The concern of patriotic men is to put our government again on its right
basis, by substituting the popular will for the rule of guardians, the
processes of common counsel for those of private arrangement. In order to
do this, a first necessity is to open the doors and let in the light on
all affairs which the people have a right to know about.
In the first place, it is necessary to open up all the processes of our
politics. They have been too secret, too complicated, too roundabout; they
have consisted too much of private conferences and secret understandings,
of the control of legislation by men who were not legislators, but who
stood outside and dictated, controlling oftentimes by very questionable
means, which they would not have dreamed of allowing to become public. The
whole process must be altered. We must take the selection of candidates
for office, for example, out of the hands of small groups of men, of
little coteries, out of the hands of machines working behind closed doors,
and put it into the hands of the people themselves again by means of
direct primaries and elections to which candidates of every sort and
degree may have free access. We must substitute public for private
machinery.
It is necessary, in the second place, to give society command of its own
economic life again by denying to those who conduct the great modern
operations of business the privacy that used to belong properly enough to
men who used only their own capital and their individual energy in
business. The processes of capital must be as open as the processes of
politics. Those who make use of the great modern accumulations of wealth,
gathered together by the dragnet process of the sale of stocks and bonds,
and piling up of reserves, must be treated as under a public obligation;
they must be made responsible for their business methods to the great
communities which are in fact their working partners, so that the hand
which makes correction shall easily reach them and a new principle of
responsibility be felt throughout their structure and operation.
What are the right methods of politics? Why, the right methods are those
of public discussion: the methods of leadership open and above board, not
closeted with "boards of guardians" or anybody else, but brought out under
the sky, where honest eyes can look upon them and honest eyes can judge of
them.
If there is nothing to conceal, then why conceal it? If it is a public
game, why play it in private? If it is a public game, then why not come
out into the open and play it in public? You have got to cure diseased
politics as we nowadays cure tuberculosis, by making all the people who
suffer from it live out of doors; not only spend their days out of doors
and walk around, but sleep out of doors; always remain in the open, where
they will be accessible to fresh, nourishing, and revivifying influences.
I, for one, have the conviction that government ought to be all outside
and no inside. I, for my part, believe that there ought to be no place
where anything can be done that everybody does not know about. It would be
very inconvenient for some gentlemen, probably, if government were all
outside, but we have consulted their susceptibilities too long already. It
is barely possible that some of these gentlemen are unjustly suspected; in
that case they owe it to themselves to come out and operate in the light.
The very fact that so much in politics is done in the dark, behind closed
doors, promotes suspicion. Everybody knows that corruption thrives in
secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair
presumption that secrecy means impropriety. So, our honest politicians and
our honorable corporation heads owe it to their reputations to bring their
activities out into the open.
At any rate, whether they like it or not, these affairs are going to be
dragged into the open. We are more anxious about their reputations than
they are themselves. We are too solicitous for their morals,--if they are
not,--to permit them longer to continue subject to the temptations of
secrecy. You know there is temptation in loneliness and secrecy. Haven't
you experienced it? I have. We are never so proper in our conduct as when
everybody can look and see exactly what we are doing. If you are off in
some distant part of the world and suppose that nobody who lives within a
mile of your home is anywhere around, there are times when you adjourn
your ordinary standards. You say to yourself: "Well, I'll have a fling
this time; nobody will know anything about it." If you were on the desert
of Sahara, you would feel that you might permit yourself,--well, say, some
slight latitude in conduct; but if you saw one of your immediate neighbors
coming the other way on a camel,--you would behave yourself until he got
out of sight. The most dangerous thing in the world is to get off where
nobody knows you. I advise you to stay around among the neighbors, and
then you may keep out of jail. That is the only way some of us can keep
out of jail.
Publicity is one of the purifying elements of politics. The best thing
that you can do with anything that is crooked is to lift it up where
people can see that it is crooked, and then it will either straighten
itself out or disappear. Nothing checks all the bad practices of politics
like public exposure. You can't be crooked in the light. I don't know
whether it has ever been tried or not; but I venture to say, purely from
observation, that it can't be done.
And so the people of the United States have made up their minds to do a
healthy thing for both politics and big business. Permit me to mix a few
metaphors: They are going to open doors; they are going to let up blinds;
they are going to drag sick things into the open air and into the light of
the sun. They are going to organize a great hunt, and smoke certain
animals out of their burrows. They are going to unearth the beast in the
jungle in which when they hunted they were caught by the beast instead of
catching him. They have determined, therefore, to take an axe and raze the
jungle, and then see where the beast will find cover. And I, for my part,
bid them God-speed. The jungle breeds nothing but infection and shelters
nothing but the enemies of mankind.
