and daily reports thereafter until the election. As the newspapers did
not state clearly whether the later figures regarding contributions
were inclusive or additional it is difficult to summarise the larger
contributions accurately. According to the New York _Times_ of October
14, Tammany Hall sent a check for $10,000 to the Democratic National
Committee. The general report issued October 15, showed the following
contributors in excess of $2000: C. J. Hughes, $5000; W. J. Bryan,
Profits of the _Commoner_, $4046; Nathan Straus, $2500; National
Democratic Club, $2500; Norman E. Mack, $2000; Sen. W. A. Clark, $2000;
George W. Harris, $2000. Some of the foregoing were reported as making
contributions after October 15, and if other contributions reported
at various times were not repetitions the list of contributors of
$2000 and over would be somewhat increased. On October 29, the New
York _Times_ reported a gift of $10,000 from Herman Ridder, Treasurer
of the Democratic Committee, and gifts of $9000 each from his three
sons, Victor, Bernard, and Joseph. A contribution of $3000 from E. F.
Goltra was also reported on this date. In addition to the foregoing,
five contributions of between $1000 and $1500, and thirty-three of
a thousand dollars each were reported. According to the Cincinnati
_Commercial-Tribune_ of October 16, Democratic newspapers collected
almost $100,000 out of the $248,000 obtained up to that date. The New
York _Times_ of October 31, noted that one paper, _The New Orleans
States_, had collected a total of $22,000, said to be the record
contribution for any one newspaper.
[78] “The Dollars Behind the Ballots,” _World To-day_, vol. xv (1908),
p. 946.
[79] _Cf._ p. 145, _supra_.
[80] As final corrections were being made upon these pages the
continental press announces the passage of a publicity measure by
Congress. Unfortunately the writer is unable to secure details upon
which to base a judgment of the new law. That publicity before
election was not provided for is, in his opinion, to be regretted.
On the other hand the enactment as federal law of a measure of this
character represents a decided victory for a principle capable of great
expansion. In this connection the able and persistent propagandist work
of the National Publicity Law Association under the presidency of Mr.
Perry Belmont deserves the warmest commendation. Noteworthy also is the
fact that the Association includes in its membership many of the most
distinguished leaders of both political parties.—Paris, July 1, 1910.
[81] According to the English Corrupt and Illegal Practice Prevention
Act of 1883, bribery as the unauthorised act of an agent renders the
election invalid and disqualifies the candidate from representing the
constituency in which the offence was committed for seven years. While
the penalty may seem drastic it has the good effect of compelling
candidates to scrutinise expenditures in their behalf with a degree of
anxious care seldom duplicated on this side of the Atlantic.
[82] Missouri, L. 1907, p. 261. This law was declared unconstitutional
in 1908, however, on the ground that it impaired liberty of press and
speech. _Ex parte Harrison_, 110 S. W. 709.
[83] A similar provision was included in the Massachusetts law of 1892.
[84] A Michigan law which went into effect in 1892 (Repealed, ch. 61,
1901) provided that all expenditures on behalf of candidates, with few
exceptions, should be made through the party committees.
[85] Following the four states which took action in 1897, Kentucky
forbade corporate contributions in 1900. In 1905, Minnesota (ch. 291)
made it a felony for an officer of a business corporation to vote
money to a campaign fund. Wisconsin in the same year (ch. 492) made
it a felony for a corporation to contribute to political parties for
the purpose of influencing legislation or promoting or defeating the
candidacy of persons for public office. New York in 1906, (ch. 239)
prohibited political contributions by corporations and made violation
of the act a misdemeanor. Alabama, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota,
and Texas were the five states which forbade corporate contributions
in 1907, and the following eleven were reported as specifically
prohibiting contributions from life insurance companies in that year:
Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
In 1908, Ohio, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Mississippi also forbade
corporate contributions. Altogether to the end of 1908, seventeen
states had forbidden corporate contributions in general, and eleven had
specifically forbidden contributions from life insurance companies.
[86] Massachusetts, L. 1908, ch. 85.
[87] Ohio, L. 1896, p. 123; repealed, L. 1902, p. 77.
[88] Nebraska in L. 1899, ch. 29, fixed the same maxima and minima
as the Garfield Act. The sliding scale principle was employed in the
English Act of 1883.
[89] California, L., 1893, ch. 2; Missouri, L. 1893, p. 157; Montana,
Penal Code, 1895, sec. 80 ff.; Minnesota, L. 1895, ch. 277; and New
York, L. 1907, ch. 584.
