great cities; indeed, the majority of the assemblymen from the great
cities are “very poor specimens” indeed, while, on the contrary, the
congressmen who go from them are generally pretty good men. This fact
is only one of the many which go to establish the curious political
law that in a great city the larger the constituency which elects a
public servant, the more apt that servant is to be a good one; exactly
as the Mayor is almost certain to be infinitely superior in character
to the average alderman, or the average city judge to the average
civil justice. This is because the public servants of comparatively
small importance are protected by their own insignificance from the
consequences of their bad actions. Life is carried on at such a high
pressure in the great cities, men’s time is so fully occupied by their
manifold and harassing interests and duties, and their knowledge of
their neighbors is necessarily so limited, that they are only able
to fix in their minds the characters and records of a few prominent
men; the others they lump together without distinguishing between
individuals. They know whether the aldermen, as a body, are to be
admired or despised; but they probably do not even know the name,
far less the worth, of the particular aldermen who represents their
district; so it happens that their votes for aldermen or assemblymen
are generally given with very little intelligence indeed, while, on the
contrary, they are fully competent to pass and execute judgment upon
as prominent an official as a mayor or even a congressman. Hence it
follows that the latter have to give a good deal of attention to the
wishes and prejudices of the public at large, while a city assemblyman,
though he always talks a great deal about the people, rarely, except in
certain extraordinary cases, has to pay much heed to their wants. His
political future depends far more upon the skill and success with which
he cultivates the good-will of certain “bosses,” or of certain cliques
of politicians, or even of certain bodies and knots of men (such as
compose a trade-union, or a collection of merchants in some special
business, or the managers of a railroad) whose interests, being vitally
affected by Albany legislation, oblige them closely to watch, and to
try to punish or reward, the Albany legislators. These politicians
or sets of interested individuals generally care very little for a
man’s honesty so long as he can be depended upon to do as they wish on
certain occasions; and hence it often happens that a dishonest man who
has sense enough not to excite attention by any flagrant outrage may
continue for a number of years to represent an honest constituency.
THE CONSTITUENTS LARGELY TO BLAME.
Moreover, a member from a large city can often count upon the educated
and intelligent men of his district showing the most gross ignorance
and stupidity in political affairs. The much-lauded intelligent
voter--the man of cultured mind, liberal education, and excellent
intentions--at times performs exceedingly queer antics.
The great public meetings to advance certain political movements
irrespective of party, which have been held so frequently during the
past few years, have undoubtedly done a vast amount of good; but the
very men who attend these public meetings and inveigh against the
folly and wickedness of the politicians will sometimes on election
day do things which have quite as evil effects as any of the acts of
the men whom they very properly condemn. A recent instance of this is
worth giving. In 1882 there was in the Assembly a young member from
New York, who did as hard and effective work for the city of New York
as has ever been done by anyone. It was a peculiarly disagreeable year
to be in the Legislature. The composition of that body was unusually
bad. The more disreputable politicians relied upon it to pass some
of their schemes and to protect certain of their members from the
consequences of their own misdeeds. Demagogic measures were continually
brought forward, nominally in the interests of the laboring classes,
for which an honest and intelligent man could not vote, and yet which
were jealously watched by, and received the hearty support of, not
mere demagogues and agitators, but also a large number of perfectly
honest though misguided workingmen. And, finally, certain wealthy
corporations attempted, by the most unscrupulous means, to rush through
a number of laws in their own interest. The young member of whom we are
speaking incurred by his course on these various measures the bitter
hostility alike of the politicians, the demagogues, and the members of
that most dangerous of all classes, the wealthy criminal class. He had
also earned the gratitude of all honest citizens, and he got it--as
far as words went. The better class of newspapers spoke well of him;
cultured and intelligent men generally--the well-to-do, prosperous
people who belong to the different social and literary clubs, and their
followers--were loud in his praise. I call to mind one man who lived
in his district who expressed great indignation that the politicians
should dare to oppose his re-election; when told that it was to be
hoped he would help to insure the legislator’s return to Albany by
himself staying at the polls all day, he answered that he was very
sorry, but he unfortunately had an engagement to go quail-shooting on
election day! Most respectable people, however, would undoubtedly
have voted for and re-elected the young member had it not been for the
unexpected political movements that took place in the fall. A citizens’
ticket, largely non-partisan in character, was run for certain local
offices, receiving its support from among those who claimed to be,
and who undoubtedly were, the best men of both parties. The ticket
contained the names of candidates only for municipal offices, and had
nothing whatever to do with the election of men to the Legislature; yet
it proved absolutely impossible to drill this simple fact through the
heads of a great many worthy people, who, when election day came round,
declined to vote anything but the citizens’ ticket, and persisted in
thinking that if no legislative candidate was on the ticket, it was
because, for some reason or other, the citizens’ committee did not
consider any legislative candidate worth voting for. All over the city
the better class of candidates for legislative offices lost from this
cause votes which they had a right to expect, and in the particular
district under consideration the loss was so great as to cause the
defeat of the sitting member, or rather to elect him by so narrow a
vote as to enable an unscrupulously partisan legislative majority to
keep him out of his seat.
