Take Back Your Government!

CHAPTER III

"It Ain't Necessarily So!"

This chapter will be devoted to smearing a few cherished illusions.

I do not suppose that you are suffering from all of the misapprehensions listed herein; however, if you are typically American and have not had extensive political experience, it is likely that you are subject to one or more of them. Before we go ahead with detailed discussion of the practical art of politics it is well to correct the record with respect to many items in the Great American Credo - items which happen to be wrong and which have to do with politics. It will save your time and mine in later discussion.

With the possible exceptions of love and religion probably more guff is talked and believed about politics than about any other subject. I am going to discuss some of that guff and try to puncture it. Most of the items I have chosen because I myself have had to change my opinions through bitter experience in politics.

My present opinions are subject to human error. However, they are based on the scientific method of observation of facts; they are not armchair speculation. If you don't believe me, go take a look - several looks! - for yourself. But I suggest that you will save yourself a lot of the mistakes I made if you assume that what I say is true until through your own experience you reach a different opinion.

Warning! Every generalization I make about groups of people is subject to exceptions. You must meet each citizen with an open mind. For example, there is no natural law which prevents club women from being intelligent and quite a few of them are.

Now let's let our hair down and speak plainly. We are going to discuss a lot of sacred cows and then kick them in the slats. We are going to mention a lot of unmentionable subjects, using everything but Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. We are going to discuss Catholics and Communists and Jews and Negroes, women in politics, reformers, school teachers, the nobility of the Irish, civil service vs. patronage, and whether Father was right. I will try to tell the truth as I have seen it. I hope I won't splash any mud in your direction but I may.

"One should never consider a man's religion in connection with politics." This is a fine credo, based on the American ideal of freedom of religion. It happens to be cockeyed and results from mushy thinking. One should always consider a candidate's religious beliefs; it is one of the most important things about him. Whether a man is a Catholic, a Protestant, a Communist, a Mormon, or a Jew has a very strong bearing on how he will perform his duties in certain jobs. (Communism is, of course, classed with the religions-more about that later.)12 The important thing to remember is to consider a man's religion objectively, in relation to what you expect of him, and not in an attitude ofblind prejudice.

There is nothing discriminatory nor un-American in scrutinizing a man's religious beliefs in connection with politics. A man's religion is a matter of free choice, even though most people remain in the faiths to which they were born. A Catholic can become a Jew; a Communist can become a Quaker.'3 A man's religious beliefs offer a strong clue to his attitudes, values, and prejudices and you are entitled to consider them when he is in public life.

For example - let us suppose that you live in a mythical community where the school board can, at its discretion, assign public funds to the support of private schools which are open to the public - parochial schools, of course. Let us suppose that you believe that public funds should be used only for state-controlled schools. Two tickets of candidates are before you, one Catholic, one non-Catholic, all equally well qualified, good men and true.

Should you vote for the ticket which will support your own opinion, or should you ignore what you know about the candidates and vote for the one with the pretty blue eyes?

Or let us suppose - same election; same town - that you are a non-Catholic who believes that tax money should support popular education but that the government should not be allowed to determine the nature of diat education, except, perhaps, for the three R's. It is your belief that the individual parents should control the training received by their children; you fear state domination. Whom should you vote for?

Or suppose you are a Catholic but believe that public funds for support of Catholic schools would be the first step toward state control of those schools. Which way do you vote?

The problem can become still more complicated. Congress is considering subsidizing scientific research; many of the best colleges and universities in this country are controlled or dominated by members of a particular faith. Would you refuse a research subsidy to Notre Dame but allow it to some state-owned college in Tennessee, the state where biology is subject to the vote of the state legislature?14 Or how about the great University of Southern California? It was a Methodist college once; there has been a divorce of sorts but the influence is still there. Can USC be trusted with a subsidy in mechanical engineering, or does nothing less than outright atheism meet your standards for freedom of thought?

In passing it might be added that private schools with church leanings were an indispensable factor in the scientific research that won World War II.

What bearing does all this have on the problem of tax funds for parochial schools? It obviously has some bearing and you yourself will have to consider the factors when you decide whether to campaign for the ticket made up of Catholics or the one made up of non-Catholics.

In my home state recently there were introduced in the legislature a group of bills concerning birth control and a group of bills concerning liquor licensing, local option, and prohibition. The governor received hundreds of letters about these two groups. Analysis showed that practically all of the letters about the birth control measures came from Catholic groups, whereas the letters about liquor measures came almost exclusively from Protestant church groups.

Is it not obvious, then, that you have a legitimate interest in the religious persuasion of your state legislator, your state senator, and your state governor?

Suppose you are a Christian Scientist; how do you feel about socialized medicine? Suppose instead that you are strong for socialized medicine; is it of interest to you that a candidate for the legislature is a Christian Scientist? Or should you ignore it?

Is a Jewish congressman more likely or less likely to vote to open the United States to any and all displaced persons in Europe? Who is the more likely to put a rider concerning Palestine on a bill to end money to Britain - a non-Zionist Jew or an Irish Catholic from Boston?

The ramifications of the political effect of a man's religious beliefs are endless. I do not intend to suggest answers to any of these questions; I simply mean to make it clear that to shut your eyes to this factor is to handicap yourself grossly in the analysis of men and issues. To vote always for a person of your own religious persuasion, or, at the other extreme, always to ignore a candidate's religious beliefs, is equally stupid and unrealistic. The first attitude is narrow and un-American; the second is custard-headed. Call 'em as you see 'em!

Now let us discuss church groups.

(Before shouts of dirty red, fascist, papist, Jew, atheist, or whatever, start coming in, let me put this on record: Like all my great grandparents, I am native born, an American mixture, principally Irish, with a dash of English and French and a pinch of German. My name is Bavarian Catholic in origin; I was brought up in the Methodist faith. I believe in democracy, personal liberty, and religious freedom.)