[90] New York, L. 1895, 155; Connecticut, L. 1895, 338.
[91] California, L. 1907, ch. 350.
[92] New York, L. 1906, ch. 503.
[93] _Cf._ p. 177, _supra_.
[94] See p. 250, _supra_.
[95] _Cf._ p. 246, _supra_.
[96] Wisconsin, L. 1897, 358.
[97] _Cf._ President Arthur T. Hadley’s discussion of “The
Constitutional Position of Property in America” in the _Independent_ of
April 16, 1908.
[98] _Cf._ Professor C. Edward Merriam’s “Primary Elections.”
[99] Laws of 1896, p. 123. The repeal was due to minor defects in the
law which could easily have been corrected by amendment.
[100] Laws of 1906, ch. 17.
[101] Nebraska, L. 1901, 30; Virginia L. 1903, ch. 98; Georgia, L.
1908, 63.
[102] An able argument on this point is presented by Mr. Perry Belmont
in his “Publicity of Election Expenditures,” _North American Review_,
vol. clxxx (1905), p. 166. For many of the most important facts cited
in the preceding pages of this study the writer is indebted to Mr.
Belmont’s valuable article.
[103] _Cf._ the Association’s searching “Report of Examination of
Election Expense Statements, 1908;” also its leaflet on “Future Plans
to Prevent Corrupt Practices.”
CORRUPTION AND NOTORIETY: THE MEASURE OF OUR OFFENDING
VII
CORRUPTION AND NOTORIETY: THE MEASURE OF OUR OFFENDING
Charges of corruption make up a large and important part of the stock
in trade of the ordinary American journalist, politician, and reformer.
One unfortunate result of this condition of affairs is that, taking us
at our word, Europe is forming a very low estimate of the honesty of
governmental and business practices on this side of the Atlantic. Even
among ourselves corruption is coming to be thought of as an indefinite
percentage of evil corroding the general service of the state, and
this percentage is assumed to be much larger in the United States than
abroad. Similar comparisons are drawn between the principal local and
state governments of the country. One popular writer owes no small part
of his vogue to the crisp and supposedly accurate tags which he has
affixed to several of our municipalities and states, _e.g._, “corrupt
and contented,” “half free and fighting on,” “a city ashamed,” “bad
and glad of it,” “a traitor state,” “a state for sale,” and so on.
Between actual corruption, however, and the notoriety attached to it
no definite and known ratio can be said to exist. Much as it is to be
regretted quantitative measures of this political and social evil are
at present quite impossible. Many difficulties stand in the way even
of approximations sufficiently exact for comparisons of any value. It
may perhaps be as well worth while to consider the nature of these
difficulties as to indulge in denunciation regardless of them.
In the first place a thoroughgoing policy of concealment and silence
would seem absolutely essential on the part of those who engage in
corrupt practices. Our most astute leaders and manipulators realise
this fact. All observers agree, however, that among the initiated,
which usually means a pretty large circle, corrupt transactions
are discussed with comparative freedom. It is a matter of no great
difficulty for an ordinarily capable reporter to learn in a general way
what has been done by the boss or gang in certain instances, although
this, of course, is sufficiently far from being legal evidence. And it
is notorious that our politicians of the baser sort often indulge their
cronies with boasting accounts of their own achievements in grafting.
No one has commented upon this fact with greater vigour than Professor
H. J. Ford of Princeton in his admirable review of Mr. Steffens’ _Shame
of the Cities_.