It is this kind of ignorance of the simplest political matters among
really good citizens, combined with their timidity, which is so apt
to characterize a wealthy _bourgeoisie_, and with their short-sighted
selfishness in being unwilling to take the smallest portion of time
away from their business or pleasure to devote to public affairs,
which renders it so easy for corrupt men from the city to keep their
places in the Legislature. In the country the case is different.
Here the constituencies, who are usually composed of honest though
narrow-minded and bigoted individuals, generally keep a pretty sharp
lookout on their members, and, as already said, the latter are apt to
be fairly honest men. Even when they are not honest, they take good
care to act perfectly well as regards all district matters, for most
of the measures about which corrupt influences are at work relate to
city affairs. The constituents of a country member know well how to
judge him for those of his acts which immediately affect themselves;
but as regards others they often have no means of forming an opinion,
except through the newspapers,--more especially through the great
metropolitan newspapers,--and they have gradually come to look upon
all statements made by the latter with reference to the honesty or
dishonesty of public men with extreme distrust. This is because our
newspapers, including those who professedly stand as representatives
of the highest culture of the community, have been in the habit of
making such constant and reckless assaults upon the characters of even
very good public men, as to greatly detract from their influence when
they attack one who is really bad. They paint everyone with whom they
disagree black. As a consequence the average man, who knows they are
partly wrong, thinks they may also be partly right; he concludes that
no man is absolutely white, and at the same time that no one is as
black as he is painted; and takes refuge in the belief that all alike
are gray. It then becomes impossible to rouse him to make an effort
either for a good man or against a scoundrel. Nothing helps dishonest
politicians as much as this feeling; and among the chief instruments in
its production we must number certain of our newspapers who are loudest
in asserting that they stand on the highest moral plane. As for the
other newspapers, those of frankly “sensational” character, such as
the two which at present claim to have the largest circulation in New
York, there is small need to characterize them; they form a very great
promotive to public corruption and private vice, and are on the whole
the most potent of all the forces for evil which are at work in the
city.
PERILS OF LEGISLATIVE LIFE.
However, there can be no question that a great many men do deteriorate
very much morally when they go to Albany. The last accusation most of
us would think of bringing against that dear, dull, old Dutch city is
that of being a fast place; and yet there are plenty of members coming
from out-of-the-way villages or quiet country towns on whom Albany has
as bad an effect as Paris sometimes has on wealthy young Americans from
the great sea-board cities. Many men go to the Legislature with the set
purpose of making money; but many others, who afterwards become bad,
go there intending to do good work. These latter may be well-meaning,
weak young fellows of some shallow brightness, who expect to make names
for themselves; perhaps they are young lawyers, or real-estate brokers,
or small shop-keepers; they achieve but little success; they gradually
become conscious that their business is broken up, and that they have
not enough ability to warrant any expectation of their continuing in
public life; some great temptation comes in their way (a corporation
which expects to be relieved of perhaps a million dollars of taxes by
the passage of a bill can afford to pay high for voters); they fall,
and that is the end of them. Indeed, legislative life has temptations
enough to make it unadvisable for any weak man, whether young or old,
to enter it.
ALLIES OF VICIOUS LEGISLATORS.
The array of vicious legislators is swelled by a number of men who
really at bottom are not bad. Foremost among these are those most
hopeless of beings who are handicapped by having some measure which
they consider it absolutely necessary for the sake of their own future
to “get through.” One of these men will have a bill, for instance,
appropriating a sum of money from the State Treasury to clear out a
river, dam the outlet of a lake, or drain a marsh; it may be, although
not usually so, proper enough in itself, but it is drawn up primarily
in the interest of a certain set of his constituents who have given
him clearly to understand that his continuance in their good graces
depends upon his success in passing the bill. He feels that he must
get it through at all hazards; the bad men find this out, and tell him
he must count on their opposition unless he consents also to help their
measures; he resists at first, but sooner or later yields; and from
that moment his fate is sealed,--so far as his ability to do any work
of general good is concerned.
