[100] Laws of 1906, ch. 17.
[101] Nebraska, L. 1901, 30; Virginia L. 1903, ch. 98; Georgia, L. 1908, 63.
[102] An able argument on this point is presented by Mr. Perry Belmont in his “Publicity of Election Expenditures,” North American Review, vol. clxxx (1905), p. 166. For many of the most important facts cited in the preceding pages of this study the writer is indebted to Mr. Belmont’s valuable article.
[103] Cf. the Association’s searching “Report of Examination of Election Expense Statements, 1908;” also its leaflet on “Future Plans to Prevent Corrupt Practices.”
CORRUPTION AND NOTORIETY: THE MEASURE OF OUR OFFENDING
VII
CORRUPTION AND NOTORIETY: THE MEASURE OF OUR OFFENDING
Charges of corruption make up a large and important part of the stock in trade of the ordinary American journalist, politician, and reformer. One unfortunate result of this condition of affairs is that, taking us at our word, Europe is forming a very low estimate of the honesty of governmental and business practices on this side of the Atlantic. Even among ourselves corruption is coming to be thought of as an indefinite percentage of evil corroding the general service of the state, and this percentage is assumed to be much larger in the United States than abroad. Similar comparisons are drawn between the principal local and state governments of the country. One popular writer owes no small part of his vogue to the crisp and supposedly accurate tags which he has affixed to several of our municipalities and states, e.g., “corrupt and contented,” “half free and fighting on,” “a city ashamed,” “bad and glad of it,” “a traitor state,” “a state for sale,” and so on. Between actual corruption, however, and the notoriety attached to it no definite and known ratio can be said to exist. Much as it is to be regretted quantitative measures of this political and social evil are at present quite impossible. Many difficulties stand in the way even of approximations sufficiently exact for comparisons of any value. It may perhaps be as well worth while to consider the nature of these difficulties as to indulge in denunciation regardless of them.
In the first place a thoroughgoing policy of concealment and silence would seem absolutely essential on the part of those who engage in corrupt practices. Our most astute leaders and manipulators realise this fact. All observers agree, however, that among the initiated, which usually means a pretty large circle, corrupt transactions are discussed with comparative freedom. It is a matter of no great difficulty for an ordinarily capable reporter to learn in a general way what has been done by the boss or gang in certain instances, although this, of course, is sufficiently far from being legal evidence. And it is notorious that our politicians of the baser sort often indulge their cronies with boasting accounts of their own achievements in grafting. No one has commented upon this fact with greater vigour than Professor H. J. Ford of Princeton in his admirable review of Mr. Steffens’ Shame of the Cities.
“The facts with which Mr. Steffens deals,” writes Professor Ford, “are superficial symptoms. Hardly any disguise of them is attempted in the ordinary talk of local politicians. One of the first things which practical experience teaches is that the political ideals which receive literary expression have a closely limited range. One soon reaches strata of population in which they disappear, and the relation of boss and client appears to be proper and natural. The connection between grafting politicians and their adherents is such that ability to levy blackmail inspires the same sort of respect and admiration which Rob Roy’s followers felt for him in the times that provided a career for his particular talents. And as in Rob Roy’s day, intimate knowledge finds in the type some hardy virtues. For one thing, politicians of this type do not indulge in cant. They are no more shamefaced in talking about their grafting exploits to an appreciative audience than a mediæval baron would have been in discussing the produce of his feudal fees and imposts. Mr. Steffens has really done no more than to put together material lying about loose upon the surface of municipal politics and give it effective presentation. The general truth of his statement of the case is indisputable.”[104]
Possibly, however, Professor Ford underestimates the penetrating force of “political ideals which receive literary expression.” If by this phrase he means only the highest conclusions of philosophy clothed in the noblest language, it is apparent that a very small circle will be reached at first, although in time these ideals also are certain to be widely diffused by the schools, by journalism and by the learned professions. If, on the other hand, “literary expression” is understood to include the news and editorial columns and the cartoons of the daily newspaper, a great and constantly increasing body of readers are becoming amenable to ideals higher than those bred by the personal relation of “boss and client.” Tweed’s sensitiveness to the terribly cutting cartoons of Thomas Nast shows this process in the course of development. In spite of the fact, of which the Tammany chieftain had boasted, that most of his constituents could not read, he was nevertheless forced to exclaim:—“If those picture papers would only leave me alone I wouldn’t care for all the rest. The people get used to seeing me in stripes, and by and by grow to think I ought to be in prison.”[105] Even that portion of our foreign population which differs most widely in language and customs from the native American stock is being brought with amazing swiftness under the influence of the daily papers published in English.[106] That influence may not be all that we would like it, but at any rate it is much more broadening than the ethics of the clan.