A BASE OF POLITICAL SUPPLIES
In the course of its democratic adventures the county was incapacitated
for standing on its own feet. When every independent elective officer
became a law to himself, the county ceased to be a single government.
Politically it became then little more than a convenient way of
speaking of a group of officers whose field of activity was closely
related. In these very close relations lay the material for serious
conflicts of interest that brought friction, delays, inaction. County
governments could really get nowhere. Their energies were consumed in
standing still and keeping alive. Since separate officers of the county
had no common superior, the county could not move in any particular
direction; no more than an army of self-directing divisions, each with
a will of its own.
Moreover there came to be counties which could not even organize
themselves, even after the imperfect fashion described in the laws of
the state. The people grew in numbers, their interests increased in
complexity and county affairs sank into comparative insignificance.
In their theory of pure democracy via the ballot, they spread out
their interest in county officers so thin that no single officer got
sufficient attention to make him realize their influence. County
candidates were mixed up on the ballot with a multitude of others,
state, national and municipal, so that it was practically certain
that not only unknown but often undesirable citizens would step into
power with the “people’s” stamp of approval. The voters of New York
have been electing coroners (or have been thinking they did). When
a few people in 1914 began to delve into the history of the office,
they turned up an astonishing situation. Scarcely one of the men who
had been elected to the office in a period of twelve years could be
said to have had even a modest part of the qualifications required for
the positions. Some of the worst rascals of all had been elected in
reform administrations and as one coroner admitted on the stand, the
controlling purpose in mind in the selection was that of “balancing the
ticket” so that geographical sections and racial and religious elements
would get their proper share in the spoils.
Rural electorates probably have done better all along the line with
their county officers than the voters in the cities. Measured by the
standards of personal acquaintanceship, the candidates for county
office have perhaps nearly always been known quantities in the rural
districts. The “glad-hander” and the accomplished back-slapper has
gotten on famously. They have made a business of knowing everybody. And
yet they have sometimes, as private individuals, failed to reveal to
their most intimate friends the qualities which have made them unfit
for a public trust. Placed in offices of conspicuous responsibility
where the sunlight of public opinion and criticism has beat upon them,
it is impossible that many men would have gone far wrong. But since
the work of county officers has had little to do with the shaping of
public policies upon which the average voter has any opinion; since the
county jail has not been a public museum where men were wont to take
their friends and families, and since there has been nothing especially
interesting about the serving of a warrant of arrest or attachment, the
officers involved have not always revealed their innermost personal
qualities. Year after year a smiling popular sheriff might go on doing
these services in the most expensive, inefficient way, with here and
there a touch of corruption; and the great body of voters who met him
every week at the lodge would be none the wiser. In the same way the
voters might elect a “good fellow” superintendent of the poor. They
might continue to know him as a good fellow but it has been a rare
constituency that has followed him up in his official duties to know
how “good” he was to the unfortunates under his care and to the public
in general. It has been a rare good fellow who has combined in his
single person the ability to shake every right hand and kiss every
baby in the county, with a really modern, scientific knowledge of the
treatment of poverty.
The county clerk upon assuming office shuts himself away in a forest
of filing cases and meets the public officially only as they come to
him for a marriage license or to file a deed or mortgage. And as for
the coroner, mostly people have been glad to leave him severely alone,
trusting that no untoward mishap will bring them into his clutches.
For all ordinary purposes they have regarded him as a grim joke, not
knowing that in many cases a misstep on his part might result in the
escape of a criminal or spoil the case of a litigant entitled to
damages or of a policyholder to his insurance.
A possible exception to this inconspicuousness is the district
attorney. American communities appear to have reserved high political
honors to the most efficient and best advertised “man-hunter.” A white
light of public interest has always beat upon the public prosecutor.
Many a reputation for skill and courage and all-around general
administrative ability has been built up around a record of convictions
of notorious criminals. The district attorney with a sense of the
dramatic has usually been in line for the governorship of his state. It
seems also to be regarded as conducive to efficiency that this officer
should be controlled directly through the ballot.
And so, the system of popular election has given no assurance that,
though the people may know them ever so well as individuals, they
would know their candidates in the sense that fixes their electoral
responsibility.
What has had to be done, but what the people of the county have been
unwilling or unable to do for themselves, has given to a public-minded
fraction of the community the opportunity of their lives. They have
generously taken over the people’s government and run it for them.
Gradually there has come to life a new profession, a governing class,
with leadership, discipline and resources. To the acknowledged head
of this fraternity have come aspirants to public honors and seekers
after favors. Power and influence have been laid at his feet. He has
become the virtual dictator of the county’s political destinies. The
laws underlying the organization of the county government have not been
changed; but there has grown up, quite outside the statute books and
outside the court house itself, a second government that has supplied
the great lack in the official, legal one, the lack of a definite head.