A still larger number of men are good enough in themselves, but are
“owned” by third parties. Usually the latter are politicians who have
absolute control of the district machine, or who are, at least, of
very great importance in the political affairs of their district. A
curious fact is that they are not invariably, though usually, of the
same party as the member; for in some places, especially in the lower
portions of the great cities, politics become purely a business, and
in the squabbles for offices of emolument it becomes important for a
local leader to have supporters among all the factions. When one of
these supporters is sent to a legislative body, he is allowed to act
with the rest of his party on what his chief regards as the unimportant
questions of party or public interest, but he has to come in to heel at
once when any matter arises touching the said chief’s power, pocket, or
influence.
Other members will be controlled by some wealthy private citizen who is
not in politics, but who has business interests likely to be affected
by legislation, and who is therefore, willing to subscribe heavily to
the campaign expenses of an individual or of an association so as to
insure the presence in Albany of someone who will give him information
and assistance.
On one occasion there came before a committee of which I happened to
be a member, a perfectly proper bill in the interest of a certain
corporation; the majority of the committee, six in number, were
thoroughly bad men, who opposed the measure with the hope of being paid
to cease their opposition. When I consented to take charge of the bill,
I had stipulated that not a penny should be paid to insure its passage.
It therefore became necessary to see what pressure could be brought
to bear on the recalcitrant members; and, accordingly, we had to find
out who were the authors and sponsors of their political being. Three
proved to be under the control of local statesmen of the same party
as themselves, and of equally bad moral character; one was ruled by a
politician of unsavory reputation from a different city; the fifth, a
Democrat, was owned by a Republican Federal official; and the sixth by
the president of a horse-car company. A couple of letters from these
two magnates forced the last members mentioned to change front on the
bill with surprising alacrity.
Nowadays, however, the greatest danger is that the member will be a
servile tool of the “boss” or “machine” of his own party, in which case
he can very rarely indeed be a good public servant.
There are two classes of cases in which corrupt members get money. One
is when a wealthy corporation buys through some measure which will be
of great benefit to itself, although, perhaps an injury to the public
at large; the other is when a member introduces a bill hostile to
some moneyed interest, with the expectation of being paid to let the
matter drop. The latter, technically called a “strike,” is much the
most common; for, in spite of the outcry against them in legislative
matters, corporations are more often sinned against than sinning. It
is difficult, for reasons already given, in either case to convict the
offending member, though we have very good laws against bribery. The
reform has got to come from the people at large. It will be hard to
make any very great improvement in the character of the legislators
until respectable people become more fully awake to their duties, and
until the newspapers become more truthful and less reckless in their
statements.
It is not a pleasant task to have to draw one side of legislative life
in such dark colors; but as the side exists, and as the dark lines
never can be rubbed out until we have manfully acknowledged that they
are there and need rubbing out, it seems the falsest of false delicacy
to refrain from dwelling upon them. But it would be most unjust to
accept this partial truth as being the whole truth. We blame the
Legislature for many evils, the ultimate cause for whose existence is
to be found in our own shortcomings.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
There is a much brighter side to the picture, and this is the larger
side, too. It would be impossible to get together a body of more
earnest, upright, and disinterested men than the band of legislators,
largely young men, who during the past three years have averted so
much evil and accomplished so much good at Albany. They were able, at
least partially, to put into actual practice the theories that had long
been taught by the intellectual leaders of the country. And the life
of a legislator who is earnest in his efforts faithfully to perform
his duty as a public servant, is harassing and laborious to the last
degree. He is kept at work from eight to fourteen hours a day; he is
obliged to incur the bitterest hostility of a body of men as powerful
as they are unscrupulous, who are always on the watch to find out, or
to make out, anything in his private or his public life which can be
used against him; and he has on his side either a but partially roused
public opinion, or else a public opinion roused, it is true, but only
blindly conscious of the evil from which it suffers, and alike ignorant
and unwilling to avail itself of the proper remedy.
This body of legislators, who, at any rate, worked honestly for what
they thought right, were, as a whole, quite unselfish, and were not
treated particularly well by their constituents. Most of them soon got
to realize the fact that if they wished to enjoy their brief space of
political life (and most though not all of them did enjoy it) they
would have to make it a rule never to consider, in deciding how to vote
upon any question, how their vote would affect their own political
prospects. No man can do good service in the Legislature as long as he
is worrying over the effect of his actions upon his own future. After
having learned this, most of them got on very happily indeed. As a
rule, and where no matter of vital principle is involved, a member is
bound to represent the views of those who have elected him; but there
are times when the voice of the people is anything but the voice of
God, and then a conscientious man is equally bound to disregard it.
