Commandment” and like some other preachers I do not intend to keep
purely to that text. I chose the two titles I speak upon today and
tomorrow because I wish to lay especial stress upon the prime virtue
of the public servant and therefore the prime crime of the unworthy
public servant; and also upon the prime virtue and the corresponding
prime crime of the man who writes about the public servant, the man
of the newspaper press and magazines. With the latter I shall deal
tomorrow. Today I wish to speak of the public servant. Because the
first essential in a public man is honesty, I have chosen as my title
the public servant and the eighth commandment; but I wish to speak of
much more than the eighth commandment in connection with the public
servant, and I wish to speak of the attitude of the public as well as
of the attitude of its servant.
There used to be in the army an old proverb that there were no bad
regiments, but plenty of bad colonels. So in private life I have grown
to believe that if you always find bad servants in a household you want
to look out for the mistress. I wonder if you grasp just what I mean by
that? If you always find bad public servants, look out for the public!
We here--you my hearers and I--live in a government where we are
the people and in consequence where we are not to be excused if the
government goes wrong. There are many countries where the government
can be very wrong indeed and where nevertheless it can be said that
the people are fundamentally right, for they don’t choose their public
servants, they don’t choose their government. On the contrary we do
choose our government, not temporarily but permanently, and in the long
run our public servants must necessarily be what we choose to have
them. They represent us; they must represent our self-restraint and
sense of decency and common sense, or else, our folly, our wickedness,
or at least our supine indifference in letting others do the work of
government for us. Not only should we have the right type of public
servants, but we should remember that the wrong type discredits not
only the man himself but each of us whose servant he is. Sometimes I
hear our countrymen inveigh against politicians; I hear our countrymen
abroad saying, “Oh, you mustn’t judge us by our politicians.” I always
want to interrupt and answer, “you must judge us by our politicians.”
We pretend to be the masters--we, the people--and if we permit
ourselves to be ill served, to be served by corrupt and incompetent and
inefficient men, then on our own heads must the blame rest.
The other day I spoke to you of the prime need of having each man act
the good citizen first in his own home, and I added that unless he did,
he could not be a good citizen. But that is not enough. In addition
the man must do his part, not merely in the election of candidates,
but in creating the kind of atmosphere which will make the public man
unwilling to do wrong, and especially unwilling to permit wrong in its
grosser forms.
I began my education early, immediately after leaving college; for
about that time I first began to spend a good deal of my time west of
the Mississippi, and I also went into the New York legislature, a by
no means wholly arcadian body. It is a little difficult to persuade me
that politically we are growing worse. I do not think so. I think that
politically we have grown a little better during the thirty years that
I have watched politics close at hand. We have slipped back, now and
then, we have had trouble of every kind--local disturbances--yet on the
whole I believe we have grown better and not worse; but there is still
ample room for improvement!
One of the first things that struck me in the legislature was the
amount of downright corruption that I saw and the utter cynicism with
which many of the men who practiced the corruption spoke of it. The
next thing that struck me, as I grew better acquainted with political
conditions, was the difficulty in arousing the public to an attitude of
hostility towards that corruption. This was largely because the public
declined to be awakened unless they thought the corruption was directly
exercised at their own expense; in other words, it availed little to
go into a district and say “look at that man’s votes on such and such
questions, they show that he isn’t a straight man,” unless the people
of the district believed that their own interest was involved in one
of the questions upon which the man had voted wrong. For instance,
there were in the legislature at that time many country members who
were scrupulous to do right, or at least to appear to do right, on the
smallest questions affecting their own districts, but who would go very
far wrong indeed when the question was one involving some interest
in New York City; for they trusted to the fact that their people did
not care how they voted on New York City matters as long as they kept
straight on matters immediately affecting the constituents themselves.
Naturally men who held such a standard were certain when they got into
higher offices to be false to their trust. You cannot have unilateral
honesty. The minute that a man is dishonest along certain lines, even
though he pretends to be honest along other lines, you can be sure that
it is only a pretense, it is only expediency; and you cannot trust
to the mere sense of expediency to hold a man straight under heavy
pressure. I very early made up my mind that it was a detriment to the
public to have in public life any man whose attitude was merely that he
would be as honest as the law made it necessary for him to be. The kind
of honesty which essentially consists merely in too great acuteness
to get into jail is a mighty poor type of honesty upon which to rely;
because, up near the border line between what can and what can not be
punished by law, there come many occasions when the man can defile the
public service, can defy the public conscience, can in spirit be false
to his oath, and yet technically keep his skirts clear. When I say
that the prime need is that the public servant shall obey the eighth
commandment I do not mean merely that he shall keep himself in such
shape that a clever lawyer can get him off if he is charged with theft.
