The American people, when they wrote their first state constitutions,
were filled with a profound distrust of executive authority, the
offspring of their experience with the arbitrary King George. So they
saw to it that the executive authority in their own government was
reduced to its lowest terms, and that the legislative authority, which
was presumed to represent the people, was exalted to legal omnipotence.
In the original States, the legislature appointed many of the judicial
and administrative officers; it was above the executive veto; it had
political supremacy; it determined the form of local governments and
divided the State into election precincts; it appointed the delegates to
the Continental Congress, towards which it displayed the attitude of
a sovereign. It was altogether the most important arm of the state
government; in fact it virtually was the state government. The Federal
Constitution created a government of specified powers, reserving to
the States all authority not expressly given to the central government.
Congress can legislate only on subjects permitted by the Constitution;
on the other hand, a state legislature can legislate on any subject not
expressly forbidden. The state legislature possesses authority over a
far wider range of subjects than Congress--subjects, moreover, which
press much nearer to the daily activities of the citizens, such as the
wide realm of private law, personal relations, local government, and
property.
In the earlier days, men of first-class ability, such as Alexander
Hamilton, Samuel Adams, and James Madison, did not disdain membership in
the state legislatures. But the development of party spirit and machine
politics brought with it a great change. Then came the legislative
caucus; and party politics soon reigned in every capital. As the
legislature was ruled by the majority, the dominant party elected
presiding officers, designated committees, appointed subordinates, and
controlled lawmaking. The party was therefore in a position to pay its
political debts and bestow upon its supporters valuable favors. Further,
as the legislature apportioned the various electoral districts, the
dominant party could, by means of the gerrymander, entrench itself even
in unfriendly localities. And, to crown its political power, it elected
United States Senators. But, as the power of the party increased,
unfortunately the personnel of the legislature deteriorated. Able men,
as a rule, shunned a service that not only took them from their private
affairs for a number of months, but also involved them in partizan
rivalries and trickeries. Gradually the people came to lose confidence
in the legislative body and to put their trust more in the Executive or
else reserved governmental powers to themselves. It was about 1835
that the decline of the legislature's powers set in, when new state
constitutions began to clip its prerogatives, one after another.
The bulky constitutions now adopted by most of the States are
eloquent testimony to the complete collapse of the legislature as an
administrative body and to the people's general distrust of their chosen
representatives. The initiative, referendum, recall, and the withholding
of important subjects from the legislature's power, are among the
devices intended to free the people from the machinations of their
wilful representatives.
Now, most of the evils which these heroic measures have sought to
remedy can be traced directly to the partizan ownership of the state
legislature. The boss controlling the members of the legislature could
not only dole out his favors to the privilege seekers; he could assuage
the greed of the municipal ring; and could, to a lesser degree, command
federal patronage by an entente cordiale with congressmen and senators;
and through his power in presidential conventions and elections he had a
direct connection with the presidential office itself.
It was in the days before the legislature was prohibited from granting,
by special act, franchises and charters, when banks, turnpike companies,
railroads, and all sorts of corporations came asking for charters,
that the figure of the lobbyist first appeared. He acted as a middleman
between the seeker and the giver. The preeminent figure of this type in
state and legislative politics for several decades preceding the Civil
War was Thurlow Weed of New York. As an influencer of legislatures,
he stands easily first in ability and achievement. His great personal
attractions won him willing followers whom he knew how to use. He was
party manager, as well as lobbyist and boss in a real sense long before
that term was coined. His capacity for politics amounted to genius. He
never sought office; and his memory has been left singularly free
from taint. He became the editor of the Albany Journal and made it the
leading Whig "up-state" paper. His friend Seward, whom he had lifted
into the Governor's chair, passed on to the United States Senate; and
when Horace Greeley with the New York Tribune joined their forces, this
potent triumvirate ruled the Empire State. Greeley was its spokesman,
Seward its leader, but Weed was its designer. From his room No. 11
in the old Astor House, he beckoned to forces that made or unmade
presidents, governors, ambassadors, congressmen, judges, and
legislators.