And nobody is going to get caught in our hunt except the beasts that
prey. Nothing is going to be cut down or injured that anybody ought to
wish preserved.
You know the story of the Irishman who, while digging a hole, was asked,
"Pat, what are you doing,--digging a hole?" And he replied, "No, sir; I am
digging the dirt, and laying the hole." It was probably the same Irishman
who, seen digging around the wall of a house, was asked, "Pat, what are
you doing?" And he answered, "Faith, I am letting the dark out of the
cellar." Now, that's exactly what we want to do,--let the dark out of the
cellar.
* * * * *
Take, first, the relations existing between politics and business.
It is perfectly legitimate, of course, that the business interests of the
country should not only enjoy the protection of the law, but that they
should be in every way furthered and strengthened and facilitated by
legislation. The country has no jealousy of any connection between
business and politics which is a legitimate connection. It is not in the
least averse from open efforts to accommodate law to the material
development which has so strengthened the country in all that it has
undertaken by supplying its extraordinary life with its necessary physical
foundations.
But the illegitimate connections between business and legislation are
another matter. I would wish to speak on this subject with soberness and
circumspection. I have no desire to excite anger against anybody. That
would be easy, but it would do no particular good. I wish, rather, to
consider an unhappy situation in a spirit that may enable us to account
for it, to some extent, and so perhaps get at the causes and the remedy.
Mere denunciation doesn't help much to clear up a matter so involved as is
the complicity of business with evil politics in America.
Every community is vaguely aware that the political machine upon which it
looks askance has certain very definite connections with men who are
engaged in business on a large scale, and the suspicion which attaches to
the machine itself has begun to attach also to business enterprises, just
because these connections are known to exist. If these connections were
open and avowed, if everybody knew just what they involved and just what
use was being made of them, there would be no difficulty in keeping an eye
upon affairs and in controlling them by public opinion. But,
unfortunately, the whole process of law-making in America is a very
obscure one. There is no highway of legislation, but there are many
by-ways. Parties are not organized in such a way in our legislatures as to
make any one group of men avowedly responsible for the course of
legislation. The whole process of discussion, if any discussion at all
takes place, is private and shut away from public scrutiny and knowledge.
There are so many circles within circles, there are so many indirect and
private ways of getting at legislative action, that our communities are
constantly uneasy during legislative sessions. It is this confusion and
obscurity and privacy of our legislative method that gives the political
machine its opportunity. There is no publicly responsible man or group of
men who are known to formulate legislation and to take charge of it from
the time of its introduction until the time of its enactment. It has,
therefore, been possible for an outside force,--the political machine, the
body of men who nominated the legislators and who conducted the contest
for their election,--to assume the rôle of control. Business men who
desired something done in the way of changing the law under which they
were acting, or who wished to prevent legislation which seemed to them to
threaten their own interests, have known that there was this definite body
of persons to resort to, and they have made terms with them. They have
agreed to supply them with money for campaign expenses and to stand by
them in all other cases where money was necessary if in return they might
resort to them for protection or for assistance in matters of legislation.
Legislators looked to a certain man who was not even a member of their
body for instructions as to what they were to do with particular bills.
The machine, which was the centre of party organization, was the natural
instrument of control, and men who had business interests to promote
naturally resorted to the body which exercised the control.
There need have been nothing sinister about this. If the whole matter had
been open and candid and honest, public criticism would not have centred
upon it. But the use of money always results in demoralization, and goes
beyond demoralization to actual corruption. There are two kinds of
corruption,--the crude and obvious sort, which consists in direct bribery,
and the much subtler, more dangerous, sort, which consists in a corruption
of the will. Business men who have tried to set up a control in politics
through the machine have more and more deceived themselves, have allowed
themselves to think that the whole matter was a necessary means of
self-defence, have said that it was a necessary outcome of our political
system. Having reassured themselves in this way, they have drifted from
one thing to another until the questions of morals involved have become
hopelessly obscured and submerged. How far away from the ideals of their
youth have many of our men of business drifted, enmeshed in the vicious
system,--how far away from the days when their fine young manhood was
wrapped in "that chastity of honor which felt a stain like a wound!"
It is one of the happy circumstances of our time that the most intelligent
of our business men have seen the mistake as well as the immorality of the
whole bad business. The alliance between business and politics has been a
burden to them,--an advantage, no doubt, upon occasion, but a very
questionable and burdensome advantage. It has given them great power, but
it has also subjected them to a sort of slavery and a bitter sort of
subserviency to politicians. They are as anxious to be freed from bondage
as the country is to be rid of the influences and methods which it
represents. Leading business men are now becoming great factors in the
emancipation of the country from a system which was leading from bad to
worse. There are those, of course, who are wedded to the old ways and who
will stand out for them to the last, but they will sink into a minority
and be overcome. The rest have found that their old excuse (namely, that
it was necessary to defend themselves against unfair legislation) is no
longer a good excuse; that there is a better way of defending themselves
than through the private use of money. That better way is to take the
public into their confidence, to make absolutely open all their dealings
with legislative bodies and legislative officers, and let the public judge
as between them and those with whom they are dealing.
