necessarily confines corruption to the field of politics. This is
intentional. Corruption is quite as possible elsewhere as in the state.
That it has so frequently been discussed as peculiarly political is by
no means proof that government is subject to it in a greater degree
than other social organisations. One might rather conclude that the
earlier discovery and more vigorous denunciation of corruption as a
political evil showed greater purgative virtue in the state than in
other spheres of human activity. For surely the day is gone by when
the clamour of reformers was all for a “business administration” of
public affairs. Since that era business has had to look sharply to
its own morals—in insurance, in public utilities, in railroads, in
corporate finance, and elsewhere. Revelations in these fields have
made it plain that much of the impetus to wrong-doing in the political
sphere comes originally from business interests. This is not to be
taken as in any sense exculpating the public officials concerned; it
simply indicates the guilt of the business man as _particeps criminis_
with the politician. Moreover business can and does suffer from forms
of corruption which are peculiar to itself and which in no way involve
political turpitude. Such offences range all the way from the sale by
a clerk of business secrets to a rival concern, and the receipt of
presents or gratuitous entertainment from wholesalers by the buyers for
retail firms, up to the juggling of financial reports by directors,
the mismanagement of physical property by insiders who wish to buy out
small stockholders, and the investment of insurance or other trust
funds to the private advantage of managerial officers.
Besides business and politics, other spheres of social activity are
subject to corrupt influences. Indeed wherever and whenever there is
duty to be shirked or improperly performed for motives of more or less
immediate advantage evil of this sort may enter in. This is the case
with the church, the family, with educational associations, clubs, and
so on throughout the whole list of social organisations. To ingratiate
himself with wealthy or influential parishioners, for example, a
minister may suppress convictions which his duty to God and religion
requires him to express. A large proportion of the cases of divorce,
marital infidelity, and childless unions, reflect the operation of
corrupt influences upon our family life. In the struggle for endowments
and bequests colleges and universities have at times forgotten some of
their high ideals. If corrupt motives play a smaller part in the social
organisations just mentioned than in politics or business it is perhaps
not so much due to the finer fibre of churchmen, professors, and the
like, as to the subjection of the more grossly gainful to other motives
in clerical, educational, and similar circles.
While the possibility of corruption is thus seen to be extremely
broad, our present concern is chiefly with political corruption. To
adjust the definition hazarded above to cover the latter case alone
it is necessary only to qualify the word “duty” by the phrase “to the
state.” Further discussion of the various terms of the definition, thus
amended, would seem advisable.
* * * * *
I. To begin with, corruption is _intentional_. The political duty
involved is perceived, but it is neglected or misperformed for reasons
narrower than those which the state intends. Failure to meet a
recognised duty is not necessarily corrupt; it may be due to simple
inefficiency. The corrupt official must know the better and choose the
worse; the inefficient official does not know any better. In either
case the external circumstances may appear to be closely similar,
and the immediate results may be equally harmful. No doubt what is
often denounced in the United States as corruption is mere official
stupidity, particularly in those spheres of administration still filled
by amateurs and dominated by the “rotation of office” theory. Thus a
purchasing official unfamiliar with his duties may prove the source of
large profits to unscrupulous dealers. So far as the official himself
is concerned no private advantage may be sought or gained, but the
public interest suffers just the same. In another case the official
understands the situation thoroughly and takes advantage of it by
compelling the dealers to divide with him the amount by which the
government is being defrauded, or he may go into business with the aid
of office boys or relatives and sell to himself as purchasing agent.
The latter are clear cases of bribery and auto-corruption respectively,
but so far as immediate results are concerned the state is no worse off
than with the official who was merely ignorant or careless. To one not
in full possession of the underlying facts all three cases may appear
very similar.
Successful corruption, however, tends to become insatiable, and in the
long run the state may suffer far more from it and from the spread of
the bad moral example which it involves than it can easily suffer from
simple inefficiency. On the other hand inefficiency also may spread by
imitation, although perhaps more slowly, since it is not immediately
profitable, until the whole service of government is weakened. Moreover
inefficiency may develop by a very natural process into thoroughgoing
corruption. If not too stupid, the incapable official may come to see
the advantages which others are deriving from his incapacity and may
endeavour to participate in them. Because of his failure to obtain
promotion so rapidly as his more efficient fellow-servants, he may
be peculiarly liable to the temptation to get on by crooked courses.
