American political maneuver culminates at Washington. The Presidency and
membership in the Senate and the House of Representatives are the great
stakes. By a venerable tradition, scrupulously followed, the judicial
department is kept beyond the reach of party greed.
The framers of the Constitution believed that they had contrived a
method of electing the President and Vice-President which would preserve
the choice from partizan taint. Each State should choose a number of
electors "equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to
which the State may be entitled in the Congress." These electors were to
form an independent body, to meet in their respective States and "ballot
for two persons," and send the result of their balloting to the Capitol,
where the President of the Senate, in the presence of the Senate and the
House of Representatives, opened the certificates and counted the
votes. The one receiving the greatest number of votes was to be declared
elected President, the one receiving the next highest number of votes,
Vice-President. George Washington was the only President elected by such
an autonomous group. The election of John Adams was bitterly contested,
and the voters knew, when they were casting their ballots in 1796,
whether they were voting for a Federalist or a Jeffersonian. From that
day forward this greatest of political prizes has been awarded through
partizan competition. In 1804 the method of selecting the Vice-President
was changed by the twelfth constitutional amendment. The electors since
that time ballot for President and Vice-President. Whatever may be
the legal privileges of the members of the Electoral College, they are
considered, by the voters, as agents of the party upon whose tickets
their names appear, and to abuse this relationship would universally be
deemed an act of perfidy.
The Constitution permits the legislatures of the States to determine how
the electors shall be chosen. In the earlier period, the legislatures
elected them; later they were elected by the people; sometimes they were
elected at large, but usually they were chosen by districts. And this
is now the general custom. Since the development of direct nominations,
there has been a strong movement towards the abolition of the Electoral
College and the election of the President by direct vote.
The President is the most powerful official in our government and
in many respects he is the most powerful ruler in the world. He is
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. His is virtually the sole
responsibility in conducting international relations. He is at the
head of the civil administration and all the important administrative
departments are answerable to him. He possesses a vast power of
appointment through which he dispenses political favors. His wish is
potent in shaping legislation and his veto is rarely overridden. With
Congress he must be in daily contact; for the Senate has the power of
ratifying or discarding his appointments and of sanctioning or rejecting
his treaties with foreign countries; and the House of Representatives
originates all money bills and thus possesses a formidable check upon
executive usurpation.
The Constitution originally reposed the choice of United States Senators
with the state legislatures. A great deal of virtue was to flow from
such an indirect election. The members of the legislature were presumed
to act with calm judgment and to choose only the wise and experienced
for the dignity of the toga. And until the period following the Civil
War the great majority of the States delighted to send their ablest
statesmen to the Senate. Upon its roll we find the names of many of our
illustrious orators and jurists. After the Civil War, when the spirit of
commercialism invaded every activity, men who were merely rich began to
aspire to senatorial honors. The debauch of the state legislatures
which was revealed in the closing year of the nineteenth century and
the opening days of the twentieth so revolted the people that the
seventeenth constitutional amendment was adopted (1913) providing for
the election of senators by direct vote.
The House of Representatives was designed to be the "popular house."
Its election from small districts, by direct vote, every two years is
a guarantee of its popular character. From this characteristic it has
never departed. It is the People's House. It originates all revenue
measures. On its floor, in the rough and tumble of debate, partizan
motives are rarely absent.
Upon this national tripod, the Presidency, the Senate, and the House, is
builded the vast national party machine. Every citizen is familiar
with the outer aspect of these great national parties as they strive in
placid times to create a real issue of the tariff, or imperialism, or
what not, so as to establish at least an ostensible difference between
them; or as they, in critical times, make the party name synonymous with
national security. The high-sounding platforms, the frenzied orators,
the parades, mass meetings, special trains, pamphlets, books,
editorials, lithographs, posters--all these paraphernalia are
conjured up in the voter's mind when he reads the words Democratic and
Republican.
But, from the standpoint of the professional politician, all this that
the voter sees is a mask, the patriotic veneer to hide the machine,
that complex hierarchy of committees ranging from Washington to every
cross-roads in the Republic. The committee system, described in a former
chapter, was perfected by the Republican party during the days of the
Civil War, under the stress of national necessity. The great party
leaders were then in Congress. When the assassination of Lincoln placed
Andrew Johnson in power, the bitter quarrel between Congress and the
President firmly united the Republicans; and in order to carry the
mid-election in 1866, they organized a Congressional Campaign Committee
to conduct the canvass. This practice has been continued by both
parties, and in "off" years it plays a very prominent part in the party
campaign. Congress alone, however, was only half the conquest. It was
only through control of the Administration that access was gained to the
succulent herbage of federal pasturage and that vast political prestige
with the voter was achieved.
The President is nominally the head of his party. In reality he may not
be; he may be only the President. That depends upon his personality,
his desires, his hold upon Congress and upon the people, and upon the
circumstances of the hour. During the Grant Administration, as already
described, there existed, in every sense of the term, a federal machine.