American church groups as a whole are frequent sources of corruption and confusion in politics. This is a regrettable but observable fact which runs counter to the strong credo that if only the church people would get together and assert their strength we could run all those dirty crooks out of town. In fact, the church members of any community, voting as a bloc, could swing any election, institute any reforms they wished, and make them stick.

It does not work out that way.

I do not question that we are more moral, more charitable and more civilized as a result of church instruction and the labors of priests, ministers, rabbis, and countless devout laymen. Nor do I question the political good intent of church groups. The evil consequences result from good intentions applied in too limited a field.

Only rarely do churches become interested in the way in which paving contracts are awarded, how the oral examinations for civil service are conducted, or the fashion in which real estate values are assessed for tax purposes. Towing fees for stolen cars, the allocation of gasoline tax monies between city, county, and state, or the awarding of public utility franchises are likely to be too "political" for discussion from the pulpit.

Instead church groups are likely to demand laws which prohibit practices contrary to various religious codes of morals. A crooked political machine is happy to oblige each church as such laws do not hamper the machine; they help it-first, by providing new fields of graft and corruption, second, by insuring the votes of the madams, bookies, etc., engaged in these fields, and third, by obtaining support from the very church groups which demanded the legislation.

If you believe that laws forbidding gambling, sale of liquor, sale of contraceptives, requiring definite closing hours, enforcing the Sabbath, or any such, are necessary to the welfare of your community, that is your right and I do not ask you to surrender your beliefs or give up your efforts to put over such laws. But remember that such laws are, at most, a preliminary step in doing away with the evils they indict. Moral evils can never be solved by anything as easy as passing laws alone. If you aid in passing such laws without bothering to follow through by digging in to the involved questions of sociology, economics, and psychology which underlie the causes of the evils you are gunning for, you will not only fail to correct the evils you sought to prohibit but will create a dozen new evils as well.

If your conscience requires that you support legislation of the type referred to above, then you must realize that your overall problem of keeping honest officials in office to enforce the laws is made much more difficult and that you must work several times as hard and be much more alert if you are to have an honest government.

As an amateur, unpaid, volunteer politician interested in certain reforms, don't expect any real help from the churches even in accomplishing the moral objectives of the churches, or you will be due for a terrible disappointment.

Women in Politics

We were told, when Votes-for-Women was new, that women would bring higher moral standards and would eliminate the graft and corruption which the nasty old men had tolerated.

Women have had an effect - they caused the installation of a powder room in the Senate's sacred halls; they changed the atmosphere of conventions from that of a prize fight to something more like a college reunion, and they broadened the refreshments at political doings from a simple diet of beer and pigs knuckles to a point where the menu now includes ice cream and cake, little fancy sandwiches, coffee, and wine cooler. The change in refreshments is a distinct improvement; I don't like pigs knuckles. They have also brought political corruption to a new low.

Whoops! Easy, girls - please! Quiet down. There are exceptions to all rules-you may be the exception to this one. That is for you to determine. Judge yourself.

A great many women are willing to go to hell in a wheel barrow. Their husbands may be politically just as dishonest but the gentle sex are usually willing to sell out at a lower price. They go in for cut-rate corruption. If you file for office, or become the manager of a candidate, you will quickly be besieged by telephone calls from women who want to help in your campaign. They sound like enthusiastic volunteers; you will find very quickly that they are political streetwalkers who will support any candidate and any issue, without compunction, for a very low price.

Brush them off, but politely - a practical politician should never go out of his way to make anyone sore; your purpose is to win elections, not arguments. Let the opposition hire them. They are hardly worth the low price they charge, even to him. Later on in the campaign you will find that he hired one of them a little sooner than you had expected; she worked as an unpaid volunteer all through the campaign in your office and turned in nightly reports to the opposition.

Don't let it throw you. As a politician you must learn to expect such little disappointments. And don't let it shake your faith in human nature. If you take the trouble to count up you will find that you know many more people who are certainly honest than the number who are just as certainly crooked. The crooks just seem more numerous because they get in your hair more.

I am inclined to believe, although I am not sure, that the average difference in political honesty between men as a group and women as a group in this country is actually considerable and not just a matter of a lower pay scale for corruption on the part of women. As a result of punching thousands of doorbells and talking with many, many men and women I am of the opinion that women usually know less about political issues than men and consequently are less inclined to realize that political issues are of moral consequence. This probably results in part from the fact that most women, in their daily occupations, are not thrown out into the world to the same extent as their men folk and consequently never really find out what makes the wheels go around.17

Furthermore, the husband is inclined to encourage the little woman to remain in ignorance; it gives him a chance to show off at home how much he knows without betraying just how little it is - since it is still more than she knows.

In any case, I have heard hundreds of times, in campaigning from door to door, this remark: "Oh, I leave everything of that sort up to my husband!" And she does, too - she doesn't know a filibuster from first base and she thinks an alderman is something to hang clothes on.

So, when somebody tips her off that she can pick up a few dollars in a campaign year by a little light work in her neighborhood, she is ripe for it, gullible, willing to work for low wages, and so naive she doesn't know that it's loaded. It won't even worry her to work for the candidate George is voting against, because she does not think it matters. She can work in a dozen campaigns and never find out anything about men nor issues; she just knows that State Senator Slotmachine is such a nice man and here is some literature about him and would you like to have a car sent around to take you to the polls?

Slotmachine is a nice man, too - he's an old hand in this business; his public personality is a work of art. You would enjoy having dinner with him.

After a while, if she is bright enough to mark a sample ballot, she does notice a few things, but it does not wise her up to what she is doing; it simply makes her utterly cynical about politics. She becomes convinced that the shoddy business she has been associated with is the only brand of politics in existence. Nothing will change her junior-size mind on the subject and she is forever lost to your side.

