As against the plan it may be said that taxpayers are habitually suspicious and extremely likely to regard any change whatever as certain to increase their burdens. Many of them would see nothing in the proposition beyond a tricky device to screw up their valuations under the pretext of low rates with the intention of falling upon them later with rates as high or higher than before. Unless the reform were fully understood and then backed up by the most vigorous administration there would be grave danger that revenues would materially suffer. Given these conditions essential to success, however, the plan would seem decidedly worth trying. A community willing to take the plunge, it is pointed out, would enjoy large advantages over its less enterprising competitors in the advertising value of a low tax rate, particularly as a means of inducing new industries to locate in its midst. The reform would probably not increase revenue, indeed it does not aim to do so, but it would yield a moral return of immense value. Self respect would be restored to many otherwise thoroughly good citizens, and public opinion, to the tone of which the taxpaying class contributes largely, would be lifted to higher planes. Under the present vicious system there must be a considerable number who realise secretly and more or less vaguely the inherent kinship between their conduct and that of the corrupt political organisation under which they live, and who in consequence remain inactive and ashamed when movements for better things in city, state, or nation, are on foot.
In our earlier study of the nature of political corruption an effort was made to distinguish between bribery and auto-corruption. As examples of the latter, legislators may employ knowledge gathered on the floor of the chamber or in committee rooms for the purpose of speculating to their own advantage on stock or produce exchanges; administrative officials who by virtue of their position learn in advance any information which may affect the market (i.e., crop reports) can do likewise; knowledge of important judicial decisions before they are handed down may be exploited in a similar fashion; insiders who have access to plans for projected public improvements are in a position to acquire quietly the needed real estate for sale at much advanced prices to the city or state when condemnation proceedings are actually begun. In addition to large and striking transactions of this sort there are innumerable smaller possibilities for auto-corruption which present themselves to public functionaries ranging in rank from the highest places in the official hierarchy to that of the policeman on his beat. Logically the practices under consideration are not separable from the general forms of political corruption as the term is applied in the present discussion. Instead they would seem to be a special method of carrying on corrupt transactions of many different kinds. All cases of auto-corruption, however, have the common feature that bribery by an outside interest is excluded, and this absence of bribery has sometimes led to the assertion that the practices included under this heading are “honest grafts.” An illusory appearance of innocence is also conferred by the difficulty of tracing the incidence of the burdens resulting from such transactions. There is no moral ground for such favourable distinctions, however. On the contrary, auto-corruption is clearly worse than bribery in that an entire transaction of this character must be guiltily designed and executed wholly by one person, and that person an official charged with knowledge which should be used only in the public interest. Moreover the profits of his secret treachery may be turned entirely into his private bank account. If so he cannot even plead in justification that he has been acting in behalf of a party organisation by gathering and contributing the funds necessary to its management. The latter feature of auto-corruption stands in need of special consideration.
It may be laid down as a principle of fairly general applicability that political corruption as such is disadvantageous to the party organisation permitting it. From a purely tactical point of view it would be the extreme of bad party management to tolerate loose conditions under which a large number of officials could graft freely on their own account and place the entire proceeds in their own pockets. Whether they confined themselves to auto-corruption or accepted bribes singly or in combinations the case would not be materially altered. A day of reckoning at the polls would surely come, and it would find the party treasury unprovided with the means of defence. Yet conditions of this character prevailed pretty generally prior to the advent of strongly centralised political machines. Corruption was extremely diffuse, personal responsibility for it widely scattered, party responsibility not so clear. Manipulation required whole corps of lobbyists, “third houses,” “black horse cavalry,” and the like. Under present conditions the party organisation with strongly centralised management has a direct interest in limiting corruption and also in seeing that contributions which arise from such practices as it tolerates actually flow into the party war chest. Corruption in purely selfish interest becomes treachery to the party as well as treachery to the state. Of course even under strong centralised and permanent party control cases of auto-corruption still occur, and at times officials receive bribes without turning in their quotas. If so, however, it may fairly be presumed that they make their peace with the organisation in other ways. They may be exempt from paying tribute, but they are nevertheless obliged to deliver votes or influence. Many sins are laid at the door of the machine. It has at least the advantage of enabling us to centralise responsibility for all corrupt practices which occur under its management.