“The facts with which Mr. Steffens deals,” writes Professor Ford,
“are superficial symptoms. Hardly any disguise of them is attempted
in the ordinary talk of local politicians. One of the first things
which practical experience teaches is that the political ideals which
receive literary expression have a closely limited range. One soon
reaches strata of population in which they disappear, and the relation
of boss and client appears to be proper and natural. The connection
between grafting politicians and their adherents is such that ability
to levy blackmail inspires the same sort of respect and admiration
which Rob Roy’s followers felt for him in the times that provided a
career for his particular talents. And as in Rob Roy’s day, intimate
knowledge finds in the type some hardy virtues. For one thing,
politicians of this type do not indulge in cant. They are no more
shamefaced in talking about their grafting exploits to an appreciative
audience than a mediæval baron would have been in discussing the
produce of his feudal fees and imposts. Mr. Steffens has really done
no more than to put together material lying about loose upon the
surface of municipal politics and give it effective presentation. The
general truth of his statement of the case is indisputable.”[104]
Possibly, however, Professor Ford underestimates the penetrating force
of “political ideals which receive literary expression.” If by this
phrase he means only the highest conclusions of philosophy clothed in
the noblest language, it is apparent that a very small circle will be
reached at first, although in time these ideals also are certain to
be widely diffused by the schools, by journalism and by the learned
professions. If, on the other hand, “literary expression” is understood
to include the news and editorial columns and the cartoons of the
daily newspaper, a great and constantly increasing body of readers are
becoming amenable to ideals higher than those bred by the personal
relation of “boss and client.” Tweed’s sensitiveness to the terribly
cutting cartoons of Thomas Nast shows this process in the course of
development. In spite of the fact, of which the Tammany chieftain
had boasted, that most of his constituents could not read, he was
nevertheless forced to exclaim:—“If those picture papers would only
leave me alone I wouldn’t care for all the rest. The people get used
to seeing me in stripes, and by and by grow to think I ought to be in
prison.”[105] Even that portion of our foreign population which differs
most widely in language and customs from the native American stock is
being brought with amazing swiftness under the influence of the daily
papers published in English.[106] That influence may not be all that
we would like it, but at any rate it is much more broadening than the
ethics of the clan.
In addition to the perverted class ideas current in the lower political
ranks there are other causes of the astounding garrulity which prevails
regarding corrupt practices. One of these is the exaggerated vanity
which all penologists note as a common trait of criminal character. The
most adequate explanation, however, is to be found in the fact that so
many of the offenders of this sort are allowed to escape the penalties
of the law. If corruption even in its grosser forms were as certain
of punishment as burglary or forgery, its still unterrified votaries
would speedily learn to keep their mouths shut. One almost amusing
consequence of the large degree of immunity they enjoy at present is
the maudlin sympathy expressed by confrères when an occasional unlucky
rascal is fairly caught in the net of the law. Well they know, these
friends of his, that he is no more guilty than a score of others
who go scot free. Often the untoward event is made the subject of
denunciations on the flagrant injustice involved, and if the gang is
particularly impudent its next accession to power is pretty apt to be
marked by the complete rehabilitation of the “martyrs” who suffered
during the reform uprising.
As a result of the reckless and often exaggerated gabble of the
grafters, sensational newspapers and magazines find it an easy matter
to keep their columns filled continually with highly spiced political
exposures. In all probability comparatively few out of the total of
corrupt transactions that actually take place are thus made public,
but the prominence given these few may easily lead to overestimates
of the extent of this evil in our political life. Undoubtedly, also,
our practical political leaders are sometimes accused of offences in
which they had no part. Inefficiency, as we have seen, is very common
and very similar in appearance to corruption. No great reportorial or
editorial skill is required to dress it in the garb of the latter. The
constant reiteration of stories of this kind creates as well as meets
a popular demand. Ordinarily a saving sense of the exaggeration and
partisanship indulged in by a section of the press leads readers to
make the necessary discount in forming their opinions of the published
accounts of corruption. At times, however, the popular craving for
pungent stories of corruption amounts to a positive mania. Such was
the case in 1905, 1906, and 1907, as any comparison of the tables
of contents of certain magazines and papers of that period with
previous years will abundantly show. On the other hand there can be
no doubt that a considerable part of this literature of exposure and
denunciation was substantially accurate, and that its publication was
a service of high merit. That it was also profitable is no reproach:
society is the gainer when instead of ostracism and punishment it
provides rewards and honours for those who attack real public abuses.
In not a few cases where corruption was thus charged by journalists
subsequent investigations before commissions and courts left no doubt
of the existence of vicious practices, and led to reforms of a most
beneficent character.