In the long run, and on the average, the public will usually do
justice to its representatives; but it is a very rough, uneven, and
long-delayed justice. That is, judging from what I have myself seen of
the way in which members were treated by their constituents, I should
say that the chances of an honest man being retained in public life
were about ten per cent. better than if he were dishonest, other things
being equal. This is not a showing very creditable to us as a people;
and the explanation is to be found in the shortcomings peculiar to the
different classes of our honest and respectable voters,--shortcomings
which may be briefly outlined.
SHORTCOMINGS OF THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD TAKE PART IN POLITICAL WORK.
The people of means in all great cities have in times past shamefully
neglected their political duties, and have been contemptuously
disregarded by the professional politicians in consequence. A number
of them will get together in a large hall, will vociferously demand
“reform,” as if it were some concrete substance which could be handed
out to them in slices, and will then disband with a feeling of the
most serene self-satisfaction, and the belief that they have done their
entire duty as citizens and members of the community. It is an actual
fact that four out of five of our wealthy and educated men, of those
who occupy what is called good social position, are really ignorant of
the nature of a caucus or a primary meeting, and never attend either.
Now, under our form of government, no man can accomplish anything by
himself; he must work in combination with others; and the men of whom
we are speaking will never carry their proper weight in the political
affairs of the country until they have formed themselves into some
organization, or else, which would be better, have joined some of
the organizations already existing. But there seems often to be a
certain lack of the robuster virtues in our educated men, which makes
them shrink from the struggle and the inevitable contact with rough
politicians (who must often be rudely handled before they can be forced
to behave); while their lack of familiarity with their surroundings
causes them to lack discrimination between the politicians who are
decent, and those who are not; for in their eyes the two classes both
equally unfamiliar, are indistinguishable. Another reason why this
class is not of more consequence in politics, is that it is often
really out of sympathy--or, at least, its more conspicuous members
are--with the feelings and interests of the great mass of the American
people; and it is a discreditable fact that it is in this class that
what has been most aptly termed the “colonial” spirit still survives.
Until this survival of the spirit of colonial dependence is dead,
those in whom it exists will serve chiefly as laughing-stocks to the
shrewd, humorous, and prejudiced people who form nine tenths of our
body-politic, and whose chief characteristics are their intensely
American habits of thought, and their surly intolerance of anything
like subservience to outside and foreign influences.
From different causes, the laboring classes, even when thoroughly
honest at heart, often fail to appreciate honesty in their
representatives. They are frequently not well informed in regard
to the character of the latter, and they are apt to be led aside
by the loud professions of the so-called labor reformers, who are
always promising to procure by legislation the advantages which can
only come to working men, or to any other men, by their individual
or united energy, intelligence, and forethought. Very much has been
accomplished by legislation for laboring men, by procuring mechanics’
lien laws, factory laws, etc.; and hence it often comes that they
think legislation can accomplish all things for them; and it is only
natural, for instance, that a certain proportion of their number
should adhere to the demagogue who votes for a law to double the rate
of wages, rather than to the honest man who opposes it. When people
are struggling for the necessaries of existence, and vaguely feel, no
matter how wrongly, that they are also struggling against an unjustly
ordered system of life, it is hard to convince them of the truth that
an ounce of performance on their own part is worth a ton of legislative
promises to change in some mysterious manner that life-system.
In the country districts justice to a member is somewhat more apt to
be done. When, as is so often the case, it is not done, the cause is
usually to be sought for in the numerous petty jealousies and local
rivalries which are certain to exist in any small community whose
interests are narrow and most of whose members are acquainted with each
other; and besides this, our country vote is essentially a Bourbon or
Tory vote, being very slow to receive new ideas, very tenacious of old
ones, and hence inclined to look with suspicion upon any one who tries
to shape his course according to some standard differing from that
which is already in existence.
The actual work of procuring the passage of a bill through the
Legislature is in itself far from slight. The hostility of the actively
bad has to be discounted in advance, and the indifference of the
passive majority, who are neither very good nor very bad, has to be
overcome. This can usually be accomplished only by stirring up their
constituencies; and so, besides the constant watchfulness over the
course of the measure through both houses and the continual debating
and parliamentary fencing which is necessary, it is also indispensable
to get the people of districts not directly affected by the bill alive
to its importance, so as to induce their representatives to vote for
it. Thus, when the bill to establish a State Park at Niagara was
on its passage, it was found that the great majority of the country
members were opposed to it, fearing that it might conceal some
land-jobbing scheme, and also fearing that their constituents, whose
vice is not extravagance, would not countenance so great an expenditure
of public money. It was of no use arguing with the members, and instead
the country newspapers were flooded with letters, pamphlets were
circulated, visits and personal appeals were made, until a sufficient
number of these members changed front to enable us to get the lacking
votes.
LIFE IN THE LEGISLATURE.