Corruption in American politics and life

by Robert C. Brooks

While the threshing out of reforms proposed in the public interest and their translation into law is with us, as in England, the most important single function of party, still it is but one among a number of functions actually performed. Our adherence to the “check and balance” system involves the possibility of clashes between the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, and these clashes would certainly be both more frequent and more violent were it not for the party control which seeks to maintain harmony among the three great departments of government. The relation between our state and city governments is also such that conflict is chronic except where a party organisation secures concerted action. In the state and city governments themselves administration is so poorly organised that authorities would constantly be falling afoul of each other were it not for the intervention of party managers who realise the necessity of maintaining harmony. Our elections involve a tremendous volume of labour most of which is performed by party workers. Not only legislative, but also frequently executive and judicial candidates must be voted for; national, state, and local offices must be filled. Back of the elections is a complex convention or primary system which must be kept in running order. Referendum and latterly initiative and recall elections require servants and machinery. The ordinary good citizen who experiences a deep feeling of personal satisfaction if he casts his vote, and who until recently considered himself little less than a civic hero if he also attended his primary, seldom has an adequate conception of the enormous volume of detailed work which a popular government such as ours involves. By those persons who are not so fortunately situated the political worker is called upon for all manner of services,—for aid in securing naturalisation papers, for assistance in obtaining employment, for advice in every emergency of life, for charitable relief. No doubt a quid pro quo is exacted in all these cases, but so long as philanthropy fails to provide other and better agencies the social value of such work must be admitted.[68] Considering these various and exacting party activities it is altogether probable, as Professor Henry Jones Ford maintains, that “the machinery of control in American government requires more people to tend and work it than all other political machinery in the rest of the civilised world.”[69]

Under our present system the performance of this tremendous volume of work is essential. In connection with it many grave abuses have developed, but in the final balance there must be some surplus of good over evil. Moreover the division of labour which places the major portion of our political work in the hands of the much maligned politician is at bottom economic. By so doing we enable our “good” citizen to devote a larger share of attention to his business, his family, and the other more immediate affairs of life. No doubt he has taken too great an advantage of this opportunity, and thereby enabled the political class to run things with a high hand. The future of democracy in America will depend largely upon the extent of the activity and intelligence manifested by our citizens. But at the very best the great mass can give only a limited portion of its time to public affairs. Too much politics and too little business, as in South America, is also bad.

So far as can be foreseen at present, therefore, the political worker and party machinery bid fair to remain functional and efficient in America for an indefinite period. Reforms harmonising and simplifying the departments and spheres of government may reduce to some extent the volume of our necessary political work. On the other hand our growth in population and the increase of governmental functions tend constantly to increase it. Whatever the future may bring forth present conditions clearly require the co-operation of strong parties with a complex governmental organisation. “In America,” wrote Mr. Bryce, “the government goes for less than in Europe, the parties count for more. The great moving forces are the parties.” Students of political science generally have recognised that parties constitute an integral and very vital part of our political system. It would perhaps not be putting it too strongly to maintain that our government is divided into what may be called an “official” part, consisting of the legally constituted political structure and actual office holders, and an “unofficial” part, consisting of the party organisations and their workers. As things are now the co-operation of the two is absolutely essential to efficiency. Nothing is so helpless or so certain to disappear promptly from the political arena as an “official” group which has lost the support of its complementary “unofficial” organisation.

Now while the utility and necessity of co-operation between official and unofficial political forces is generally recognised by careful students we have, singularly enough, provided regular and legitimate means of subsistence only for the former, leaving the latter to shift for itself as best it may. Our unofficial political forces, i.e., the party organisations and their workers, are, as we have seen, burdened with tasks of enormous magnitude. Under simpler conditions Burke’s “body of men joined together for the purpose of promoting the national interest upon some particular principle” might indeed “by their joint endeavour” alone succeed in performing this work in a patriotic and disinterested spirit. With the growth of American population and the development of our very complex government, however, this became impossible. Steady professional work by a large body of men is demanded under present conditions. Much of this work the politician knows to be necessary and useful even if the full measure of its social utility seldom dawns upon him. Naturally he thinks the labourer worthy of his hire, or, at any rate, he is keenly conscious of his own bread and butter necessities. No regular income being provided for the politician as such, he proceeds to collect it in various ways, some of them perfectly open and even praiseworthy, as in the case of campaign contributions made by disinterested persons, and others distinctly furtive or even corrupt and criminal. Under the old régime if his party was successful at the polls there was, of course, the possibility of a job,—that is of a translation from the unofficial to the official governmental sphere. Even in the hey-day of the spoils system, however, there were never jobs enough to supply the faithful and those who received appointments were consequently “assessed” large sums to pay for the labours of their less fortunate companions in arms. And the politicians of the beaten party went bare although their social service in arousing the people on the issues of the campaign was probably as valuable in proportion to their numbers as that rendered by the workers of the victorious party. Under the circumstances it was inevitable that the party worker in office would pay more attention to the requirements of the machine than to his public duties, and the evils thus occasioned naturally gave rise to civil service reform. Wherever it has been applied the merit system has done much to discourage the collection of party revenues from office holders. As sources of income there remain, however, the manifold possibilities of the sale of political influence ranging all the way from permission to violate a municipal ordinance up to the sale of a franchise or the grant of legislative favours to large private interests. Many of the forms of corruption dealt with in the preceding studies are cases in point.

