. 1¼ d. due to him from the Crown, and the original vouchers still remain an heirloom in the family.”[30]

Appointments to public office have been a fruitful field for corruption in many forms. In his “Civil Service in Great Britain,” Mr. Dorman B. Eaton sums up the whole history of the disposal of patronage in England in the following statement:—“From the despotic system, under the Norman kings, through various spoils systems under arbitrary kings—through a sort of partisan system under Cromwell—through fearful corruption under James and Charles—through a sort of aristocratic spoils system under William and Anne—through a partisan spoils system under George I. and II., and a part of the reign of George III.—through the partisan system in its best estate in later years—we have traced the unsteady but generally ascending progress of British administration; and, in 1870, we shall find it to have reached a level at which office is treated as a trust and personal merit is the recognised criterion of selection for office.”[31] It would be a most absurd anachronism to regard all the earlier practices referred to by Mr. Eaton with the horror of a modern civil service reformer. Richard the Lion-Hearted could hardly have comprehended the advantage of competitive literary examinations open to all classes of his subjects as a means of selecting his subordinates. When under the Plantagenets and Tudors “charters and monopolies, in a fit of good nature, were tossed by a king to some borough, great officer, or favourite that had pleased him; and, in a fit of anger or drunkenness—as arbitrarily revoked,”[32] it must be remembered that neither the law nor the morals of the time severely condemned such actions. No wonder, therefore, that “the old system was bold, consistent, and outspoken—not pretending to make selections for office out of regard for personal merit or economy, or the general welfare. It plainly asserted that those in power had a right and duty to keep themselves in power and preserve their monopoly in any way which their judgement should approve, and that the people were bound to submit.”[33] Further “the right to appoint to office and to sell the appointment openly for money became also, and long remained, hereditary; sometimes in great families and sometimes in the holder for the time being of the offices themselves.”[34] No doubt the exercise of such rights of purchase was once regarded generally as no more objectionable than the sale of a private physician’s practice or the sale of the good will of a business at the present time. But while the various earlier methods of disposing of the patronage as sketched by Mr. Eaton must be judged with reference to contemporary political morality, it is true that each of them in turn fell into disrepute, was abolished—often only after several trials—and finally superseded by a less faulty system. Even as far back as Magna Charta the existence of a faint conception of the modern civil service principle is made plain by the Forty-fifth Article, according to which the King engaged not to “make any justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs, but of such as know the law of the realm.” All the great subsequent uprisings of English history were directed in part against certain other abuses of the corrupt patronage system. The Tyler and Cade Rebellions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the great Civil War, the expulsion of James II., the overthrow of Walpole, the failure of George III.’s attempt at personal government,—each marked a higher standard of public sentiment on the question. Between 1820 and 1870, the great modern civil service reform orders were passed, resulting in the final establishment of open competition for over 80,000 positions under the English government. Opportunities for corrupt practices in connection with appointment to office are, of course, not entirely excluded even by so thoroughgoing a system as that which now exists in England, but they are few and unimportant indeed compared to the possibilities of selfish abuses under former régimes.