The new factor in the county’s affairs has come to exercise the powers
of an executive. _Theoretically_ the people have elected his heads
of departments; practically he has chosen them himself. The people have
retained the forms while he has arrogated to himself the substance of
political power.
He is with us yet, this clever, dominating, often silent personage,
sometimes in a single individual, sometimes in a group, sometimes
benevolent, respectable and public-spirited, sometimes brutal and
mercenary. It may not always be easy to find him, but he is _always
present in every American county_; for there is no stable government
without him.
For the development of his peculiar talents the county is a
particularly favorable environment. For the county, in a word, is in
the shadow--the ideal condition for complete irresponsibility, which is
the father of bossism.
But what do the voters do if they do not in fact elect their officers?
It is now perfectly well known to students of political science that
what the usual run of voter does in such a case is to ratify one or
the other set of candidates who have been previously culled over by
the county committee of either party. It is true that, under the
direct primary system, independent voters may start a revolt if the
politicians do something that is particularly “bold” and “raw.” But
even that privilege is of questionable value, for it breaks down even
the kind of responsibility that obtains under the rule of an unofficial
executive, since the boss, if criticized for a bad selection, is
always able to fall back upon the explanation that “the people did it
themselves.”
And when the votes have been counted and the candidates chosen, what
of the citizens and the politicians then? Armed with a certificate of
election “direct from the people,” the sheriff, the coroner, the county
clerk, owe no _legal_ allegiance to anyone save to them. But the
people have finished watching the election count and have gone home and
back to work on concerns which are infinitely more absorbing than any
which affects the county government.
Then there comes into play another political allegiance which is not
of law. The “governing class,” which gave the separate county officers
their jobs, is not in business for its health. It does not put men
in paid positions out of pure bigness of heart. It performs a public
service and it earns a right to collect a toll. _And it collects!_
The bosses collect “theirs” not only in terms of power to name the
officers whom the people shall elect, but insofar as no bothersome
civil service law is in the way they select also the subordinates. And
through this power of appointment they exercise various other powers
which make them to all intents and purposes the real seat of final
authority in the county.
And so we see the workings of a natural law. In nature the organism
that survives is that naturally selected one that adapts itself to
its environment. Just so the American democracy has adapted itself
to the difficult political situation which it has itself created.
The political unit, which in the present instance is the county, is
legally without a head; forthwith instead of going to pieces, it grows
this necessary piece of anatomy outside its own body, and lo, an
altogether unworkable system is made tolerably workable!
One reason why the boss flourishes so bountifully in the county is
the almost complete lack of any special legal qualifications for
filling the offices (except the district attorneyship). Anybody can be
a county clerk. He need only appoint as his chief deputy a faithful
easy-going person who has been on the job for years at a stretch and
has made himself indispensable as a master of the details of the
office. This deputy will, of course, be the real county clerk and he
will draw a comparatively modest salary because he is of no direct use
to the “organization,” while the elected official collects the high
compensation, spends a little time in the office every day, dividing
the rest between the interests of the “ring” and his own legitimate
private business, which goes right on as usual throughout his term.
Another attraction in the county offices is the large fees which are
paid in probably the majority of counties in lieu of stated salaries.
The county clerk collects from the person immediately benefited, a sum
fixed by statute for each document filed. The sheriff makes similar
collections for the service of each legal process. The coroner draws
from the county a fixed amount for each inquest.
The theory of the fee system is, first, that the service is paid for
by the party whom it most concerns and secondly, that a specific reward
for a specific service will be an incentive to the officer to do his
duty. Nearly everywhere, however, the theory has worked out very badly.
It is doubtless proper that every person who receives special service
should contribute accordingly to the expense of government. In small
counties where the work of the county is limited there seems also to be
much to be said in favor of the officer keeping the fees. But in large
counties having an enormous business the compensation from this source
is often all out of proportion to the amount of service rendered. It
would seem, for instance, that the sheriff of New York County, who is
never a man of special training, would be amply compensated for his
routine services by a salary of $12,000. But in addition to this sum
he is now (1916) receiving annually about $60,000 in fees. The county
treasurer of Cook County, Ill., within very recent years, is said
to have pocketed during his four-year term about the better part of
$500,000,--he was never willing to tell the public just what the amount
was and the law has protected his policy of silence.
But it must not be supposed that these rich prizes remain the personal
property of an individual officer. Nor is it to be supposed that the
numerous deputyships which often provide berths at a much higher
compensation than would be allowed for the same service under private
auspices, go to enrich the head of the office. No, the man or the
men, who put the sheriff or the county treasurer where they are have a
great deal to say about the disposition of this money. In New Jersey,
lest a single county officer should take himself too seriously in this
respect, the law provides that all appointments of the sheriff shall be
confirmed by the board of freeholders--and confirmation means control.