So don't hire her and don't bother to try to convert her. The women volunteers who work for you, free, can get ten votes to the one she can round up for Slotmachine.

All through it she remains a good wife and mother and a respected member of the P.T.A. You can't tell her from an authentic volunteer by sight nor, very quickly, by conversation. There is however one simple touchstone which works in nine cases out often. The sincere volunteers will look you up in person and offer their services; the political prostitutes will telephone, offer their services over the phone, and then ask you to come to see them. (I think they believe it improves their bargaining position.)

The rule is not infallible, but it will help you to be on your guard. It won't help you much when you encounter this particular bird of prey by chance, on ringing a doorbell, and it won't help you at all when the opposition hires her and then sends her to see you; nevertheless it will save you a lot of grief. After a while you will acquire a sense of smell concerning this sisterhood. In the meantime don't trust too far any volunteer previously unknown to you, who has great enthusiasm for unpaid work but does not seem to grasp the issues in the campaign. Don't put such a person to work in the headquarters; let her (or him) distribute literature - and then make a spot check on its distribution.

Still another breed of cat is the club woman politician. She organizes women's political clubs. She may not be dishonest; she is usually ambitious and stupid and she is almost never of any use in winning an election, although she may help you lose one and her enmity is to be dreaded. Look, ladies-don't be a woman politician, or a women's politician! Be a politician who happens to be female.'8 You are the equals of men-remember? 11 isn't necessary to go off and form little groups of your own; stay in the main event and start swinging.

After the above nasty cracks about women in politics I am very happy to be able to say that a sincere and enlightened female volunteer is the best political worker you will find. She is a peai-1 beyond price, but, thank Heaven, not too hard to find. She will average from twice to many times as useful as the general run of sincere male volunteers. She is not nearly as choosy as the men are about what kind of work she will do. She'll punch doorbells, and sweep the office, and type letters, and distribute newspapers, and watch the count, and drive a car on election day.

She doesn't expect anything out of it but the satisfaction of serving. Somebody told her once that a good citizen finds it a privilege to work for the betterment of her country. She believed it and she still believes.

Bless her heart - she is the backbone and sinew of every honest political organization in the country.

"Mother knows best, dear" or "Remember, Father is usually right."

It is standard practice for the elder generation to harry the younger generation with saws about "older and wiser heads." The youngsters resent it, until they get old enough to pull it on the next crop.

There is just enough truth in it to keep the practice going. Wisdom mellowed by years is beautiful to see. In public life the occasional George Norris, Henry Stim-son, or Justice Holmes are as breath-takingly inspiring as the Lincoln Memorial. However, in most cases, what passes for the wisdom of age is merely the sophistication of experience, knowledge of precedents, and familiarity with details.

In politics our senior citizens habitually assume that their years entitle them to respectful attention from their juniors on the assumption that they have mellowed, grown broader, and increased in patriotism and social responsibility through the years.

It ain't necessarily so! Although there are shining exceptions, the average run of our elder citizens are notably avaricious, self-centered, unpatriotic, and devoid of any notion of social responsibility, as compared with their sons and daughters.19

Before I am accused of personal bias let me state that I am no longer a youngster myself. I've reached the shady side of the street, short of wind, and fat in the middle. To my regret, young women now call me "sir" and stand when they speak to me.

And I do not speak primarily of political office holders. I do not refer to the congressional practice whereby senility is an asset rather than a liability in

reaching key committee posts, nor am I repeating the arguments about "The Nine Old Men." As a matter of fact old men in politics seem to keep young better than their non-political contemporaries. (Try shadowing a seventy-year-old congressman during a campaign; he'll wear you to a frazzle.)

In any case, the problem of superannuated officeholders is a political issue outside the scope of this book. I am speaking of the ordinary run of elder citizen, your neighbors, your parents, your grandparents. They may be kind to children and dogs and sweet to look upon in church and at family dinner, but politically speaking the average lot of them are the sorriest bunch of old vultures you will find.

Remember that when you start punching door-bells.I am sorry to say these things. I like Great Aunt Mary's apple pies, her neat grey hair, and her wrinkled smile as well as you do. I had the opinion forced on me.

For example - several years ago I was covering a district which lay, half and half, on the right side and the wrong side of the tracks. I interviewed young and old, rich and poor, men and women. I expected and found certain trend differences in view point on the two sides of the tracks. But I was surprised to find an amazing and almost unanimous similarity in viewpoint on the part of the elderly rich and the elderly poor.

Mellowed and altruistic interest in the welfare and future of the whole community? Far from it! The elderly poor wanted $200 every month, or some other pension which would pay them more income than they had ever earned while working, and they didn't give a hoot what it did to the country! The elderly rich wanted the highest possible return from mortgages, rents, dividends, or other investment income, and they didn't give a hoot what it did to the country!

Naturally they tended to vote for different men and different issues - except when a candidate managed to kid both groups. But the motivation was identical and utterly shameless - blind and narrow selfishness, short range in nature and quite unconcerned with the welfare and future of dieir children and their country.

Nor were they driven to it by hunger. One can forgive the selfishness of hunger, but even on the wrong side of the tracks they were neither hungry nor cold, as it happened to be in a state with, possibly, the most favorable and generous welfare conditions in the country. No, it was the greed of old age.

There appears to come a change in most people somewhere around the age of fifty when they cease to think of the rest of the human race except in terms of what others may be induced to do for them. A divorce from the human race is not a good thing for a man's inner being; it reduces his spiritual life to its lowest common denominator - the animal level. It is absolutely imperative that a man care for something more than for himself for him to remain human. Most tragically, many people, when they have reached the age when their own children are no real responsibility and are thereby not forced to think in terms of the welfare and future of their children, find nothing to replace such interest. The more nearly truly human of us substitute, for a preoccupation widi the needs of our own children, after they are grown, a wider interest in all children everywhere, and the future of the nation and the race.