Practically, therefore, inefficiency and corruption are apt to be
very closely connected—a fact which civil service reformers have long
recognised. It would also seem that the two are very closely connected
in their essential nature, and only a very qualified assent can be
given to the doctrine that inefficiency, as commonly understood, is
morally blameless. To be so considered the incapable person must be
entirely unaware of his inability to measure up to the full requirement
of duty. In any other event he is consciously and intentionally
ministering to a personal interest, be it love of ease or desire to
retain an income which he does not earn, to the neglect of the public
duties with which he is intrusted. Now, according to the definition
presented above, this attitude is unquestionably corrupt. It is,
however, so common on the part of both officeholders and citizens that
its corruptness is seldom recognised.
* * * * *
II. Political _duty_ must exist or there is no possibility of being
corruptly unfaithful to it. This statement may seem a truism, but the
logical consequences to be drawn from it are of major importance.
Among other things it follows that the more widely political duties
are diffused the more widespread are the possibilities of corruption.
A government which does not rest upon popular suffrage may be a very
bad sort of government in many ways, but it will not suffer from
vote-buying. To carry this thought out fully let us assume an absolute
despotism in which the arbitrary will of the ruler is the sole source
of power.[17] In such a case it is manifestly impossible to speak of
corruption. By hypothesis the despot owes no duty to the state or to
his subjects. Philosophers who defend absolute government naturally
lay great stress on the monarch’s duty to God, but this argument may
be read out of court on the basis of Mencius’s dictum that Heaven is
merely a silent partner in the state. The case is not materially
altered when responsibility under natural law is insisted upon instead
of to the Deity. Now since an absolute despot is bound to no tangible
duty, he cannot be corrupt in any way. If in the conduct of his
government he takes account of nothing but the grossest of his physical
lusts he is nevertheless not unfaithful to the principles on which that
government rests. Viewed from a higher conception of the state his rule
may be unspeakably bad, but the accusation of corruption does not and
cannot hold against it.
Conversely corruption necessarily finds its richest field in highly
organised political communities which have developed most fully the
idea of duty and which have intrusted its performance to the largest
number of officials and citizens. The modern movement toward democracy
and responsible government, beneficent as its results in general have
been, has unquestionably opened up greater opportunities for evil
of this sort than were ever dreamed of in the ancient and mediæval
world. Economic evolution has co-operated with political evolution
in the process. There is a direct and well-recognised relationship
between popular institutions and the growth of wealth. It is no
mere coincidence that those countries which have the most liberal
governments are also to-day the richest countries of the world. With
their growth in wealth, particularly where wealth is distributed very
unequally, materialistic views of life have gained ground rapidly. Thus
while the liberal development in politics has opened up wide new areas
to the possibility of corruption, the corresponding development in the
economic world has strengthened the forces of temptation.
Viewed in this light it must be admitted that our representative
democracy with its great international obligations, its increasing
range of governmental functions, its enormous and unequally distributed
wealth and its intense materialism, is peculiarly subject to corrupt
influence. This does not necessarily mean that the republic is destined
to be overwhelmed by selfishness. It does mean, however, that we
cannot rest secure upon the moral achievements of our ancestors and
the institutions which they have transmitted to us. We must develop a
more robust virtue, capable of resisting the greater pressure that is
brought to bear upon it.
But even if it be conceded that there is a greater measure of
successful temptation among us than in the European nations which twit
us with corruption as our national vice, it does not follow that we
are inferior in political morality to these, our self-appointed moral
censors. Reverting to the illustration of vote-buying, it is evident
that we could stop this particular form of corruption at once by
the simple and obvious, although practically impossible, measure of
abolishing popular suffrage. Assuming, for the sake of the argument,
that this could be accomplished, we might readily find ourselves
burdened with greater political evils than venal voting—for instance,
the development of an arrogant oligarchy and the growth either of
a sodden indifferentism or of a violent revolutionary spirit among
the masses. A large percentage of Prussian citizens of the poorer
classes sullenly refrain from voting, nor are they in the habit of
selling their votes. Presumably some of them would be venal if they
had the opportunity, but the plutocratic three-class election system
makes their political influence so minimal that their ballots are not
worth either the casting or the buying. Neither do Prussian municipal
officials engage in boodling, but the ascription of superior virtue to
them on this account must be tempered by a knowledge of the fact that
the local government of the country is kept closely in leading strings
by the state. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is none the less true
that political corruption implies the existence of political virtue;
it implies trust in the performance of duty, widespread obligation
to perform it, and confidence that in the great majority of cases it
will be performed in spite of the derelictions that such conditions
occasionally entail. If monarchies are less corrupt than democracies,
it is also true that monarchies do not repose so much faith in the
fundamental honesty of their citizens as do democracies. At least they
do not put it to such severe political tests.
* * * * *
III. In attempting to define corruption, emphasis was laid upon the
condition that the duty misperformed or neglected for personal reasons
must be _recognised_. The latter word needs further elucidation.