* * * * *
This discovery on their part of what ought to have been obvious all along
points out the way of reform; for undoubtedly publicity comes very near
being the cure-all for political and economic maladies of this sort. But
publicity will continue to be very difficult so long as our methods of
legislation are so obscure and devious and private. I think it will become
more and more obvious that the way to purify our politics is to simplify
them, and that the way to simplify them is to establish responsible
leadership. We now have no leadership at all inside our legislative
bodies,--at any rate, no leadership which is definite enough to attract
the attention and watchfulness of the country. Our only leadership being
that of irresponsible persons outside the legislatures who constitute the
political machines, it is extremely difficult for even the most watchful
public opinion to keep track of the circuitous methods pursued. This
undoubtedly lies at the root of the growing demand on the part of American
communities everywhere for responsible leadership, for putting in
authority and keeping in authority those whom they know and whom they can
watch and whom they can constantly hold to account. The business of the
country ought to be served by thoughtful and progressive legislation, but
it ought to be served openly, candidly, advantageously, with a careful
regard to letting everybody be heard and every interest be considered, the
interest which is not backed by money as well as the interest which is;
and this can be accomplished only by some simplification of our methods
which will centre the public trust in small groups of men who will lead,
not by reason of legal authority, but by reason of their contact with and
amenability to public opinion.
I am striving to indicate my belief that our legislative methods may well
be reformed in the direction of giving more open publicity to every act,
in the direction of setting up some form of responsible leadership on the
floor of our legislative halls so that the people may know who is back of
every bill and back of the opposition to it, and so that it may be dealt
with in the open chamber rather than in the committee room. The light must
be let in on all processes of law-making.
Legislation, as we nowadays conduct it, is not conducted in the open. It
is not threshed out in open debate upon the floors of our assemblies. It
is, on the contrary, framed, digested, and concluded in committee rooms.
It is in committee rooms that legislation not desired by the interests
dies. It is in committee rooms that legislation desired by the interests
is framed and brought forth. There is not enough debate of it in open
house, in most cases, to disclose the real meaning of the proposals made.
Clauses lie quietly unexplained and unchallenged in our statutes which
contain the whole gist and purpose of the act; qualifying phrases which
escape the public attention, casual definitions which do not attract
attention, classifications so technical as not to be generally understood,
and which every one most intimately concerned is careful not to explain or
expound, contain the whole purpose of the law. Only after it has been
enacted and has come to adjudication in the courts is its scheme as a
whole divulged. The beneficiaries are then safe behind their bulwarks.
Of course, the chief triumphs of committee work, of covert phrase and
unexplained classification, are accomplished in the framing of tariffs.
Ever since the passage of the outrageous Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act our
people have been discovering the concealed meanings and purposes which lay
hidden in it. They are discovering item by item how deeply and
deliberately they were deceived and cheated. This did not happen by
accident; it came about by design, by elaborated, secret design. Questions
put upon the floor in the House and Senate were not frankly or truly
answered, and an elaborate piece of legislation was foisted on the country
which could not possibly have passed if it had been generally
comprehended.
And we know, those of us who handle the machinery of politics, that the
great difficulty in breaking up the control of the political boss is that
he is backed by the money and the influence of these very people who are
intrenched in these very schedules. The tariff could never have been built
up item by item by public discussion, and it never could have passed, if
item by item it had been explained to the people of this country. It was
built up by arrangement and by the subtle management of a political
organization represented in the Senate of the United States by the senior
Senator from Rhode Island, and in the House of Representatives by one of
the Representatives from Illinois. These gentlemen did not build that
tariff upon the evidence that was given before the Committee on Ways and
Means as to what the manufacturer and the workingmen, the consumers and
the producers, of this country want. It was not built upon what the
interests of the country called for. It was built upon understandings
arrived at outside of the rooms where testimony was given and debate was
held.
I am not even now suggesting corrupt influence. That is not my point.
Corruption is a very difficult thing to manage in its literal sense. The
payment of money is very easily detected, and men of this kind who control
these interests by secret arrangement would not consent to receive a
dollar in money. They are following their own principles,--that is to say,
the principles which they think and act upon,--and they think that they
are perfectly honorable and incorruptible men; but they believe one thing
that I do not believe and that it is evident the people of the country do
not believe: they believe that the prosperity of the country depends upon
the arrangements which certain party leaders make with certain business
leaders. They believe that, but the proposition has merely to be stated
to the jury to be rejected. The prosperity of this country depends upon
the interests of all of us and cannot be brought about by arrangement
between any groups of persons. Take any question you like out to the
country,--let it be threshed out in public debate,--and you will have made
these methods impossible.