An elder citizen who has come safely through this difficult transition is a joy to know and is likely to make your best political worker. He will labor until the day he dies for the public welfare as he sees it, without the slightest expectation of personal reward. He usually has enough free time to be very effective, his views are respected, and the physical labor of politics is within die limits, in most cases, of even the elderly and infirm.

I remember in particular one old lady who was the mainstay in a dozen campaigns. She lived along on a pittance and was nearly seventy when I met her. Her first name was Laura. (I never dared call her by her first name.) Not only did she work her own precinct and campaign among her friends, she was usually headquarters manager and handled the field workers and the public with cheerful tact.

Laura wanted to know only whedier it was a private fight or could she get in it, too? She was never indifferent to any public issue; she would study, decide what was right by her values, and start pitching. I recall with pleasure watching her shake her finger under the nose of the chairman of a school board while scolding them all. "You gendemen should be ashamed of yourselves! To have the temerity to sit there and tell me, a citizen and taxpayer of this state, that you do not intend to carry out your sworn duty!"

The fight was none of hers; it involved discrimination against a group in which she had no remote interest. But Laura won the fight; the school board backed down.

(Incidentally, keep your eye on school boards; they tend to disregard the constitutional rights of the public even worse than do judges.)

Churches, women, and elderly people have come in for quite a lambasting in diis chapter; it is gratifying to emphasize that from these very groups you will get your most effective and altruistic volunteer workers. Embattled grandparents, militant housewives, and crusading clergymen will be your best shock troops. The rank and file of your organization will be young people, usually less than thirty-five years old - a man under thirty-five who cannot be induced to take any action for the welfare of his community and nation is morally dead and blind to his own personal interests; it is usually easy to interest young people in volunteer political activity. They have not yet acquired the case-hardened selfishness of their elders; they are enthusiastic, energetic, and they believe in the future.

But of the four groups, the young, the old, women past girlhood, and the clergy, young people are the only ones to be approached with no particular caution. The others are guilty until proven innocent from a standpoint of usefulness in volunteer political work.

Clergymen, although usually worse than useless, make wonderful altruistic politicians when they happen to possess both love of humanity and hard-headed realism. Too often the ones that are bright aren't good and the ones that are good aren't bright. Catholic priests are usually both and you can work with them to limit the issues in which you both see eye to eye. If you happen to be Catholic yourself the problem is simple.

The same may be said of rabbis, to a lesser extent.

"Politicians are usually crooks."

This statement is false; it is likely that no other canard has done more harm to the United States of America.

The statement is false even when it is limited to machine politicians and bosses. Political bosses are not more crooked than the average run of non-political laymen; they are less crooked.

I know my statement runs contrary to popular prejudice. I am aware that graft, bribery, nepotism, special privilege, and outright official connivance in crime and racketeering have stained and continue to stain our public life. I still stand by the statement.

Consider how a political boss operates. His purpose is to stay in power not this term, but next term, and the term after that. To do that he has to have a majority of satisfied customers - the public - you! Despite all stuffing of ballot boxes, despite thuggery and intimidation at the polls, there is i-arely (I am tempted to say "never") a time when aroused citizenry cannot throw him out of power and sometimes into jail as well. He cannot operate with the impunity of a Hider. On the average he has to please you.

The successful political boss has to stay fairly honest. Just how honest that is depends on how honest the electorate is. His success depends on delivering to the public what the public really wants; not what you the public say you want when you are busy complaining, in private conversation, about those crooks in die city hall.

Have you ever had a traffic ticket fixed? Have you ever slipped an underpaid building inspector ten or twenty bucks not to report some violation of die building code? Have you ever patronized a prostitute? Have you ever taken a drink of bootleg liquor? Have you ever patronized a black, or even a light grey, market?

If you have done any of tiiese things your own moral state is no higher than that of the Machine under which they exist. The man who believes in capital punishment cannot afford to turn up his nose at the hangman, nor can the man who offers a ten dollar bribe to a petty official afford to be righteously indignant when he finds that die scoundrels have stolen die city treasury. Nor can you expect a judge to fix a parking ticket for you on Monday but refuse to spring a known criminal on Tuesday. The difference is one of size, not of kind. Being a private citizen, your contact with graft and corruption is likely to be retail, but the man you deal with is a professional - necessarily! For him it is wholesale.

Your own record of civic virtue may be absolutely spodess; I have known many, many people who never violate public morals in any way. Nevertheless, even if you are such a person, you are aware that your friends and neighbors do such things as those listed above. Sometimes they give die excuse that die system forces such derelictions on diem. This excuse is rarely if ever valid, but how often is it accompanied by an all-out effort to correct the conditions complained of? I have yet to find such a case.

Very well-political dishonesty is a condition shared by the boss and the body politic. I have stated that the boss is more honest than the average of the lay public. I will attempt to prove it.

I am speaking here of the boss who stays in power, year after year, not of the man who suddenly climbs to power, overreaches himself, and gets promptly thrown out. The boss who stays in power is a businessman. Like all businessmen he deals daily in numerous transactions which are intended, over the long pull, to cause a profit to accrue to him. These transactions strongly resemble those of other businessmen, i.e., they are intended to benefit, one way or another, both parties to the transaction, and they must be, if not legal, at least not of such a nature as to cause the formation of vigilante societies by angry citizens. Most of them are mild in nature and stack up favorably when compared with the daily labors of the second hand automobile business, the cosmetics trade, the public relations profession, the undertaking business, the real estate business, and the "opportunity" schools.

But the business of the machine boss differs in an important respect from that of these respectable, legitimate occupations. His business is transacted orally, usually for future delivery on his part. And his word is better than the bond of most people!