Whatever means may be employed to collect funds the total cost of party maintenance in the United States is extremely heavy. Referring to this frequently unreckoned burden, Professor Ford remarks: “It is a fond delusion of the people that our republican form of government is less expensive than the monarchical forms which obtain in Europe. The truth is that ours is the costliest government in the world.”[70] Turn the matter about as one will it is inevitable that these costs of parties must be paid. Our present method of paying them is indirect, furtive, fraught with grave moral consequences, and it is tremendously extravagant. We do not perceive the latter point clearly because we seldom get an insight into the total amount demanded or into the many and devious ways by which it is collected. What is exacted of us in the final analysis is not to be reckoned in money alone but also in bad and inefficient government with all the harm that it entails upon business, health, security, and morality. And we must continue to pay in our present wasteful and foolish manner until we devise a better method or make some arrangement to dispense largely with the services of party organizations.

What the ultimate lines of the solution may be it is too early to inquire. It is only very recently that we have become aware of the existence and magnitude of the problem. Indeed in its present form the problem is itself of recent origin. Not until the presidential campaign in 1876 was money used on a scale which could be described as lavish. The interest which has been shown recently in campaign contributions is gratifying evidence that our former neglect of the sources of party support is giving way to lively interest. Such contributions, however, represent a part only of the total expenses of political management. Party organisations must be kept up permanently and politicians, in or out of office, have a large amount of party work to perform between elections. As a matter of fact campaign funds may be regarded as a form of provision for the surplus demand occasioned by the election time necessity of running the machine at full blast with a large number of supernumerary workers under employment. The size of the total sums contributed at such periods, the influences behind some of the contributions, and the new interest of the public in these influences make it desirable, however, to consider the matter as a single but very important section of the broader subject of party support in general.

Admitting the necessity and utility under present conditions of party organisation and party work it is certainly not unreasonable to suggest that part of the burden of campaign management should be borne by the state. In his message at the beginning of the first session of the Sixtieth Congress, December, 1907, President Roosevelt said on this subject:

“The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties, an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough organisation and machinery, which requires a large expenditure of money. Then the stipulation should be made that no party receiving campaign funds from the Treasury should accept more than a fixed amount from any individual subscriber or donor; and the necessary publicity for receipts and expenditures could without difficulty be provided.”

It was frankly admitted that this proposal was “very radical” and that until the people had time to familiarise themselves with it they would not be willing to consider its adoption. Indeed popular feeling nowadays, whether rightly or wrongly, is strongly averse to the granting of aid to party organisations and is manifestly bent on cutting off some of their sources of supply rather than on providing others. Many objections may be made to President Roosevelt’s proposal, some of them technical in character, others on the basis of principle. “Legitimate expenses” might be hard to define, but the attempt has been made already by several state legislatures.[71] Congress would either have to vote the same sum to each of the two principal parties, or else devise some scheme of pro rata distribution. How minor political parties would fare under the former arrangement is not discussed. Colorado met this question in 1909, by providing that the state should pay twenty-five cents for each vote cast at the preceding contest for governor. The money is distributed to the state party chairmen in proportion to the votes cast by each party. One-half of it must be handed over to the county chairmen in proportion to the number of votes cast in each county. Other contributions to campaign funds are prohibited, except from candidates, who, however, may not give sums in excess of twenty-five per cent of their first year’s salary. What the practical outcome of the plan may be it is, of course, impossible to predict. Just how a new minor party is to get itself started, apart from the limited contributions of its candidates, does not appear. Objection might also be raised to this pro rata arrangement on the ground that it bases the financial support of parties almost entirely upon their showing at the preceding election. So far as the strength of parties is determined by their money income the effect of the law will manifestly be to maintain the status quo ante. Theoretically party support ought to depend on the present actual standing of a party, that is, the comparative value to the state of its policies at the election for which its expenses are to be paid. Of course no agreement is possible as to just what this standing is in given cases. None the less it would seem clear that there might be a wide divergence between the relative showing made by a party at the polls two or more years ago and its present deserts. Possibly also a system of voluntary giving with restrictions of corporate contributions and other abuses might more correctly measure the current merit of parties than the pro rata state appropriation system.

The Colorado plan, with the exception of the limited contributions it permits from candidates, places the burden of election expenses entirely upon the state, and therefore prohibits contributions both from corporations and individuals. President Roosevelt’s suggestion is not so radical, involving as it clearly did the raising of funds by contributions in addition to the proposed congressional appropriations. If, however, the latter were made sufficient to provide for the “proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties,” one might inquire for what other purposes the campaign managers would need money. Waiving this question, a mixed system of state subsidies and private contributions has certain distinct advantages. There is considerable force in President Roosevelt’s argument that publicity and the restriction of large contributions could be more easily obtained under a plan combining the two kinds of support. Public appropriations for campaign purposes would place the state in a stronger position logically to exercise supervision over the whole process of gathering and spending money for political purposes. However, it remains to be demonstrated that publicity and the restriction of objectionable contributions cannot be secured without the payment of party subsidies. Evidently, also, there would be difficulties in connection with the supervision of party activities necessary to determine whether or not the proposed congressional appropriations should be granted. Democratic campaign managers would certainly feel that no Republican congress could deal fairly with them in such matters, although a bi-partisan supervisory board appointed by Congress might escape this suspicion.