I mean that he shall be honest intensively and extensively. I mean that
he shall act with the same fine sense of honor toward the public and on
behalf of the public that we expect to be shown by those neighbors with
whom we are willing to trust not only our money, but our good names. If
you intend to trust a neighbor, the kind of neighbor whom you certainly
will not choose is the man of whom it can only be said that you are
quite sure you won’t be able to get him in jail. The kind of mental
acuteness that is shown merely by a thorough study of the best methods
of escaping successful criminal procedure is not the kind of mental
acuteness that you value in your friend, in the man with whom you have
business relations; and it should be the last type of mental ability,
the last type of moral attitude, which you tolerate in a public man.
Perhaps the most dangerous of all public servants, however, is the
public servant who gets into office by persuading a section of the
public that he will do something that is just a little bit crooked in
their interest. I do not care in the least what section of the public
is thus persuaded. I do not care whether it is the great corporation
man who wishes to see a given individual made judge, or executive
officer, or legislator, “because he is our man and he will look out
for the rights of property,” or whether, on the other hand, it is the
wage-worker, the laboring man, who supports some candidate because
that candidate announces that he is “the friend of labor,” although
the man to whom the appeal is made ought to understand also that the
candidate is the foe of decency. Capitalist and wage-worker alike will
do well to remember that their interests face to face with the public
man are primarily as those affecting all good American citizens, and
that whatever the temporary advantage may be, they irretrievably harm
themselves and the children who are to come after them if they permit
themselves to be drawn into any other attitude.
The capitalist who because he thinks it is the interest of his class
to have in high office a corrupt man who will serve his class interest
is laying up for himself and for his children a day of terrible
retribution; for if that type of capitalist has his way long enough he
will persuade the whole community that the interest of the community
is bound up in overthrowing every man in public office who serves
property, even though he serves it honestly. The corrupt capitalist may
help himself for the moment, and he may be defended by others of his
own class on grounds of expediency; but in the end he works fearful
damage to his fellows. If a business man cannot run a given business
except by bribing or by submitting to blackmail let him get out of it
and into some other business. If he cannot run his business save on
condition of doing things which can only be done in the darkness, then
let him enter into some totally different field of activity. The test
is easy. Let him ask whether he is afraid anything will be found out or
not. If he is not, he is all right; if he is, he is all wrong. So much
for the capitalist.
Let the wage-worker in his turn remember that the candidate for public
office who appeals for his support upon the ground that he will condone
lawless violence, that he will look the other way when violence is
perpetrated, that he will recognize the rules of a labor organization
of any kind as standing above the Constitution and the laws of his
country, let the laboring man remember that if he supports such a
candidate he in his turn is doing his best to bring about a condition
of things where democracy would come to an end, where self-rule would
come to an end. Let the capitalist remember that he had better be
most shocked at the deeds of his own class, and not at the misdeeds
of the men of another class. And let the laboring man remember in his
turn that the foe against whom he should most carefully guard is the
corrupt labor man, the labor candidate who preaches violence, envy,
class hatred. That is the kind of man who most jeopards the welfare of
the wageworker, just as the successful corruptionist, the capitalist
who has reached a high position in the financial world by the practice
of acts that will not bear the light of day, is really the worst foe of
the very property classes that are sometimes so misguided as to rally
to his defense when he is attacked.
I shall tell you one story: In the old days I used to have a cow ranch
in the short grass country. At that time there were no fences within a
thousand miles of it. If a calf was passed by on the roundup so that
next year when it was a yearling and was not following any cow it was
unbranded, it was called a maverick. It was range custom or range law
that if a maverick were found on any range the man finding it would put
on the brand of that range. One day I had hired a new cow-puncher, and
when he and I were riding we struck a maverick. It was on a neighbor’s
range, the Thistle Range. The puncher roped and threw the maverick;
we built a little fire of sage-brush, and took out the cinch iron and
heated it to run on the brand. When he started to run on the brand I
said to him “the Thistle brand”; he answered, “that’s all right, boss,
I know my business.” In a minute I said “hold on, you’re putting on my
brand”; to which he answered “Yes, I always put on the boss’s brand.” I
said “Oh, well, you go back to the house and get your time.” He rose,
saying “What’s that for, I was putting on your brand”; and I closed the
conversation with the remark “Yes, my friend, and if you will steal
for me you will steal from me.” That applies in lots of occupations
besides those of the cow punchers. Nowhere does it apply more clearly
than in public life.