Consider how itmust be. (Later on you will find that I am right, through your own experience, but now let us tackle it by analysis.) This man deals in wind, in oral statements. Political commitments are not written down. These contracts are settled with such remarks as, "Okay, Joe, I'll see the commissioner next week and take care of it," or "All right, then, we'll support your man," or "That street will be repaved in six weeks." That's all.24

His word has got to be good - or he goes out of business.

It is good. Under circumstances where a written contract is necessary, and sometimes a law suit, to force a layman to carry out his solemn promises, a business politician will meet his commitments without a murmur, even though the situation may have changed so that it costs him immediate loss or embarrassment. His personal reliability is his stock in trade; he must not jeopardize it.

I can hear a snort of derision; everybody knows that broken political promises are common as flies around a garbage dump. Whose promises, citizen? The promises of a "reform" ticket? The promises of some office-happy candidate? Or the flat commitment of a successful boss of an entrenched machine? If you know personally of a broken promise of the last-named sort, I would appreciate it if you would write to me, care of the publisher, giving me the details.25

The commitments of a successful boss are made with a careful eye to what his experience has taught him the majority of the people really want. The Pendergast Machine, now moribund, of Kansas City, Missouri, was a perfect example of a machine which gave the people what they cared most about and stayed in power for more than a quarter of a century thereby. People want good pavements and aren't too interested in the cost; Kansas City had excellent streets all through the reign of the Machine. Parents want good schools; the Old Man saw to it that high-minded citizens sat on the school board and forbade the members of the organization to monkey with the school system.

People also want personal service from their government. The Old Man was in his office daily and the door was open. Any bindlestiff or solid citizen could walk in his office, make his complaint, and get a decision. The decision was backed up with action, and most of the decisions and actions would have met with your warm approval. The cop who had shoved around the bindlestiffwas ordered to cut it out; the solid citizen got the chuck holes in front of his house repaired.

In addition, Widow Murphy got free coal and free food to help her and her kids through the cruel mid-western winter.

It is alleged that there was a Machine ruling which forbade shooting south of Twelfth Street. True or not, the respectable citizens worried very little about killings around the water front. Later on, when the Boss grew older and the Machine lost its careful attention to detail, it was certainly true that the sound of gunfire was not too uncommon in the "respectable" neighborhoods; the gangsters had moved south and set themselves up in fine apartments on Armour Boulevard, Linwood, the Paseo, and the Plaza.26

This was the beginning of the end; the Machine had overreached itself and permitted things which the citizens really disliked. Shortly thereafter the Old Man was so old and sick that he was unable to attend personally to one campaign. The "Boys" decided to make him a present, a really fine majority. Ghost votes were common in Kansas City, but this one reached a new high - or low. The Machine majorities were so enormous; the tallied opposition so microscopic, thatit was easy forafederal grand jury to dig up proof of fraud from the persons who were willing to swear that they had voted against the Machine.

Does all of the above mean that I approve of political bosses and political machines? Decidedly not! The people of Kansas City paid a terrific price, both in money and intangibles, for their complacency, all through the reign of the Machine. Toward the last, as the Boss grew old and the invisible government became less well disciplined, the price became outrageous and intolerable. Bombings, shootings, and other crimes of violence became commonplace.

But the greatest loss was in their own attitude toward civic virtue. They had become - the "respectable" citizens - cynical about the possibility of honest and efficient government. They had lost faith in themselves. There were many times in the early decades of this century when a concerted effort could have cleaned up their city; they were too indifferent and too cynical to attempt it whole-heartedly. When the change came, it resulted from decay of the Machine and from organized efforts outside the city, not from the inhabitants thereof.

Something very like the disease of Kansas City caused the downfall of France.

If bosses were the utter villains the "respectable" citizens think they are, political reform would be easy. In addition to being no crookeder than the average of the public and notably more meticulous in their personal honesty in one respect, successful bosses and successful machine politicians have many other virtues.

No matter how twisted are their attitudes toward public money and private graft, successful machine bosses have these positive virtues: They are friendly. They are helpful. They are tolerant. They are good tempered. They are conciliatory. They are personally reliable. They give patient attention to the personal problems of people who ask them for help, without being stiff-necked about it.

In short they like people and they show it, in practical, warm-hearted ways. If you expect to compete with them successfully you've got to emulate them in their virtue while shunning their vices. You can be as pure in heart and motive as Sir Galahad but it won't make your strength as the strength often unless you get down off your horse.

Roark Bradford has John Henry tell how to get along with a hog." First you got to be a friend to the hog. Then he Mend you back." John Henry knew his political onions.

Take a tip from the Salvation Army. Sal remains pure in heart by never failing to extend a hand to anyone who asks for help.

Possibly you don't like Jews. Perhaps you think the Negro should be kept "in his place." A foreign accent may annoy you. You may consider the poor to be loafers and bums. Or, vice versa, you may consider all the wealthy to be crooks. Perhaps Catholics come in for your special scorn. Whatever it is, if you hold any of these attitudes, you had better search your soul and change them, or you will never be a success in politics.

I don't mind in the least injecting discussion of racism and minorities into this book. There is no partisan bias here; both major parties are forthright in their official attitudes condemning these things, despite the mouthings of individuals or groups, despite filibusters by members of one party and the silent, guilty consent thereto by the other.

The bosses understand democracy better than many who turn up their noses at political machines. That is why you find the minorities supporting the Machines with such regularity.

You must meet the competition or you might as well go back to your ivory tower and wait for the dictatorship. It may suit you better, for dictators stand for no nonsense from people of the wrong race, or the wrong religion, or the wrong place of birth. Of course he is equally likely to liquidate you - stand you up against a ditch and shoot you. Or take your business away from you and give it to a party member.

I am sorry to raise these issues but this book is intended to be truthful rather than diplomatic. If you expect to beat the machine politicians in the practical arts of democracy, you have got to be at least as democratic as they are. It is not necessary that you like any particular man nor group; it is necessary that you be friendly in manner and that you honestly treat all comers with fairness, tolerance, and decency. If you do have any strong prejudices against particular minorities you had better learn to guard most carefully against showing them, both in public and in private.