From this point of view one may undertake an outline of the form of corruption connected with political control. All the preceding forms of political corruption may be considered the obverse, this is the reverse of the die. None of the practices earlier considered can be carried on without danger; the corruption of political control is the crooked means of avoiding the cumulative effects of these practices. It is not popular, it is not good politics even in the narrowest practical acceptance of that term, for a political organisation to grant corrupt favours to business, to wink at the violation of the law by vice, to allow its partisans in office to sell government property cheap and buy government supplies dear. If any of these things are permitted the organisation, like the common criminal, must take care to lay aside “fall money” against a day of trial.
One might feel greater confidence in the restraining influence of party centralisation were it not for the fact that the more dangerous to party success are the forms of corruption which an organisation tolerates the more lucrative they are apt to be. Though its sins be as scarlet still they produce funds sufficient to buy indulgences and to leave a handsome profit over. In connection with business regulation, for example, bribery in any considerable amount is not possible until legislation is enacted or close at hand. And legislation of this kind is not likely to be passed or threatened unless a strong public sentiment demands action. Political manipulation which attempts to frustrate regulation at such a juncture must sooner or later prepare itself to reckon with the public sentiment which it has flouted. Vice cannot be tolerated except in contravention of laws against it, and to do so means to offend the moral sentiment in the community which placed such laws on the statute books. Franchise grabbing is not profitable on a large scale until the experience of earlier public service corporations has impressed upon the public mind the great value of such grants. If, nevertheless, grabs are permitted by the machine, the boodle must be sufficient to pay both for the personal services involved and to repair any resulting damage to party prestige at the next election. Of course many citizens are apathetic with regard to such abuses or even ignorant of their existence, and there are others who are so involved in corrupt practices, particularly in connection with tax dodging, meter fixing, and the protection of vice, that they feel themselves allied in interest with the party organisation and accordingly vote its ticket. Always, however, there is a contingent, and frequently it is large enough to hold the balance of power, which is neither ignorant nor apathetic, and which, although perhaps too quiescent ordinarily, will rise in revolt against any organisation which grafts too boldly and too widely.
The situation of the venal machine is, therefore, substantially this: more money can be obtained at any time if certain practices dangerous from the point of view of party expediency are tolerated. If they are tolerated greater expenditures of money and of other party resources must be made when the final accounting with public sentiment takes place. To put the matter in another way: the forms of political corruption earlier described, i.e., corruption in connection with the regulation of business and of vice and corruption in connection with the buying and selling operations of the state, are for the most part sources of income, whereas corruption in the form of political control is mainly expenditure. Under George III., according to Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, a “Patronage Secretary of the Treasury” was appointed
“whose duty it was to stand between members and partisan managers appealing for places for their favourites, on the one side, and the heads of offices who needed to have these places filled with competent persons, on the other side. This Secretary measured the force of threats and took the weight of influence; he computed the political value of a member’s support and deducted from it the official appraisement of patronage before awarded to him. It is said that actual accounts, Dr. and Cr., were kept with members by this Patronage Secretary.”[66]
Whether or not “accounts Dr. and Cr.” are kept by our political organisations, a calculus of essentially the same character must underlie the determination of their policy.
On the spending, or political control, side of their ledgers the various heads are comparatively simple. Office holders must be kept in line, and to this end patronage, promotion, and the control of primaries are important. The direct use of money for bribes may play only a small part in this process; opportunities for auto-corruption may be left open in special cases, but personal and party loyalty and ambition can be relied on to a large extent. Back of the office holders of the hour, however, there are the constantly recurring necessities of election day. Party organisation must be kept up continuously, involving the reward in some way of swarms of assistants and hangers-on who cannot all be remunerated directly at public expense. At times votes must be bought, and repeaters, thugs, and ballot-box stuffers must be paid for their services. A heavy toll is apt to be taken out of the funds used for such purposes by every hand through which they pass on their way down. In addition to the expenditures already noted there are many other occasions, some of them quite legitimate in character, and others unobjectionable or even laudable, for the lavish use of money to secure party success and party control.