Political duties are defined at great length, of course, in
constitutions, laws, and charters. Yet with all our care in providing
laws to govern our governors it cannot be maintained that political
duty is always so clear as to be easily recognisable. It may indeed be
the case that we have at times clouded the situation by the very number
and complexity of our legislative acts. Able lawyers frequently differ,
for instance, in their views regarding the powers and limitations
affecting the action of a mayor under a city charter in a given
case. Again, the amount of work required of limited bodies of men is
sometimes so great that its full performance is physically impossible,
even if we assume perfect comprehension and perfect efficiency on their
part. Thus our municipal police forces, it is often asserted, are quite
insufficient to execute all the laws and ordinances which it is their
duty to enforce. The discretion which they must therefore exercise
is an extremely dangerous one, and the continuance of its exercise,
suggesting the possibility of suppressing this or that law for personal
reasons, is very apt to be provocative of corrupt manipulation.
Apart from the difficulty of clearly perceiving duty, owing to the
number and complexity of our legal requirements, certain degrees
of difficulty, varying with the nature of the political service
required, deserve consideration. A public official whose work is purely
administrative and ministerial would supposedly have a relatively clear
path before him. Deflection from it should be easily recognisable
and punishable. Thus the making of inspections or the granting of
permits by authorised officials would seem to be too open for corrupt
influences to tamper with. Yet even here the complexities and volume
of the business presented and the material interests involved lead to
many dishonest practices, as shown in the granting of liquor licenses
and building permits, the inspection of life-saving devices, and so
on. Judicial authorities have statutes and precedents to guide them,
but every new case presents peculiar circumstances which may furnish
opportunity or concealment for a sinister deflection. When we come to
superior executive officers who are intrusted with large discretionary
powers, and to legislators whose main function is the determination of
policy, it is evident that the path of duty is frequently indefinite.
To officials so situated personal advantages may offer themselves on
both sides of a given question. Amid so complicated a play of motives
as must assail these authorities, it becomes at times a matter of
almost infinite difficulty to distinguish and disentangle those more or
less remotely personal and venal and to give proper weight to those
only that make for the welfare of the state.
In discussing the question of the clearness with which duty presents
itself we have thus far assumed that relatively exact positive norms
are available. The question is greatly complicated, however, by the
reflection that we must deal not only with the law but also with the
prophets. What of those who, like the socialists, dream of a future
state to which they owe allegiance rather than to the present state? Or
of those whose elevation to power, as not infrequently happens under
representative government, is due to a certain class in the community,
the ideals of which they feel bound to support, be they levelling or
aristocratic? Assuming that officials or voters of this kind seek no
personal advantage whatever, the accusation of corruption would not
hold against them, although those injured by their action would most
certainly make such charges.
On the other hand advanced reformers do not hesitate to charge with
corruption many existing social institutions of apparent solidity.
Periods of confusion in constitutional arrangements, as Professor H.
J. Ford has pointed out,[18] are apt to be corrupt, or at least filled
with charges of corruption. Doubtless the same observation would hold
true for periods of class feeling or moral unsettlement, which, after
all, are only the precursors of constitutional reform. At times when
all kinds of conflicting views of duty are current, it is of course
easy for different individuals and classes to form extremely divergent
views of the morality or immorality of given acts or institutions.
Thus, among us, property of various sorts and property in general,
government in certain forms or in all forms, marriage, the church,
medicine, and law, and those who represent them, are all denounced by
small or large groups as graft and grafters. And indeed one need not
be a thoroughgoing radical to observe that in some instances narrow
and selfish interests have crept into these institutions, warped their
highest ideals and crippled their efficiency. There seems to be little
justification, however, for the employment of the word corruption in
such sweeping fashion. Those who so employ it cannot pretend that any
general consensus of moral opinion supports their usage. No doubt many
propositions for social change which are now considered extremely
radical will gradually gain converts and will ultimately be enacted
into law; but not all reforms can appeal unerringly to the future for
justification. Institutions hotly assailed in times past have not
infrequently outlived their detractors and developed new possibilities
of social utility. The formation of modern nationality itself wore
the appearance of corruption to many contemporary observers. With
all due respect for unfledged reforms, we may fitly remind their
advocates that the force of a hard and stinging word like corruption
is materially weakened by employing it in senses familiar only to the
members of a small circle. Such reckless usage is similar to that of
the party politicians criticised above, and it is similarly adapted to
produce either a callous levity or a sour distrust of social integrity
which in the end must react unfavourably upon every constructive effort
for social betterment.