One of the pains of our development as a people has been the tendency
to deify what is called “smartness,” meaning by smartness adroitness
and skill unaccompanied by any scruple in connection with the
observance of a moral law. We have all of us heard--I have heard it
in the West as well as in the East--some man alluded to as an awful
scoundrel, and another person replying “Oh yes, perhaps he ain’t quite
straight, but I tell you, that fellow is smart!” You must yourselves
have heard at times this kind of statement made about some scoundrel
whom you could not understand decent men supporting; and the statement
is acted upon by many little men, and by many big men, both in business
life and in political life. Well, we shall never reach the proper
standard in public service or in private conduct until we have a public
opinion so aroused, so resolute, so intelligent, that it shall be
understood that we are more bitter against the scoundrel that succeeds
than against the scoundrel that fails.
The other day I noticed a brief statement made by a certain Senator,
which, as far as I have seen, has not been commented on at all, but
which struck me as highly significant. The Senator in question had
been defending Mr. Lorimer, and in alluding to some of the men who had
testified that they had been bribed to vote for the Illinois Senator,
he quite casually remarked that in his experience a knave was always a
fool. His idea was that no very high grade intelligence was ever found
in a knave. The Senator was entirely wrong. The knave that fails is
usually a fool, but the knave that succeeds may be a very intelligent
man, and his intelligence when unaccompanied by any trace of moral
instinct, merely makes him infinitely the most dangerous man that this
community can bring forth; and the Senator in the remark he made came
dangerously near assuming the very dangerous position that a knave who
is sufficiently able is therefore relieved from the odium of knavery.
We ought to admire intelligence and ability; but only when the
intelligence and ability are controlled and guided by the will to
do right. Intelligence and ability divorced from the moral instinct
merely make the man an infinitely dangerous wild beast whom it is our
business to hunt out of the political life, and, so far as we can, out
of the business life, of the community.
It has been finely said that the supreme task of humanity is to
subordinate the whole fabric of civilization to the service of the
soul. This does not mean that we are to neglect the things of the body.
It means that we are to treat the welfare of the body as necessary, as
a good in itself; but still more as a good because upon that welfare
we can build the higher welfare of the soul. There is a soul in the
community, a soul in the nation, just exactly as there is a soul in the
individual; and exactly as the individual hopelessly mars himself if he
lets his conscience be dulled by the constant repetition of unworthy
acts, so the nation will hopelessly blunt the popular conscience if
it permits its public men continually to do acts which the nation in
its heart of hearts knows are acts that cast discredit upon our whole
public life.
It is an old and a trite saying that our actions have more effect upon
our principles than our principles upon our actions. I remember some
time ago out on the range listening to a fine old fellow speaking
to his nephew who was a fine young man, but nervous in his strange
surroundings, and entirely unaccustomed to horses. The young fellow had
asked his uncle how he could grow fearless in handling horses, because,
he said, he was sure that if he only could get so that he would not be
afraid of them he could handle them all right. The old uncle responded,
“Now, I’ll tell you, you go ahead and handle them as if you were not
afraid of them and gradually you will stop being afraid of them.” In
other words, the boy could not afford to wait until he stopped being
afraid of the horse before he rode it. He had to ride until he stopped
being afraid of it. He had to get the habit of not being afraid of it,
and when once he had acquired the habit of riding as if he were not
afraid, all cause for worry disappeared and gradually all fear itself
disappeared. It is just the same way in public life. If you habitually
suffer your public representatives to be dishonest you will gradually
lose all power of insisting upon honesty. If you let them continually
do little acts that are not quite straight you will gradually induce in
their minds the mental attitude which will make it hopeless to get from
them anything that is not crooked. If in this state, in California,
or in New York, you for a generation permit big corporations to
purchase favors to which they are not entitled you will breed up a race
of public men and business men who accept that condition of things
as normal. And then, my friends, when you finally wake up I wish you
would remember that great though their blame may be your blame is even
greater for having permitted such a condition of things to arise.
When the awakening comes, you will undoubtedly have to change the
machinery of the law in order to meet the conditions that have become
so bad, but do not forget that no nation was ever yet saved by
governmental machinery alone. You must have the right kind of law; but
the best law that the wit of man can devise will amount to nothing if
you have not the right kind of spirit in the man behind the law. And
again, friends, when you finally revolt, as revolt you will and must
against being ruled by corporations, and when you assume the power over
them, then is the time to remember that it is your duty to be honest to
them just as much as to exact honesty from them; and that if you are
guilty of the folly and iniquity of doing wrong at their expense, you
have not made a step in advance, even though you have stopped them from
doing wrong at your expense. You must demand honesty or you are not
men; and you must do honesty or you are not decent men.