If the Cook County treasurer had kept the fees of his office, it is
hardly to be supposed that the county commissioners for years would
have bitterly fought to prevent an accounting for these funds.
The county is indeed a wonderfully bountiful base of supplies for the
spoilsmen. The circumstance goes far to explain the slow growth of
the merit system in this branch of government. Civil service laws are
in force to-day in eighteen counties in New York, four in New Jersey,
one in Colorado, one in Illinois, two in California and the more
important counties in Ohio. That is the extent of the merit system in
counties. Even in states like Massachusetts, Illinois and Wisconsin,
where state-wide civil service laws affecting cities are in operation,
appointments in the county offices are filled on the principle of
“to the victor belong the spoils.” In New York State the courts have
enunciated a principle with reference to the relation between the
sheriff and his deputies which has the effect of fortifying the system
against attack and its most prolific outlet. For, said the court in
Flaherty _vs._ Milliken,[3] “the relation between a sheriff and
his appointees is not merely that the sheriff is responsible for the
default of his appointee, but that the appointee for said default
is _liable to the sheriff and to no one else_.” “The practical
operation of this rule of personal agency,” says the New York Civil
Service Commission, “is in large measure to open the door for political
purposes of persons in whom no real trust is reposed. These offices are
in practice found to be a haven for political spoilsmen....”
But “spoils” often connotes something besides jobs that pay salaries
or fees. In Westchester County, N. Y., where county affairs are known
to the public rather more intimately than elsewhere (owing to the
activities of the local Research Bureau), it has been found that
perhaps the richest patronage of all is in the county advertising. The
state of New York requires, for instance, the publication in every
county of the complete session laws of the legislature, in two papers.
It means the setting up in newspaper type of two or more large legal
volumes of intricate matter that no one could possibly use in that
form. Then there are multitudinous formal legal notices that issue from
the various offices at the court house, that rarely, in the nature of
the case, interest more than the two or three parties who may never see
them at all. Every paper that prints this material gets paid, often at
a much higher rate than it would be compensated for ordinary commercial
work. In one case an honest printer in Westchester County was so
indiscreet and independent as to submit to the Board of Supervisors
a bill at something approximating a fair rate,--$600. His rivals
remonstrated and undertook to get him to raise his figure--they were
charging $1060 for the same matter. But the independent said: “No, $600
is the legal price and moreover it is good pay.” The board audited his
claim and of course cut down the rival papers accordingly,--but never
thereafter did the county printing go to the man who wanted to be fair
to the public.
Papers that go in for public advertising could not in many cases exist
without it. Indeed many papers are created for the purpose of absorbing
this business. Their circulation is usually limited to a few hundred
copies. They cannot afford to criticize the administration in power or
to express themselves independently on any public issue. Where there
are several such organs in a county (Westchester has about twenty) the
newspaper field tends to be closed effectively against the type of
legitimate journal which would exercise a wholesome influence on public
opinion.
Just to what extent and how intensely this stifling influence exists
throughout the country is one of the really dark secrets of the county
problem. It shows its head in so many widely separated places and
there are so many feeble “boiler-plate” weekly papers that carry county
advertising, that one is led to suspect that it is a very pervasive
factor, especially in rural politics.
The importance of county spoils is not merely local. Throughout the
northern states, except in New England, the county is undoubtedly the
strongest link in the whole nation-wide system of party organization.
Party politicians hoot when reformers suggest that local politics
has nothing to do with the tariff or the Mexican question. And they
are right! Whether properly or improperly, it has _very much_
to do with these questions, or rather with the selection of the men
who handle them. The power, for instance, of Tammany Hall in national
politics is measured by its power to swing the most populous county in
what is usually a pivotal state. Its power in the county is in direct
ratio to the number of offices with which it may reward party service.
Party organization for a great part of the country has the county
committee as its basis. This is especially true of the Republican
Party in Pennsylvania where the present organization dates back prior
to the Civil War. The state committee is chosen from districts based
upon counties and the state machine is an assembling of all the local
cogs and wheels. Politicians think and talk in terms of counties
in their party councils and in the legislature. State machines are
principally an assemblage of county units. In many states legislative
representatives are chosen from county districts.
Trace the political record of the members of Congress. An astonishing
proportion have come up either through county offices or through state
legislative positions filled by general county tickets. To that extent
the national legislature is the fruit of the county system. And is it
not safe to say, with the selection of certain Congressmen in mind,
that the stream of national politics is poisoned at the source?
It is not strange that machine politicians have come to look upon the
county as a source whence blessings flow. The county has both created
and sustained them!
[3] New Jersey courts have rendered a diametrically opposite opinion.