With the tremendous increase of business after the Civil War, New York
City became the central office of the nation's business, and many of the
interests centered there found it wise to have permanent representatives
at Albany to scrutinize every bill that even remotely touched their
welfare, to promote legislation that was frankly in their favor, and
to prevent "strikes"--the bills designed for blackmail. After a time,
however, the number of "strikes" decreased, as well as the number of
lobbyists attending the session. The corporate interests had learned
efficiency. Instead of dealing with legislators individually, they
arranged with the boss the price of peace or of desirable legislation.
The boss transmitted his wishes to his puppets. This form of government
depends upon a machine that controls the legislature. In New York both
parties were moved by machines. "Tom" Platt was the "easy boss" of the
Republicans; and Tammany and its "up-state" affiliations controlled the
Democrats. "Right here," says Platt in his Autobiography (1910), "it
may be appropriate to say that I have had more or less to do with the
organization of the New York legislature since 1873." He had. For forty
years he practically named the Speaker and committees when his party
won, and he named the price when his party lost. All that an "interest"
had to do, under the new plan, was to "see the boss," and the powers of
government were delivered into its lap.
Some of this legislative bargaining was revealed in the insurance
investigation of 1905, conducted by the Armstrong Committee with Charles
E. Hughes as counsel. Officers of the New York Life Insurance Company
testified that their company had given $50,000 to the Republican
campaign of 1904. An item of $235,000, innocently charged to "Home
office annex account," was traced to the hands of a notorious lobbyist
at Albany. Three insurance companies had paid regularly $50,000 each
to the Republican campaign fund. Boss Platt himself was compelled
reluctantly to relate how he had for fifteen years received ten one
thousand dollar bundles of greenbacks from the Equitable Life as
"consideration" for party goods delivered. John A. McCall, President of
the New York Life, said: "I don't care about the Republican side of it
or the Democratic side of it. It doesn't count at all with me. What is
best for the New York Life moves and actuates me."
In another investigation Mr. H. O. Havemeyer of the Sugar Trust said:
"We have large interests in this State; we need police protection and
fire protection; we need everything that the city furnishes and gives,
and we have to support these things. Every individual and corporation
and firm--trust or whatever you call it--does these things and we do
them." No distinction is made, then, between the government that ought
to furnish this "protection" and the machine that sells it!
No episode in recent political history shows better the relations of the
legislature to the political machine and the great power of invisible
government than the impeachment and removal of Governor William Sulzer
in 1913. Sulzer had been four times elected to the legislature. He
served as Speaker in 1893. He was sent to Congress by an East Side
district in New York City in 1895 and served continuously until his
nomination for Governor of New York in 1912. All these years he was
known as a Tammany man. During his campaign for Governor he made many
promises for reform, and after his election he issued a bombastic
declaration of independence. His words were discounted in the light of
his previous record. Immediately after his inauguration, however,
he began a house-cleaning. He set to work an economy and efficiency
commission; he removed a Tammany superintendent of prisons; made
unusually good appointments without paying any attention to the machine;
and urged upon the legislature vigorous and vital laws.
But the Tammany party had a large working majority in both houses, and
the changed Sulzer was given no support. The crucial moment came when
an emasculated primary law was handed to him for his signature. An
effective primary law had been a leading campaign issue, all the parties
being pledged to such an enactment. The one which the Governor was now
requested to sign had been framed by the machine to suit its pleasure.
The Governor vetoed it. The legislature adjourned on the 3rd of May.
The Governor promptly reconvened it in extra session (June 7th) for the
purpose of passing an adequate primary law. Threats that had been made
against him by the machine now took form. An investigating committee,
appointed by the Senate to examine the Governor's record, largely by
chance happened upon "pay dirt," and early on the morning of the 13th of
August, after an all-night session, the Assembly passed a motion made by
its Tammany floor leader to impeach the Governor.
The articles of impeachment charged: first, that the Governor had filed
a false report of his campaign expenses; second, that since he had made
such statement under oath he was guilty of perjury; third, that he had
bribed witnesses to withhold testimony from the investigating committee;
fourth, that he had used threats in suppression of evidence before the
same tribunal; fifth, that he had persuaded a witness from responding to
the committee's subpoena; sixth, that he had used campaign contributions
for private speculation in the stock market; seventh, that he had used
his power as Governor to influence the political action of certain
officials; lastly, that he had used this power for affecting the stock
market to his gain.