* * * * *
IV. The motive of a corrupt act must be _some advantage more or less
directly personal_. The grosser the nature of the advantage sought
and the more directly selfish the purpose, the worse from the moral
point of view is the transaction. Thus in the case of venal voters or
boodling aldermen we have direct transfers of money or its equivalent,
to be employed later, it may be, solely to the advantage of the men who
sell themselves. Or still more reprehensible, high police officials or
even mayors of cities may be in receipt of sums which they know were
paid originally by criminals or prostitutes for license to disobey the
law. Perhaps we are too prone to think of all political corruption as
consisting essentially of such gross cases and sordid transactions.
In one way it is unfortunate that this is not the case, for, if it
were, the task of defining and uprooting the evil by law would be
comparatively easy. As a matter of fact we have to deal with every
possible _nuance_ of corruption, shading off from the most palpably
illegal and immoral acts to apparently harmless transactions that are
of everyday occurrence even in circles that would hotly deny the least
imputation of wrong-doing.
Let us consider first the various gradations of corrupt action with
reference to the advantages offered and sought. There are crassly
venal persons, of course, whose itching palms are held open to receive
cash bribes, but after all these are the small and stupid minority
of the army of corruptionists. Many who would scorn a direct bribe
are, however, quite willing to accept considerations more tactfully
offered but almost as purely material in character—shares of stock,
railroad passes, salaried positions, _etc_. In pointing out the
distinction between bribery and corruption, the large possibilities of
“auto-corruption” have been touched upon. The absence of a personal
tempter seems very often to veil the real nature of a corrupt act, and
contemporary usage completes the illusion of innocence. Tax-dodging is
a case in point. Here the citizen is seeking, not a bribe, of course,
but merely to cut down as far as possible an inevitable deduction from
his income. He may depend upon his political influence, his friendship
with assessors, his contributions to campaign funds, or upon the
misrepresentation of facts in obtaining the reduction, but he would
refuse indignantly to offer a cash bribe to secure action which he
knew would be disadvantageous to the government. He might refuse with
equal heat to accept a cash bribe to secure his continued allegiance to
a party or his continued support of particular politicians. It hardly
occurs to him that in a sense he is bribing himself with a part of
his own income. Of course this case leaves open the question of the
justice of the tax and of the failure of the state to provide suitable
technical safeguards to prevent evasion. Unjust or ill-constructed tax
laws do not, indeed, justify corrupt action on the part of individuals,
but they do transfer part of the moral guilt to the state. Other
instances of veiled corruption readily suggest themselves—the intrigues
of banks to secure the deposit of public funds, the devices employed
to escape tenement-house, sanitary, or life-saving inspections, the
appropriation by officials of government supplies or services as
“perquisites” of office, and so on.[19]
Besides material inducements almost every object of human desire
may tempt to corrupt action. Social position, personal reputation,
office, power, the favour of women, the gratification of revenge—all
these have been artfully adapted by corruptionists to bear with
the greatest weight upon the tempted individual. Far more often,
however, temptations of this kind originate within. They are the more
dangerous because they prevail with men of much higher type than
venal voters or boodling aldermen. But it will be objected that these
are not necessarily objects of corrupt desire; that on the contrary
they are currently recognised as part of the necessary driving power
of political and other human activities, and praised as such by
contemporaries and historians alike. The point is well taken in so far
as it is maintained that such rewards are not necessarily sought by
corrupt means. So far as that is concerned, the money which a corrupt
legislator accepts is not bad in itself, nor need it be put by him to
other than very creditable uses. The major evil lies in the deflection
from duty which the money bought, in the resultant deterioration of
character and in the contagion of bad example. Precisely the same thing
may be said of the so-called higher objects of desire to gain which men
sell their political honour. This distinction goes far toward disposing
of the objection that such motives are not corrupt because they are
currently recognised as necessary and beneficial in political life. So
far as their effect is the reinforcement of the influences which make
for the performance of public duty there is no reason why they should
not be regarded as good. To regard them in the same way when they have
a directly contrary moral effect is a pernicious perversion of a true
idea.
Nevertheless the fact must be faced that the public conscience is
often deceived on this point; and that as a consequence practices
are tolerated which will not bear the most cursory moral inspection.
Sometimes these practices become so common that all consciousness of
wrong-doing is lost. On this ground it might be maintained with reason
that they are not corrupt according to the conventional morality of the
time. It is this condition of affairs which makes the subtler aspects
of corruption so much more dangerous and so much less easy to cope with
than common bribery. Yet even here the outlook is hopeful. Corruption
in its more insidious forms is not the vice of low intellects. Hence in
many cases education of the public conscience will either suffice to
banish these forms of evil or may be depended upon to find the legal
means of destroying them. Our own recent experience with the abolition
of railroad passes is a case in point, although passes can hardly be
considered an extremely subtle means of corruption.