It held Congress, the Executive, and the vast federal patronage in its
power. All the federal office-holders, all the postmasters and their
assistants, revenue collectors, inspectors, clerks, marshals, deputies,
consuls, and ambassadors were a part of the organization, contributing
to its maintenance. We often hear today of the "Federal Crowd," a term
used to describe such appointees as still subsist on presidential and
senatorial favor. In Grant's time, this "crowd" was a genuine machine,
constructed, unlike some of its successors, from the center outward. But
the "boss" of this machine was not the President. It was controlled by
a group of leading Congressmen, who used their power for dictating
appointments and framing "desirable" legislation. Grant, in the
imagination of the people, symbolized the cause their sacrifices had
won; and thus his moral prestige became the cloak of the political
plotters.
A number of the ablest men in the Republican party, however, stood
aloof; and by 1876 a movement against the manipulators had set in. Civil
service reform had become a real issue. Hayes, the "dark horse" who
was nominated in that year, declared, in accepting the nomination, that
"reform should be thorough, radical, and complete." He promised not to
be a candidate for a second term, thus avoiding the temptation, to which
almost every President has succumbed, of using the patronage to secure
his reelection. The party managers pretended not to hear these promises.
And when Hayes, after his inauguration, actually began to put them into
force, they set the whole machinery of the party against the President.
Matters came to a head when the President issued an order commanding
federal office-holders to refrain from political activity. This order
was generally defied, especially in New York City in the post-office
and customs rings. Two notorious offenders, Cornell and Arthur, were
dismissed from office by the President. But the Senate, influenced
by Roscoe Conkling's power, refused to confirm the President's new
appointees; and under the Tenure of Office Act, which had been passed to
tie President Johnson's hands, the offenders remained in office over a
year. The fight disciplined the President and the machine in about equal
proportions. The President became more amenable and the machine less
arbitrary.
President Garfield attempted the impossible feat of obliging both the
politicians and the reformers. He was persuaded to make nominations to
federal offices in New York without consulting either of the senators
from that State, Conkling and Platt. Conkling appealed to the Senate
to reject the New York appointees sent in by the President. The Senate
failed to sustain him. Conkling and his colleague Platt resigned from
the Senate and appealed to the New York legislature, which also refused
to sustain them.
While this absurd farce was going on, a more serious ferment was
brewing. On July 2, 1881, President Garfield was assassinated by a
disappointed office-seeker named Guiteau. The attention of the people
was suddenly turned from the ridiculous diversion of the Conkling
incident to the tragedy and its cause. They saw the chief office in
their gift a mere pawn in the game of place-seekers, the time and energy
of their President wasted in bickerings with congressmen over petty
appointments, and the machinery of their Government dominated by the
machinery of the party for ignoble or selfish ends.
At last the advocates of reform found their opportunity. In 1883 the
Civil Service Act was passed, taking from the President about 14,000
appointments. Since then nearly every President, towards the end of his
term, especially his second term, has added to the numbers, until
nearly two-thirds of the federal offices are now filled by examination.
President Cleveland during his second term made sweeping additions.
President Roosevelt found about 100,000 in the classified service and
left 200,000. President Taft, before his retirement, placed in the
classified service assistant postmasters and clerks in first and
second-class postoffices, about 42,000 rural delivery carriers, and over
20,000 skilled workers in the navy yards.
The appointing power of the President, however, still remains the
principal point of his contact with the machine. He has, of course,
other means of showing partizan favors. Tariff laws, laws regulating
interstate commerce, reciprocity treaties, "pork barrels," pensions,
financial policies, are all pregnant with political possibilities.
The second official unit in the national political hierarchy is the
House of Representatives, controlling the pursestrings, which have been
the deadly noose of many executive measures. The House is elected every
two years, so that it may ever be "near to the people"! This produces a
reflex not anticipated by the Fathers of the Constitution. It gives the
representative brief respite from the necessities of politics, and hence
little time for the necessities of the State.
The House attained the zenith of its power when it arraigned President
Johnson at the bar of the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors in
office. It had shackled his appointing power by the Tenure of Office
Act; it had forced its plan of reconstruction over his veto; and now it
led him, dogged and defiant, to a political trial. Within a few years
the character of the House changed. A new generation interested in the
issues of prosperity, rather than those of the war, entered public life.
The House grew unwieldy in size and its business increased alarmingly.
The minority, meanwhile, retained the power, through filibustering, to
hold up the business of the country.
It was under such conditions that Speaker Reed, in 1890, crowned himself
"Czar" by compelling a quorum. This he did by counting as actually
present all members whom the clerk reported as "present but not voting."
The minority fought desperately for its last privilege and even took a
case to the Supreme Court to test the constitutionality of a law passed
by a Reed-made quorum. The court concurred with the sensible opinion
of the country that "when the quorum is present, it is there for the
purpose of doing business," an opinion that was completely vindicated
when the Democratic minority became a majority and adopted the rule for
its own advantage.