Extremely deplorable as must be the effect of false accusations
inspired by selfish motives, a policy of the widest publicity offers
great advantages over one of suppression and silence. Better fifty
exposures, ten or even twenty of which are misleading, than blind
concealment of official misdoing. Disproof of false charges is
comparatively easy and when effectively made redounds to the prestige
of the official or individual who has been unjustly assailed. As
for those newspapers and periodicals which flagrantly abuse their
privilege, it is seldom that they altogether escape penalties in the
form of loss of influence if not of circulation. If penalties of these
kinds can be made effective press censorship and _lese majeste_ laws,
such as exist in autocratic governments, need never be resorted to in
America. From this point of view the horror frequently expressed by
continental publicists at the corruption existing in the United States
appears rather equivocal. Bad as some of our political conditions
may be, we at least deserve credit for our willingness, nay, our
determination, to hear the worst about ourselves. Certainly there
would seem to be greater hope of improvement under our policy than
in a country whose chief national hero used the enormous income from
the sequestered estates of the House of Hanover to fill the news and
editorial columns of the “reptile” press with lying articles favourable
to his policies, and in which only recently the facts concerning the
Camarilla surrounding the Emperor were so cautiously and partially
brought to light. And it is well known that in Russia the censorship
was deliberately used by provincial bureaucrats to conceal their
misdeeds from the knowledge of the Czar.
As between countries which muzzle the press and those which allow
liberty it is inevitable, then, that the governments of the latter
will be charged far more openly and frequently with corruption.
Citizens who are shocked by the accusations thus trumpeted forth may be
pardoned some apprehensions for the continued stability and success of
their institutions. The sentiment does them more credit than callous
disregard or brazen Chauvinism, and is altogether more likely to be
productive of good works in the future. But it may easily be carried
to an extreme. National shamefacedness is not a virtue. In forming a
judgment of the extent of contemporary corruption the garrulity of
politicians, the sensationalism of the press, the popular demand for
highly spiced accounts of official sinning should all be taken into
account. A cynical representative of yellow journalism, replying to
the criticism that his paper indulged too much in lengthy and lurid
accounts of crime and immorality, remarked rather sententiously that
“sin is news.” The statement is only partially true. Most sins are too
common and too petty to have any news value. Only those offences that
to current estimation seem large and dangerous are given prominence
and headlines. If Turkey and China enjoyed the blessings of a free
press it is hardly probable that the papers of those countries would
give much space to what, according to Western standards, would be
frankly considered corrupt and extortionate practices on the part of
their pashas and mandarins. Such practices would be so common, so
universally known, and so little in conflict with contemporary Turkish
and Chinese political morals that they would excite little interest
and comment. If then, as in our own papers, accounts of atrocious
crimes and accusations of corrupt practices are given the same large
measure of prominence it means simply that both kinds of offences are
considered to possess a high degree of news value. Puritans may deplore
the popular taste which finds interest in such reports, but we cannot
deny the existence of that interest. Primarily it exists not because
sin as such is news but because offences which are considered large and
dangerous appeal powerfully to the popular mind.
To the normal reader, of course, the fascination of such accounts is
the fascination of repulsion, not of attraction. In attempting to
explain the pornographic note in modern French literature, Professor
Barrett Wendell makes a most ingenious suggestion that is not without
its application to the present argument.[107] With the exception of
a class forming a small part of the whole population, French family
life is conspicuously pure. Why, then, asks Professor Wendell, should
fathers and mothers who themselves practise every conjugal virtue
delight in novels and dramas that dissect all the prurient phases of
divorce, adultery, and sexual laxity? Simply because such topics take
them out of themselves by presenting situations quite foreign to their
experience and hence strikingly interesting. In some degree the same
answer applies to American public interest in corrupt practices. The
great mass of business and professional men, and of politicians as
well, who sincerely attempt to live up to the best standards of their
vocations nevertheless read and hear with avidity spicy accounts of the
malpractices of their disreputable colleagues. Nor can this interest on
their part be denounced as morbid so long as it leads not to palliation
and imitation but to reprobation and efforts for the wiping out of
abuses. Would the situation be really improved if instead of the daily
grists presented to us by the newspapers we should read nothing but
accounts of the straightforward methods which are employed in the great
bulk of political, business, and professional transactions? The habit
might be exemplary but it would certainly be supremely dull. While
it is not true that all sin is news there would seem to be nothing
to regret in the fact that neither are all virtues. Of the two the
former undoubtedly has the greater news value. But the reason for
this is that relative to the sum total of everyday transactions the
more heinous offences against morals and law are to a high degree
unusual. Virtue and ability, on the other hand, are so commonplace
that it requires a most exceptional display of either to secure public
notice. Considerable vogue has been enjoyed recently by the term
“smokeless sin,” as applied to certain forms of social evil-doing
which although large and dangerous are also so subtle and complicated
that responsibility for them can easily be avoided.[108] Students of
sin would do well to remember, however, that now as always virtue as
a whole possesses the quality of smokelessness to a much more eminent
degree than vice.