"A government should be run like a business."

This is a common saying and it is rather silly.

Look, citizen, a machine boss is a man who runs a government like a business. Is that what you want? A business is an organization run from the top down for the personal profit of the persons who run it. Businesses provide the public with something they want in return for money. Isn't that what a political machine does?

Our Constitution is quite explicit about the purposes for which we formed this government They are: " - to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty - " That's all. Nothing about making a profit, nothing about being "businesslike."

The methods of business are appropriate to the purpose of business; they are quite incompatible with the purposes of the Constitution. I do not mean to imply that a businessman cannot serve well in public office; I do mean that he had better not try to run things with the high hand with which he bossed his own business or the public will throw him out on his ear once they get wise to him.

It is quite true that some areas of government administration could stand more "businesslike" handling, but most attempts to tidy up government service to the public results in screams of anguish from any who are annoyed by the changes, without any compensating applause from those who are helped.

Take for example the new income tax form. It has been functionalized and made explicit, with all the turns clearly marked, to the point where a moron with a hangover can make out his own income tax return unless he is in the habit of keeping his business records in the bottom of his laundry bag. (Or unless he keeps two sets of books, one for tax purposes and one for his eyes alone!)

The thing that makes the new income tax form a marvel of bureaucratic genius is that the tax bill it defines with such graphic simplicity is a hodge-podge of second thoughts, blind guesses and compromises, resulting from the agonized efforts of officeholders of both parties to be reasonably fair to all hands while paying for the most expensive war in history.

Have you heard any applause for the result? Like fun! The mere mention of March 15 by a comedian produces sour laughter.28 The effort of figuring out the form is regularly portrayed as being more difficult than understanding Dr. Einstein's relativity.

Forget that notion about running a government like a business. A government should not be run for profit and a democratic government can't be run by a boss. And as for "businesslike" - are you sure you want it yourself? Do you want your home confiscated if you fall behind on a tax payment with the same speed with which a mortgage holder will foreclose if you fail to pay up, or a landlord will kick you out if you fail to pay rent - or do you prefer the present practice in which the government will stall around for years before putting your place up for auction?

By the way, why do people kick so much at having to stand in line in the post office, or the recorder's office, but are docile as little lambs when queued up in a bank? Is it because they expect service rather than a businesslike attitude from the government they own? Could be, maybe?

"Politicians are always compromising." This statement is quite true but the implication that the process is dishonest is so much balderdash. Compromise is the core of the democratic process. Without it there is no

democracy and can be no freedom. Compromise is the process by which we meet the other fellow halfway and agree on ajoint course of action not quite pleasing to either party. Every happily married couple is quite used to the system; if it is good at home, is it bad on Capitol Hill? The man who won't compromise is not a lily-white idealist; he is merely a conceited ass and undemocratic to boot.

We will discuss this further under techniques, particularly under "caucuses" and "primaries."

Civil Service versus Patronage. This subject is not nearly so much a matter of all black and all white as most people seem to think. Let us concede that civil service is a good idea in most public jobs below the policy-making level - if the regulations have been drawn with the intent of producing an honest, spoil-free service and if those regulations are honestly administered. Otherwise -and this applies to many cities, counties, and states-it is merely a dodge to entrench the henchmen of a machine in public jobs, beyond the reach of the electorate to "turn the rascals out!"30

The wrangle is generally managed through the device of an oral examination for applicants which counts as much, or nearly as much, as the written examination. If your local civil service makes use of an oral examination you are justified in assuming that it is crooked, a racket.

Nor is patronage, or the "spoils system," the benefit to practical politicians it is supposed to be. If a politician once gets started on the road of paying off political obligations with patronage, he quickly finds that there is never enough patronage to go around. Some of our senators meet this situation by becoming insatiable patronage hounds - one of them recently proposed a bill which would have made holding a job as a senior aeronautical engineer at Wright Field a matter of political faith! Others meet it by dropping the matter entirely, refusing to touch patronage, or by delegating it to the official local organization of their party.

Many officeholders have told me in private that the system of refusing to have anything to do with patronage is the only one which is free from headaches and unnecessary loss of votes.

The reason is very simple. For every patronage job there are at least a dozen candidates with good claims - in their own minds, at least - for appointment on the score of political services rendered. That means one man whose loyalty, such as it is, may have been purchased by the appointment - and eleven who are almost certainly antagonized.

After a few terms of this a congressman finds himself surrounded by a sea of disappointed postmaster candidates, each anxious to elect his opponent.

Still, if you are going to be in politics, you will have to face up to the problem of patronage. If you steadfastly refuse to accept it yourself, someday you will find that the job of dispensing it has been laid in your lap. What to do will be discussed under "techniques."

The federal civil service is almost entirely free from the dishonesty which is so prevalent in state and local civil service. It need not concern you too much as it is, by and large, well run and moderately efficient. It is not free from politics; federal civil servants maintain quite a lobby in Washington, but it is almost entirely free from partisan politics. Their efforts run mostly to pressure to obtain larger appropriations, higher salaries, and bigger organizations.31

Senator Byrd seems to feel that this is one of the most important problems facing the Republic. I don't happen to think so. You will have to decide for yourself.

The worst thing wrong with the federal civil service is the fact that the salaries and working conditions are not sufficiently high to attract enough competent men in the more responsible administrative positions - a section head in agronomy, let us say, or a division supervisor in aerodynamics research, or a chief physicist for the Bureau of Standards.

This problem is not limited to federal civil service but extends all through government. We pay a congressman $10,000 a year for a job that costs him $15,000 a year to hold under present conditions, exclusive of his campaign expenses, and then wonder why things get fouled up in Washington.