Sometimes I have been asked as to why I draw the distinction in need
of governmental action between the big business corporation and the
smaller corporation. I think it is perfectly clear. Each one of us
deals in his domestic relations with a number of different men, the
grocer, the dry goods merchant, the carpenter, the butcher, the baker,
and a number of others. Now, we do not need any governmental help
in dealing with those men, because they are about our size. If the
grocer doesn’t give you the proper kind of goods you will change the
grocer, and if you don’t pay the grocer he will change you. But if the
grocer becomes--I use the technical terminology--a captain of industry
and accumulates a great fortune and joins with other men of the same
type in a great business--a great railroad, a great oil or coal
company, I don’t care what it is--then they create a mighty artificial
entity called a corporation, and no one of us individually can deal
satisfactorily with that corporation because we are dealing with an
entity that is not our size. You can change the grocer if he serves you
ill; but if you live along the line of the only railway in the country
and wish to ship goods you must ship them on the railway’s terms or
not ship them at all. That is the only alternative. If you are dealing
with a big corporation that controls all the products of an industry
or if you are working for that corporation, you must accept what it
gives or accept nothing. The situation is reversed from what it was
previously. Therefore it becomes necessary to replace our individual
strength by the strength of all of us collectively, so that we may have
to represent us an artificial entity as big as the corporation. If the
corporation works only inside a state, why then this entity must be
the state government; if it works in a number of different states, then
we invoke the only man big enough to deal with it--Uncle Sam.
And now how shall Uncle Sam deal with it? Well, fundamentally just
exactly as we deal with the grocer and the grocer with us. If we do
not pay the grocer enough to give him a profit he will either have to
abandon serving us or he will have to get out of business. He cannot
run his business unless we pay him enough for him to make money. It
is just the same with a big corporation. If we insist upon making
stipulations on behalf of the Government, on behalf of the people, such
that the corporation cannot carry them out and give any money to those
who have built it up, why either that corporation will quit business
or at least no other corporation will go into business. On the other
hand, if each householder here always pays all his bills without
looking into them it does not show that he has a nice disposition,
it shows that he is a fool. In the same way I want Uncle Sam to do
scrupulous justice to the corporation, but I want him to say in return,
now I want you to behave yourself, I have no doubt that you would like
to behave yourself; but whether you would or would not, I will see that
you do behave yourself.
In the century which is now well open we shall have to use the
legislative power of the state to make conditions better and more even
as between man and man. Our aim must be to control the big corporation
so that while it earns an ample reward upon its investment it gives
to the public in return an ample service for the reward it receives.
More and more we must shape conditions so that each man shall have
a fair chance in life; that so far as we can bring it about--I do
not mean to say that we can bring it about absolutely but insofar as
we can approximately bring it about--each man shall start in life
on a measurable equality of opportunity with other men, unhelped by
privilege himself, unhindered by privilege in others. Now understand
me: I do not mean for a moment that we should try to bring about the
impossible and undesirable condition, of giving to all men equality of
reward. As long as human nature is what it is there will be inequality
of service, and where there is inequality of service there ought to be
inequality of reward. That is justice. Equal reward for unequal service
is injustice. All I am trying to help bring about is such a condition
of affairs that there shall be measurable approximation to a higher
reward than at present for the right kind of service, and a less reward
than at present for some forms of activity that do not represent real
service at all. There must be an opportunity for each man to show the
stuff that is in him. But in the last analysis he must help himself.
Every one of us stumbles at times. There is not a man here who does
not at times stumble; and when that is the case shame on his brother
who will not stretch out a helping hand to him. Help him up; but when
he has been helped up then it is his duty and business to walk for
himself. Help him up; but if he lies down, you cannot carry him. You
will not do any good to him and you will interfere with your own
usefulness to yourself and to others.
Our whole governmental policy should be shaped to secure a more even
justice as between man and man, and better conditions such as will
permit each man to do the best there is in him. In other words,
our governmental ideal is to secure as far as possible the even
distribution of justice--using the word justice in its largest and
finest sense. You cannot secure justice if you haven’t just and upright
public servants. You cannot secure great reforms if the fountain head
from which the reforms are to come is corrupt. Our democracy in this
our country now approximates the hundred million limit of population;
our great democracy has great and complex needs; we need to have wise
men, far-sighted men in public office, so that they may study those
needs, and, so far as may be, meet them. But no wisdom in a public
servant will avail if the public servant is not honest; and he will not
be honest unless the public both demands and practices honesty.
I plead for honesty in the public servant, and I plead for it strongly.
We need ability and intelligence to help us solve the problems with
which as a nation we are face to face. We cannot solve them without
ability, without intelligence. But what we need most of all is honesty,
honesty in our people and honesty in our representatives. And woe to us
as a nation if we do not have the honesty, the uprightness, the desire
to treat each man with wise and generous and considerate justice.