This is what sometimes happens: They promise you a particular piece of
legislation. As soon as the legislature meets, a bill embodying that
legislation is introduced. It is referred to a committee. You never hear
of it again. What happened? Nobody knows what happened.
I am not intimating that corruption creeps in; I do not know what creeps
in. The point is that we not only do not know, but it is intimated, if we
get inquisitive, that it is none of our business. My reply is that it is
our business, and it is the business of every man in the state; we have a
right to know all the particulars of that bill's history. There is not any
legitimate privacy about matters of government. Government must, if it is
to be pure and correct in its processes, be absolutely public in
everything that affects it. I cannot imagine a public man with a
conscience having a secret that he would keep from the people about their
own affairs.
I know how some of these gentlemen reason. They say that the influences to
which they are yielding are perfectly legitimate influences, but that if
they were disclosed they would not be understood. Well, I am very sorry,
but nothing is legitimate that cannot be understood. If you cannot explain
it properly, then there is something about it that cannot _be_ explained
at all. I know from the circumstances of the case, not what is happening,
but that something private is happening, and that every time one of these
bills gets into committee, something private stops it, and it never comes
out again unless forced out by the agitation of the press or the courage
and revolt of brave men in the legislature. I have known brave men of that
sort. I could name some splendid examples of men who, as representatives
of the people, demanded to be told by the chairman of the committee why
the bill was not reported, and who, when they could not find out from him,
investigated and found out for themselves and brought the bill out by
threatening to tell the reason on the floor of the House.
Those are private processes. Those are processes which stand between the
people and the things that are promised them, and I say that until you
drive all of those things into the open, you are not connected with your
government; you are not represented; you are not participants in your
government. Such a scheme of government by private understanding deprives
you of representation, deprives the people of representative institutions.
It has got to be put into the heads of legislators that public business is
public business. I hold the opinion that there can be no confidences as
against the people with respect to their government, and that it is the
duty of every public officer to explain to his fellow-citizens whenever he
gets a chance,--explain exactly what is going on inside of his own office.
There is no air so wholesome as the air of utter publicity.
* * * * *
There are other tracts of modern life where jungles have grown up that
must be cut down. Take, for example, the entirely illegitimate extensions
made of the idea of private property for the benefit of modern
corporations and trusts. A modern joint stock corporation cannot in any
proper sense be said to base its rights and powers upon the principles of
private property. Its powers are wholly derived from legislation. It
possesses them for the convenience of business at the sufferance of the
public. Its stock is widely owned, passes from hand to hand, brings
multitudes of men into its shifting partnerships and connects it with the
interests and the investments of whole communities. It is a segment of the
public; bears no analogy to a partnership or to the processes by which
private property is safeguarded and managed, and should not be suffered to
afford any covert whatever to those who are managing it. Its management is
of public and general concern, is in a very proper sense everybody's
business. The business of many of those corporations which we call
public-service corporations, and which are indispensable to our daily
lives and serve us with transportation and light and water and
power,--their business, for instance, is clearly public business; and,
therefore, we can and must penetrate their affairs by the light of
examination and discussion.
In New Jersey the people have realized this for a long time, and a year or
two ago we got our ideas on the subject enacted into legislation. The
corporations involved opposed the legislation with all their might. They
talked about ruin,--and I really believe they did think they would be
somewhat injured. But they have not been. And I hear I cannot tell you how
many men in New Jersey say: "Governor, we were opposed to you; we did not
believe in the things you wanted to do, but now that you have done them,
we take off our hats. That was the thing to do, it did not hurt us a bit;
it just put us on a normal footing; it took away suspicion from our
business." New Jersey, having taken the cold plunge, cries out to the rest
of the states, "Come on in! The water's fine!" I wonder whether these men
who are controlling the government of the United States realize how they
are creating every year a thickening atmosphere of suspicion, in which
presently they will find that business cannot breathe?
So I take it to be a necessity of the hour to open up all the processes of
politics and of public business,--open them wide to public view; to make
them accessible to every force that moves, every opinion that prevails in
the thought of the people; to give society command of its own economic
life again, not by revolutionary measures, but by a steady application of
the principle that the people have a right to look into such matters and
to control them; to cut all privileges and patronage and private advantage
and secret enjoyment out of legislation.
Wherever any public business is transacted, wherever plans affecting the
public are laid, or enterprises touching the public welfare, comfort, or
convenience go forward, wherever political programs are formulated, or
candidates agreed on,--over that place a voice must speak, with the divine
prerogative of a people's will, the words: "Let there be light!"