One of the commonest misconceptions has to do with "eating out of the public trough." By popular superstition, every officeholder, appointive or elective, is suspected of living by a process midway between cannibalism and vampirism, and classed with robbing the dead.

Truthfully, comrades, eating out of the public trough is mighty slim pickings. As wejust mentioned, it is slow bankruptcy to become a congressman. The situation with state legislators is much worse. A hundred dollars a month is high pay for a legislator or state senator; most states pay less than that. None of them pay a living wage, yet carrying out the duties of the office properly in these complicated days is a full-time job at nearer sixty hours a week than forty.

How do they live?

One of two ways: (a) honestly, through private income or private work done at the expense of public business - and the legislator's own health; it's too big a burden - or (b) by graft, either polite or shameless.

If the legislator is a lawyer, as too many of them are, polite graft is simple.35 Get your own lawyer to explain the process. Shucks! We might as well be frank. In most states (all states, as far as I know) a legislator who is also a lawyer may practice his profession on the side. He may receive legal fees, size not limited by professional code, for legal services, nature undefined. These fees may be legitimate fees, honestly earned; they may be "clean" graft - fees that fall in his lap because of his prominence as a public official but with no definite strings attached (there is a lot of that and it tends to make a man a tame dog without buying his vote outright); or it may be outright bribery, done in such a manner that it can never be prosecuted.36

If you should happen to get interested in cleaning up this particular evil in your home state - it's there! - the method is simple: Pay your legislators about $10,000 a year, which is what they should be worth for what you expect of them; forbid them to earn money through outside business; and institute some type of required publicity of their financial conditions on entering and leaving office, each term.

Simple to state, that is - you will find it hard to formulate in law and very hard to put over, not because of the opposition of the legislators but because of the blind and angry opposition of a great part of the population who hate to see a public official paid a living wage and hate still worse for him to be paid a salary commensurate with the responsibility of the office.38

Most strangely and wonderfully, in spite of the nominal salary and impossible working conditions, in spite of the feet that they are usually treated disgracefully by their constituents (who seem to feel that an elected legislator is something between a paroled convict and a chattel slave), a very large percentage of our legislators are earnest, honest, hardworking public servants doing their level best for their state and their constituents.

Why do they do it? Why would any man expose himself to such a fate? In England the profession of government is the highest and most respected occupation a gentleman can enter; in this country a man who dares to offer himself for the public service might as well kiss his reputation goodbye.

Then why do the honest men in public office (and their numbers are enormous compared with the crooks) ever chuck their hats in the ring? Or, once having had their fingers burned, why do they run for re-election? Is it a power complex? Are they publicity-mad exhibitionists? Is it some sort of a vice?

All of the above may enter into some cases to some degree, but I have a different theory as to the main reason. My theory is based on intimate knowledge of many legislators; it may be wrong but here it is, for what it's worth.

I think it's patriotism.

There is a strong conceit held by a large part of the population that it is somehow a little declasse to be an active partisan, that all really nice people are non-partisan. You will hear, "I vote for the man, not the party," said in a smug tone of voice, as if expecting for that pious sentiment at least one more star in the heavenly crown. Among middle-aged and elderly women this attitude is almost universal.

With rare exceptions, I vote for the party, not the man.

Bepartisan!

Be party regular. Vote the ticket in the fall of the party whose primary you voted in earlier in the year. Do all you can to enforce party discipline, not only among political workers, but, after election, on the part of your party office holders. Make 'em stick to the party's platform.40

Like all generalizations, this rule is subject to some exceptions, but the exceptions are very few, and you should spend several sleepless nights before deciding that a special circumstance merits an exception.

I can give you the thumb rule I use. I won't vote for a man whom I know to be an outright crook, or treasonable to our form of government, or, in my opinion, having some other moral defect so gross to make him a public menace in public office.

But I will vote for a dunderhead against a smart man of the party I am opposing.

After all, all I am asking of the poor devil is that he represent me; the dunderhead, if subject to party discipline, can do so; the smart man from the other party is already pledged to vote contrary to my wishes in the respects in which the two parties differ.

The belief that it is somehow more "idealistic" to ignore party lines arises from a failure to understand the nature of the democratic process. Democratic government is the art of reconciling the desire of every man to do just as he damn well pleases with the necessity of setting up rules and agreeing on programs for the general welfare of all and the protection of each individual.41

When there are 140,000,000 individuals concerned the procedure has to be more formalized and more complicated than it is when a single family decides what movie to attend. The process is necessarily as follows; no other system has ever been invented:

Individuals who are somewhat like-minded get together, discuss candidates and issues, iron out their differences, compromise, and agree on a program and a slate for die party primary. The primary they take part in is, of course, that of the party which, in their opinions, most nearly fits their needs. As a result of the primary they hope to make it still closer to what they want

Other groups have been doing the same thing. After the party primary the groups, successful and unsuccessful, get together in larger groups and make further compromises. Many, perhaps most, of the concessions are made by the successful groups to the unsuccessful ones, for the successful groups are acutely aware that they cannot win in the final election single-handed.

Somehow, a party platform is hammered out It is a conglomeration of compromises, representing an average of the hopes and beliefs and needs of many

people. No one is satisfied, but halfa loaf, etc. - they pledge support.

A campaign organization is worked out. The campaign manager is not infrequently the strongest unsuccessful rival of the head of the ticket; all through the organization you will find disappointed candidates and their supporters pitching in to try and elect the man they opposed a few weeks before. Hypocrisy? Hell, no! It's brotherhood and civilized cooperation.

After the election the compromising process starts all over again, for the successful candidates of each party are now public officials. From unlimited considerations, out of strongly opposed needs, and violent differences in viewpoint they must arrange programs, pass laws, produce an administration.

From this endless and involved series of compromises comes the government of these United States, and of our states and counties and cities.

There is no other way-foragovernmentoffreemen.

