THE AUSTRALIAN BALLOT AND CIVIL-SERVICE ACTS
The evolution of the modern politocracy began with the ward boss in
districts of our larger cities where voting was ignorant because the
population was largely foreign, illiterate, and easily corrupted,
cajoled, or frightened. The boss’s methods of carrying elections were
coarse. The business of vice and the activities of the underworld were
protected and the corrupt and illegal vote increased to the utmost.
Indeed, to the average citizen and his leaders it seemed that the
power of the boss rested mainly upon the corrupt and illegal vote.
They saw that the opportunity of securing this vote was large because
of the loose method of conducting elections. At once advocacy of the
Australian ballot law became a part of the fight against the boss.
Voters must be registered in advance of election day and opportunity
given to challenge all voters so registered. The ballot must be
secret, so that the corrupter could never be sure that the bribed
delivered the vote which he had been paid for. The remedy proposed
received an overwhelming popular approval a generation ago and
elaborately drawn Australian ballot laws are now almost everywhere in
force.
No doubt the Australian ballot laws were a needed and valuable reform
indeed, but the power of the boss did not rest ultimately upon the
illegal and corrupt vote. Fundamentally it depended upon the political
ignorance of the voter. The power of the ward boss not only survived
the Australian ballot laws, but it tended to increase with the spread
of political ignorance on the part of the voter. Other bosses of a
different type sprang up and ruled in districts where the corrupt and
illegal vote was negligible, but where political ignorance prevailed
among an intelligent population. Then a hierarchy of bosses became
a machine and by means of the machine secured the control of the
governmental power of a municipality.
In moments when the electorate turned its attention to the matter it
observed that the machine and its leaders practiced spoils politics on
a large scale. Its workers were being cared for by means of salaries
from the public treasury. Efficiency in the service of the machine was
a more important qualification for office or employment than efficiency
in the service of the municipality. Naturally the enemies of the
extra-legal government began an agitation for civil-service acts which
should take the places in the public service out of politics--that
is, out of the control of the politocrats. Government employees must
be appointed only from eligible lists made up by a civil-service
commission after holding an examination designed to test the efficiency
of applicants. Once appointed from such a list, the appointee must
be protected in his position from a discharge based upon political
reasons. The enemies of politocracy rallied to the support of the
civil-service acts and an appeal to the popular disapproval of the
extra-legal government in general secured very widely the adoption of
civil-service principles.
No doubt the civil-service acts were necessary and valuable
legislation, but the power of the bosses did not rest fundamentally
upon their ability to place their workers on the public pay-rolls any
more than it had rested upon the corrupt and illegal vote. The power
of the extra-legal government still was predicated upon the political
ignorance of the voter. This cause not only lay undisturbed, but, with
the increase in the number of elective officers, and the multiplication
of local governments operating in the same territory, each with a
corps of elective officers, it became more and more pronounced and
widespread. Even the most intelligent man became by an artificial
process politically ignorant and befogged. Local bosses became more
usual, less coarse in their methods, and more able. Combinations
of bosses secured more governmental power in widening areas of
governmental control.