Corruption in American politics and life

by Robert C. Brooks

There is, of course, no quantitative measure whereby we can reckon exactly the efficiency and honesty of men, and, striking a joint average, definitely appraise their value for a given position in the service of the state. If there were such a measure assuredly it would seldom, if ever, register both perfect efficiency and perfect honesty. The work of government, like that of all social institutions, must be performed by relatively weak and incapable human instruments. At best we can only seek to secure the greatest attainable honesty and the greatest attainable efficiency. There may be cases where a degree of the latter amounting to positive genius may offset a serious defect in the former. Distinguished ability, however, ought to be relatively free from moral weakness. Men of more than average capacity, to say nothing of genius, should find it less necessary than others to stoop to equivocal practices in order to succeed. If no higher motives swayed such men, then at least an intelligent appreciation on their part of the risks they ran in pursuing crooked courses would serve as sufficient deterrent. It is your stupid and incapable official ordinarily who, because of moral insensibility or in order to keep pace with his abler fellows, is most easily tempted to employ shifty devices. The weakness of the second apology for corruption is thus apparent. Normally corruption and efficiency are not found together. On the contrary honesty and efficiency are common yokemates. A public sentiment which weakly excuses corruption on the ground of alleged efficiency will be deceived much more often than a public sentiment which insists upon the highest attainable standard of both.

III. The third apology for corruption is that it saves us from mob rule. In Professor Ford’s felicitous phrase the appearance of corruption “instead of being the betrayal of democracy may be the diplomatic treatment of ochlocracy, restraining its dangerous tendencies and minimising its mischiefs.”[6] According to this view the machine, dominated by the boss or gang, is the defender of society itself against the attacks of our internal barbarians. Tammany Hall had the brazen effrontery to assume this attitude during the New York mayoralty campaign of 1886, when it nominated Mr. Hewitt in opposition to Henry George. “Yet it would be difficult to name a time in recent years when frauds so glaring and so tremendous in the aggregate have been employed in behalf of any candidate as were committed in behalf of Mr. Hewitt in 1886.”[7] Society would seem to be in desperate straits, indeed, if it needed such defenders and such methods of defence. In favour of their employment it is sometimes said that our propertied and educated classes have grown away from the great democratic mass. Of themselves they would be quite incapable of protecting the goods, material and ideal, which are intrusted to them. The corrupt machine, seeking its own interest, it is true, nevertheless performs the invaluable social service of keeping the restless proletariat in subjection. In order to obtain the votes of ignorant and venal citizens the unscrupulous political leader is obliged to perform innumerable petty services for them, as, for example, securing jobs, both in the public service and outside, supplying or obtaining charitable relief in times of need, speaking a friendly word to the police magistrate after a neighbourhood brawl, providing recreation in the form of tickets to chowder excursions during the summer and to “pleasure club” balls during the winter. Bread and circuses being thus supplied, our higher civilisation is presumably secure. If the corrupt machine did not perform these services, it is assumed by some timorous persons that the mob would break forth, gut our shops, rob our tills, burn, and kill in unrestrained fury.

If catastrophes so great and terrible were actually impending the situation would seem not only to justify our present corrupt rulers, but might also be held sufficiently grave to induce us to establish new bosses and gangs, giving them license to graft to their heart’s content, provided only that they continue their beneficent mission of saving civilisation. Dictatorship would be cheap at the price. The whole argument, however, rests primarily upon a shockingly unjust view of the real character of our proletariat class. Even if this very indefinite term be interpreted to mean only the poorest and most ignorant of our people, whether of native American or of foreign stock, the view that they need to be constantly cajoled by the corrupt politician in order to prevent them from resorting to the violent seizure of the property of others is a grotesque misconception. In the great majority of cases such persons desire nothing more than the opportunity to earn an honest and frugal living in peace. We must admit, of course, that lynching and labour riots occur with appalling frequency in the United States. No one should attempt to minimise the danger and disgrace of such outbreaks. Let us not, on the other hand, fall into the gross error of regarding them as deliberate revolutionary attacks upon the existing social order.