But the point is this: You can't take part in this process without being partisan. What is a political party? It is a large group of people who have agreed to compromise their differences to accomplish a program reasonably satisfactory to all but which none could accomplish alone.

The definition applies to all political organizations. In this country we call that group just below the level of government itself the political party. The groups which make up the national parties are little parties, no matter what they are called-clubs, groups, blocs, wings, leagues. I want to point out that a "non-partisan league" is a political party. So is an "independent women voters' league," or a "civic affairs committee." Mr. Lincoln made it clear a long time ago that calling a tail a leg did not make it a leg.

However, these parties without party labels are usually less responsible and more subject to dishonest manipulation than the parties which openly avow their party nature.

But why be partisan? Why not vote independently, after an earnest scrutiny of the candidates and issues, for the welfare of the people as a whole? It sounds good and it would be very nice if it would work. It would also be nice if pi were exactly 3.000 instead of a bothersome 3.14159 plus.

There are two reasons, one moral and one practical. The practical reason is this: You simply cannot be effective in politics unless you join in the process of compromise and conciliation whereby free men merge little groups into big groups until they accomplish a government. If you are not partisan you are on your own, everybody is out of step but Johnny, and the chances that you can have any effect on how this country is run are 140,000,000 to one against you.

If you write to your congressman about some issue that matters to you he will recognize you for what you are, a free rider, a political zombie, and he will give your opinion the casual attention it deserves.42 But if he knows you to be an acting worker in the South Side (Democratic) (Republican) Club, he will write you a careful explanation of his own views in the matter and ask you to elaborate yours.

It does not matter whether or not your congressman is of the same political party as the club you belong to, just as long as he knows that you take regular part in the basic democratic process of partisan politics.

Now for the moral reason: Whenever you take part in the group processes of democracy there is an unwritten but morally binding contract between yourself and the other members of the group that you will abide by the will of the majority. If you know ahead of time that the will of the majority is likely to be something that you can't stomach, then you are in the wrong pew and should go find a group more to your liking.

But you have no right to take part in their proceedings, accepting from them a voice and a vote, unless you intend to abide by the outcome of the vote.

The issue can be quite crucial. You will one day find yourself engaged in die process and will see coming out of it a result which you had not anticipated but which you cannot support with a clear conscience. There is then only one answer-get out Resign. Retire.

But don't go over to the opposition! You've had your chance; through your own bad judgment you've muffed it Wait it out and choose your associates more carefully next time. Changedubs, change groups, change parties if necessary, and try again. But do not expect to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds, all in the same campaign.

Being partisan does not mean that you must stay ih one party all your life. It is proper to change parties, or to help to form a third party, if you find that the party of your former affiliation no longer represents your views.43 It is also proper to join a straddle-party, a group which announces its intentions of selecting and supporting candidates on the basis of some issue or program which they regard as paramount, irrespective of party labels. Such a venture although highly speculative is legitimate, but it automatically bars you from any moral right to take part in the regular party processes, including the primary.

It is not legitimate to vote in the Republican primary in the summer, turn around and vote for the Democratic ticket in the fall.

When you accepted a voice in the selection of a particular party's candidates you contracted with the other members of that party to abide by the outcome. Some state's recognize diis principle; others are so lax that it is possible in such a state for a man to be registered in one patty, run for office in a second party, then support the ticket of a third party. The moral issue is the same anywhere.

The principle is formalized in a caucus. The caucus is a device used to bind a group to unanimous action and is used both for programs and for the selection of candidates. It works like this: A group of people with something in common get together for die purpose of a political action. Some member moves to caucus. This isamotion on procedure; no issue or candidate is as yet before the group. Ifthe motion carries die group as a whole is bound to act unanimously tocarryoutdie will ofthe majority.

Pretty rough on the minority? Wait a moment - anyone who at this point decides that he is not willing to bind bimselfgetsupandmalksoui. He has been deprived of none of his rights as a free citizen, but he has decided of his own free will not to work with this group.

The doors are dosed and the remainder arrive at a majority decision which is binding on them all as the unanimous wishes ofthe caucus.

Simple, isn't it? You never have to join a caucus, but if you do you promise to five up to the contract Yet I have met people so politically naive that diey refused to bind diemselves but demanded that diey be allowed to remain and vote and debate. Others will break die caucus after the doors are opened. One "reformer" type is particularly prone to this sort of political dishonesty; he can always find reason why "the greatest good of all the peepul" demands dial he go back on his word.44 It marks him as dishonest, he is not invited to caucus the next time, and he never gets an opportunity to serve the people he claims to love so well.

I have tried to make it dear diat it takes a nice sense of honor, personal self discipline, and meticulous respect for the obligations of contract to be partisan and party regular. It takes ideals and integrity, despite the common opinion to the contrary. The political free-lance, who proclaims that he wears no man's collar and boasts of his independence, should not be admired, for he is merely irresponsible. He is the cuckoo of politics, who claims the privilege of laying eggs in a nest he refused to help to build.

You may still have misgivings. You may still feel, quite honestly, dial you want to be free to pick up your ballot in November with unlimited choices to split the ticket any way you like for the men you believe to be the most able. Well, no one will stop you. But an adult is never free in diat sense. He is bound by his conscience, his sense of responsibility, and his commitments to odier people. If you have taken an adult part in the preliminary democratic processes which led up to diat ballot in your hand, then you already have obligations and are morally bound to carry them out.

Let us mention one more practical consequence of die evil of being "non-partisan." When you elect a man to office you expect him to make an honest effort to carry out his platform pledges. Very well-don't give a Democratic governor a Republican legislature and then expect him to rear back and pass a miracle. Remember the second half of Hoover's administration. The Executive and the Congress were headed in different directions and the processes of orderly government came to a stop. Mr. Hoover never had a chance. Neither did die Congress.