By this ruling, the Speakership was lifted to a new eminence. The
party caucus, which nominated the Speaker, and to which momentous party
questions were referred, gave solidarity to the party. But the influence
of the Speaker, through his power of appointing committees, of referring
bills, of recognizing members who wished to participate in debate,
insured that discipline and centralized authority which makes mass
action effective. The power of the Speaker was further enlarged by the
creation of the Rules Committee, composed of the Speaker and two members
from each party designated by him. This committee formed a triumvirate
(the minority members were merely formal members) which set the limits
of debate, proposed special rules for such occasions as the committee
thought proper, and virtually determined the destiny of bills. So it
came about, as Bryce remarks, that the choice of the Speaker was "a
political event of the highest significance."
It was under the regency of Speaker Cannon that the power of the
Speaker's office attained its climax. The Republicans had a large
majority in the House and the old war-horses felt like colts. They
assumed their leadership, however, with that obliviousness to youth
which usually characterizes old age. The gifted and attractive Reed had
ruled often by aphorism and wit, but the unimaginative Cannon ruled by
the gavel alone; and in the course of time he and his clique of veterans
forgot entirely the difference between power and leadership.
Even party regularity could not long endure such tyranny. It was not
against party organization that the insurgents finally raised
their lances, but against the arbitrary use of the machinery of the
organization by a small group of intrenched "standpatters." The revolt
began during the debate on the Payne-Aldrich tariff, and in the campaign
of 1908 "Cannonism" was denounced from the stump in every part of the
country. By March, 1910, the insurgents were able, with the aid of the
Democrats, to amend the rules, increasing the Committee on Rules to
ten to be elected by the House and making the Speaker ineligible for
membership. When the Democrats secured control of the House in the
following year, the rules were revised, and the selection of all
committees is now determined by a Committee on Committees chosen in
party caucus. This change shifts arbitrary power from the shoulders of
the Speaker to the shoulders of the party chieftains. The power of the
Speaker has been lessened but by no means destroyed. He is still the
party chanticleer.
The political power of the House, however, cannot be calculated without
admitting to the equation the Senate, the third official unit, and,
indeed, the most powerful factor in the national hierarchy. The Senate
shares equally with the House the responsibility of lawmaking, and
shares with the President the responsibility of appointments and of
treaty-making. It has been the scene of many memorable contests with the
President for political control. The senators are elder statesmen, who
have passed through the refining fires of experience, either in law,
business, or politics. A senator is elected for six years; so that
he has a period of rest between elections, in which he may forget his
constituents in the ardor of his duties.
Within the last few decades a great change has come over the Senate,
over its membership, its attitude towards public questions, and
its relation to the electorate. This has been brought about through
disclosures tending to show the relations on the part of some senators
towards "big business." As early as the Granger revelations of railway
machinations in politics, in the seventies, a popular distrust of the
Senate became pronounced. No suggestion of corruption was implied, but
certain senators were known as "railway senators," and were believed
to use their partizan influence in their friends' behalf. This feeling
increased from year to year, until what was long suspected came suddenly
to light, through an entirely unexpected agency. William Randolph
Hearst, a newspaper owner who had in vain attempted to secure a
nomination for President by the Democrats and to get himself elected
Governor of New York, had organized and financed a party of his own, the
Independence League. While speaking in behalf of his party, in the fall
of 1908, he read extracts from letters written by an official of
the Standard Oil Company to various senators. The letters, it later
appeared, had been purloined from the Company's files by a faithless
employee. They caused a tremendous sensation. The public mind had become
so sensitive that the mere fact that an intimacy existed between the
most notorious of trusts and some few United States senators--the
correspondents called each other "Dear John," "Dear Senator," etc.--was
sufficient to arouse the general wrath. The letters disclosed a keen
interest on the part of the corporation in the details of legislation,
and the public promptly took the Standard Oil Company as a type.
They believed, without demanding tangible proof, that other great
corporations were, in some sinister manner, influencing legislation.
Railroads, insurance companies, great banking concerns, vast industrial
corporations, were associated in the public mind as "the Interests." And
the United States Senate was deemed the stronghold of the interests. A
saturnalia of senatorial muckraking now laid bare the "oligarchy,"
as the small group of powerful veteran Senators who controlled
the senatorial machinery was called. It was disclosed that the
centralization of leadership in the Senate coincided with the
centralization of power in the Democratic and Republican national
machines. In 1911 and 1912 a "money trust" investigation was conducted
by the Senate and a comfortable entente was revealed between a group
of bankers, insurance companies, manufacturers, and other interests,
carried on through an elaborate system of interlocking directorates.
Finally, in 1912, the Senate ordered its Committee on Privileges and
Elections to investigate campaign contributions paid to the national
campaign committees in 1904, 1908, and 1912. The testimony taken
before this committee supplied the country with authentic data of the
interrelations of Big Business and Big Politics.
The revolt against "Cannonism" in the House had its counterpart in the
Senate. By the time the Aldrich tariff bill came to a vote (1909),
about ten Republican senators rebelled. The revolt gathered momentum and
culminated in 1912 in the organization of the National Progressive party
with Theodore Roosevelt as its candidate for President and Hiram Johnson
of California for Vice-President. The majority of the Progressives
returned to the Republican fold in 1916. But the rupture was not healed,
and the Democrats reelected Woodrow Wilson.