With such circumstances confronting us, what shall be said of the alleged utility of the corrupt machine as prime defender of social peace? If we should conclude to recognise the gang frankly in this capacity any materials for the formation of revolutionary mobs that we may possess would certainly be encouraged to increase the demands made as the price of continued quiet, and even to furnish a few sample riots from time to time as a means of enforcing their demands. In reality, however, corrupt political machines care very little for social welfare. The very essence of corruption is self-interest regardless of public interest. Familiarity with the favours bestowed by politicians is hardly the best means of encouraging quiescence among poor and ignorant recipients. It may become the first step toward idleness and crime. But besides the distribution of favours the corrupt politician has many other means of procuring power. Hired thugs, and sometimes members of the regular police force, are employed to drive honest voters from the polls, and every manner of tricky device is resorted to in order to deceive them in casting their ballots or to falsify the election returns. Do such things allay social discontent? Even the rank favouritism shown by the corrupt organisation to its servile adherents must make enemies of those who feel themselves slighted. Few forms of political evil are more dangerous than the fear sometimes displayed by mayors or governors that the vigorous employment of the police to suppress rioting may cost them votes when they come up for re-election. And there are many other consequences of corrupt rule which indirectly but none the less surely inflame the sufferers against the injustice of the existing order: insufficient and inferior school accommodations, the absence of parks and other means of rational recreation, dirty streets, impure water supply, neglect of housing reforms, poor and high-priced public utility services and so on. All things considered, the corrupt machine is the sorriest saviour of society imaginable.

Assuming, finally, for the sake of argument, that there is real danger of class war in the near future, the best defence would obviously lie in strong police, militia, and army forces. The life of the state itself would require the destruction of every vestige of corruption in these branches of its service at least. If the danger of class war were real but not imminent a thoroughgoing policy directed to the establishment of social justice and the elimination of public abuses would be imperative. Among other things, better education, sanitation, poor relief, and public services, would have to be supplied, and to get these we would have to get rid of the corrupt machine as far as possible. Under either assumption, therefore, the state threatened with social disturbance would find safety not in corruption but in honesty and efficiency. However, in exposing the hollowness of the pretence that society needs to be saved by crooked means, we should not fall into the error of assuming that the corrupt politician alone is responsible for all our social ills. We who not only tolerate his works but who tolerate many other abuses with which he has no connection whatever, should remember our own responsibility for the improvement and continued stability of society. It is the custom to castigate the rich in this connection, but the indifference, snobbishness, and narrowness of large sections of our middle classes are also very gravely at fault.[8]

IV. The fourth apology offered for corruption is that it is part of an evolutionary process, the ends of which are presumed to be so beneficent as to more than atone for existing evils attributable to it. Complaint might justly be made that this is a highly general statement, but its formulation in the broad terms used above seems necessary in order to include the various details of the argument. A similar sweeping defence might be set up for any conceivable abuse or evil—for tyranny as well as for corruption, for immorality or for crime. In all such cases, however, it would be necessary to prove—although it seems quite impossible to do so—that the ultimate beneficent end would more than repay the evil involved; and further, that no better way existed of attaining the promised goal. It must be freely conceded that we know little or nothing of the remote ends of the evolutionary process as it exhibits itself in society. Repulsive as are many of its details, there seem to be sufficient grounds for believing in wonderful ultimate achievement. An apology for contemporary corruption based on such considerations may therefore be worthy of attention, provided, however, that it does not attempt to bind us to a purely laissez faire attitude in the presence of admitted and immediate political evils.

From the latter point of view political corruption may be regarded as a symptom, bad in itself but valuable because it indicates the need, and in some degree the method, of cure. Like pain in the physical economy it is one of the danger signals of the social economy. Thus, as we have seen, the neglect of proper facilities for education, sanitation, poor relief and so on, particularly in our large cities, is both a resultant in part of corruption and a cause of further corruption. By providing better facilities along these lines we may, therefore, hope ultimately to improve the whole tone of our citizenship and the life of the state. A still more concrete illustration is supplied by Professor Goodnow’s masterly discussion of the boss in his “Politics and Administration.”[9] According to his view certain defects in our governmental organisation, notably the decentralisation and irresponsibility of much of our administrative machinery, the futile attempt to secure by popular vote the election of a large number of efficient administrative officials and the lack of a close relationship between legislation and administration, all combine to produce a situation which only a strong party organisation dominated by a boss can keep from degenerating into chaos. From this aspect it might be maintained that the evil political practices commonly associated with the boss are only incidental and in part excusable after all. Fundamentally he exists because of defects in the organisation of our government, and his activities go far to correct these defects. Even accepting this argument fully, however, some choice in bosses as Professor Goodnow points out,[10] would still be left open to the electorate. By the progressive overthrow of the worse and the selection of better aspirants for political power the boss may evolve into the leader, who will retain many of the great functions of his predecessor but will exercise them in a responsible manner and free from corruption. The practical significance of Professor Goodnow’s argument, however, lies far less in the explanation it gives of the temporary ascendency of the boss and the system which he presides over than in the conviction it enforces of the necessity of certain reforms in the organisation of our government that will bring its functions into harmony with each other, and ultimately, it is hoped, make corrupt and irresponsible bosses Impossible.[11] In no proper sense of the word, however, can this line of argument be considered an apology for corruption such as is usually alleged to be associated with bossism. It makes clear only that the power of the boss, under present conditions, has its uses as well as its abuses. But these uses do not justify the abuses. On the contrary the corruption associated with the great powers of the boss is a menace so great as to make necessary the most far-reaching reforms.