Unfortunately for the Governor, the first, second, and sixth charges had
a background of facts, although the rest were ridiculous and trivial. By
a vote of 43 to 12 he was removed from the governorship. The proceeding
was not merely an impeachment of New York's Governor. It was an
impeachment of its government. Every citizen knew that if Sulzer had
obeyed Murphy, his shortcomings would never have been his undoing.
The great commonwealth of Pennsylvania was for sixty years under
the domination of the House of Cameron and the House of Quay. Simon
Cameron's entry into public notoriety was symbolic of his whole career.
In 1838, he was one of a commission of two to disburse to the Winnebago
Indians at Prairie du Chien $100,000 in gold. But, instead of receiving
gold, the poor Indians received only a few thousand dollars in the notes
of a bank of which Cameron was the cashier. Cameron was for this reason
called "the Great Winnebago." He built a large fortune by canal and
railway contracts, and later by rolling-mills and furnaces. He was one
of the first men in American politics to purchase political power by the
lavish use of cash, and to use political power for the gratification of
financial greed. In 1857 he was elected to the United States Senate as a
Republican by a legislature in which the Democrats had a majority.
Three Democrats voted for him, and so bitter was the feeling against the
renegade trio that no hotel in Harrisburg would shelter them.
In 1860 he was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
President Lincoln made him Secretary of War. But his management was so
ill-savored that a committee of leading business men from the largest
cities of the country told the President that it was impossible to
transact business with such a man. These complaints coupled with
other considerations moved Lincoln to dismiss Cameron. He did so in
characteristic fashion. On January 11, 1862, he sent Cameron a curt note
saying that he proposed to appoint him minister to Russia. And
thither into exile Cameron went. A few months later, the House of
Representatives passed a resolution of censure, citing Cameron's
employment of irresponsible persons and his purchase of supplies
by private contract instead of competitive bidding. The resolution,
however, was later expunged from the records; and Cameron, on his return
from Russia, again entered the Senate under circumstances so suspicious
that only the political influence of the boss thwarted an action for
bribery. In 1877 he resigned, naming as his successor his son "Don," who
was promptly elected.
In the meantime another personage had appeared on the scene. "Cameron
made the use of money an essential to success in politics, but Quay made
politics expensive beyond the most extravagant dreams." From the time
he arrived of age until his death, with the exception of three or four
years, Matthew S. Quay held public office. When the Civil War broke out,
he had been for some time prothonotary of Beaver County, and during the
war he served as Governor Curtin's private secretary. In 1865 he was
elected to the legislature. In 1877 he induced the legislature to
resurrect the discarded office of Recorder of Philadelphia, and for two
years he collected the annual fees of $40,000. In 1887 he was elected
to the United States Senate, in which he remained except for a brief
interval until his death.
In 1899 came revelations of Quay's substantial interests in state
moneys. The suicide of the cashier of the People's Bank of Philadelphia,
which was largely owned by politicians and was a favorite depository
of state funds, led to an investigation of the bank's affairs, and
disclosed the fact that Quay and some of his associates had used state
funds for speculation. Quay's famous telegram to the cashier was found
among the dead official's papers, "If you can buy and carry a thousand
Met. for me I will shake the plum tree."
Quay was indicted, but escaped trial by pleading the statute of
limitations as preventing the introduction of necessary evidence against
him. A great crowd of shouting henchmen accosted him as a hero when he
left the courtroom, and escorted him to his hotel. And the legislature
soon thereafter elected him to his third term in the Senate.
Pittsburgh, as well as Philadelphia, had its machine which was carefully
geared to Quay's state machine. The connection was made clear by the
testimony of William Flinn, a contractor boss, before a committee of the
United States Senate. Flinn explained the reason for a written agreement
between Quay on the one hand and Flinn and one Brown in behalf of Chris
Magee, the Big Boss, on the other, for the division of the sovereignty
of western Pennsylvania. "Senator Quay told me," said Flinn, "that
he would not permit us to elect the Republican candidate for mayor
in Pittsburgh unless we adjust the politics to suit him." The people
evidently had nothing to say about it.
The experiences of New York and Pennsylvania are by no means isolated;
they are illustrative. Very few States have escaped a legislative
scandal. In particular, Rhode Island, Delaware, Illinois, Colorado,
Montana, California, Ohio, Mississippi, Texas can give pertinent
testimony to the willingness of legislatures to prostitute their great
powers to the will of the boss or the machine.