Whether we are soon to get rid of the boss or not we are therefore bound to fight against any corruption that may develop as a result of his rule. Our present system is manifestly unstable in the long run. Individual bosses seldom retain power any great number of years. The position of the boss may remain, but “spasms” of reform usually succeed at least in introducing a new incumbent who brings with him new methods and new groups of favourites. The net result is far from guaranteeing that certainty and stability which both business and public interests demand. Even assuming that in some way security against popular upheaval could be conferred upon the boss, other difficulties would still have to be met. The large financial interests, which need the favours of government or seek release from its burdens, sometimes go to war among themselves, and in these contests control of the powers of the boss gives valuable strategic advantages. Hence many ambitious aspirants among the principal heads of the gang, each awaiting a possible palace insurrection. It is conceivable, however, that a boss might secure himself both against factional and popular disturbances, and at the same time be supported by consolidated business interests powerful beyond the possibility of successful attack by other financial groups. With further growth of corporations and the adoption of the community of interest policy among them, the latter condition might indeed be pretty thoroughly established. In this case we would have a boss as impregnable as the conception allows. True he would still operate through democratic forms, but this pseudo-democracy of his would be nothing more than a mask for oligarchy. The system might conceivably work out into a highly efficient and stable government. Both the boss and the financial interests behind him might prudently decide to content themselves with small percentages of profit, and otherwise insist on solid merit in both the men and the materials they employed. The disturbances due to popular uprisings on the part of an untrammeled voting mass would be reduced to a vanishing minimum.

In this successful combination, however, the oligarchy and not the boss would be the dominating factor. Indeed even under existing conditions the title of boss is a singularly inappropriate one in most instances. Unless the bearer is possessed of financial ability of a high order himself he must remain a lieutenant rather than a leader. Usually he does not possess this ability. Nor is the reason hard to perceive. The boss is, and probably will continue to be, a specialist in one line only, namely, political manipulation; and in his extremely exposed position this work is quite sufficient in detail and variety to absorb all the time and talents even of an extraordinarily gifted person. Under the financial oligarchy, therefore, the boss will probably be nothing more than an agent, a departmental head charged with the duty of securing the necessary majority of the popular vote at all elections and of retaining control of office holders. From this point of view the absurdity of the conception of the boss as the saviour of democracy is again apparent. At bottom his function is to secure power through his knowledge and subtle bribery of the people and to sell or lease this power to financial interests which recoup themselves out of the pockets of the people. Instead of being the saviour of democracy the net effect of his work, little perhaps as he realises it, is the selling out of democracy to oligarchy.

There is, however, not the remotest possibility that the hypothetical process sketched above will be carried to completion. If it were it could not long survive. Oligarchies are notoriously unstable compounds. No matter how secure they may make themselves from internal dissension, their very power and success provoke to attack from the outside. In the case we have assumed the weak point lies in the unavoidable necessity of securing a majority of the popular vote from time to time. Ultimately the oligarchy would have to become strong enough to disregard this necessity; that is, to throw off the mask of democracy by abolishing popular elections. Long before this point could be reached, however, the ruling clique would probably find itself attacked by organisations of great voting power which would demand a share of the spoils of sovereignty for themselves. Reduce all politics to a mere calculation of profit and even those voters who now sell themselves for a few dollars or a few petty political favours would come to realise that they held their ballots at too low a figure. They would see political privileges based on their venal compliance or connivance become the foundation stones of large fortunes. They would further realise that the capital value of such privileges was based largely upon the profits extracted from their own pockets a penny at a time and many times over by the high prices charged them for public utility services. Under conditions approaching frank oligarchy, with a political philosophy justifying such conditions, and with class consciousness bred of them, it would seem inevitable that powerful organisations, particularly of labourers or other industrial classes, would be formed for the purpose of wresting valuable privileges from the government. Instead of the low individual forms of corruption now prevailing we would have other forms, higher because tinged with a group character, but still corrupt because narrow interests would be advanced to the detriment of the interests of the state as a whole. Confronted with such difficulties the corrupt machine would no more prevail to save oligarchy than it is now prevailing to save democracy.