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  Recapitulation-How to start: Take a telephone book. Look up your political party. Telephone, locate your local club. Join it, attend all the meetings, and do volunteer work for several months. At the end of drat time, let your conscience be your guide. You will know enough to know where you belong and what you should do.

  I might as well admit right now that the above paragraph is really all this book can tell you. The matter discussed in the later chapters are things which you will learn for yourself in any case, provided you do everything called f or in the paragraph above.

  If you have skimmed through this book to this point without, as yet, laying the purchase price on the counter, you can save the price of the book without loss to yourself simply by remembering that one paragraph - and doing it!

  On the other hand you might buy the book anyhow and lend it to your loud-mouthed brother-in-law. Aren't you pretty sick of the way he is forever flapping his jaw about the way the country is run? But when has he ever done anything about it except to go down and kill your vote on election day by voting the wrong way? Give him this book, then tell him to put up or shut up!

  You can point out to him that he owes it to his three kids to take a responsible part in politics, instead of just beating his gums. If he won't get off his fat backside and get busy in politics but still refuses to stop being a Big Wind, you are then justified in indulging in the pleasure of being rude to him. After all, you have wanted to be for years, haven't you? This is your opportunity; you've got nothing to lose politically since he votes wrong anyhow, when he remembers to vote, and it will come as a relief to be rude for once, now that you are a politician and usually polite to all comers.

  Tell him that he is so damned ignorant that he doesn't have any real opinions about politics and so lax in his civic duties that he wouldn't be entitled to opinions if he had any. Tell him to shut up and to quit holding up the bridge game.

  The faint sound of cheering you will hear from the distance will be me. I don't like the jerk either, nor any of his tribe.

  You may not believe that getting into politics is actually as simple as I have described it. Here is my own case: I returned to my own state after an extended absence. My profession had kept me travelling and it happened to be the first time I had ever been at home during a campaign. I walked into the local street headquarters of my party and said to a woman at a desk, "I have a telephone, an automobile, and a typewriter. What can I do?"

  I was referred to another headquarters a couple of miles away - I was so ignorant that I did not know the district boundaries and had gotten into the wrong headquarters.

  That very same day, to my utter amazement and confusion, I found myself in charge of seven precincts.

  Six weeks later I was a director of die local club.

  Six months later I was publishing, in my spare time, a political newspaper of two million circulation.

  During the next campaign I was a county commit-teeman, a state committeeman, and a district chairman. Shortly after that campaign I was appointed county organizer for my party. And so on. It does not end. The scope and importance of the political work assigned to a volunteer fireman is limited only by his strength and his willingness to accept responsibility.

  Nor is the work futile. The volunteer organization with which I presently became affiliated recalled a mayor, kicked out a district attorney, replaced the governor with one of our own choice, and completely changed the political complexion of one of the largest states - all within four years. I did not do it alone-naturally not, nothing is ever done alone in politics-but it was done by a comparatively small group of unpaid volunteers almost all of whom were as ignorant of politics at the start as I was.

  Or let me tell you about Susie. Susie is a wonderful girl. She and her husband volunteered about the same time I did. Susie had a small baby; she packed him into a market basket, stuck him into the back of the family car and went out and did field work.

  In the following four years Susie replaced a national committeeman with a candidate of her own choice, elected a congressman, and managed the major portion of the campaign which gave us a new governor. She topped her career finally by being the indispensable key person in nominating a presidential candidate of one of the two major parties. I'll tell more about that later; it's quite a story.

  All this time Susie was having babies about every third year. She never accepted a cent for herself, but it became customary, after the house filled up, for the party to see to it that Susie had a maid during a campaign. The rest of the time she kept house, did the cooking, and reared her kids unassisted.

  During the war she added riveting on bombers during the night shift to her other activities.

  We can't all be Susies. But remember this - all that Susie had to offer was honesty, willingness, and an abiding faith in democracy. She had no money and has none now ... and she had no political connections nor experience when she started.

  I could fill a whole book with case histories of people like Susie. Most of them are people of very limited income who are quite busy all day earning that income. One of the commonest excuses from the person who knows that he should take part in civic business is: "I would like to but I am just so tarnation busy making a living for my wife and kids that I can't spare the time, the money, nor the energy."

  The middle class in Germany felt the same way; it brought them Hitler, the liquidation of their class, and the destruction of their country. The next time you feel like emulating them, remember Susie and her four kids. Or Gus. Gus drove a truck from four a.m. to noon each day; he had a wife and two kids. By sleeping in the afternoons and catching a nap after midnight he managed to devote many of his evenings to politics. In less than three years he was state chairman of the young people's club of his party and one of the top policy makers in the state organization.

  What did he get out of it? Nothing, but the satisfaction of knowing that he had made his state a better place for his kids to live.

  The Guses and the Susies in this country are the people who have preserved and are preserving our democracy - not the big city bosses, not the Washington officeholders, and most emphatically not your loud-mouthed and lazy brother-in-law.10

  I have said that the rest of the book will tell only things that you will learn anyhow, through experience. They will be recounted in hopes of saving you much time, much bitter experience, and in the expectation that my own experiences may make you more effective more quickly than you otherwise might be. I also hope to brace you against the disappointment and sometimes disheartening disillusionments that are bound to come to anyone participating in this deadly serious game.

  One warning I want to include right now, since you may not finish reading this book.

  You are entering politics with the definite intention of treating it as a patriotic public service. You intend to pay your own way; you seek neither patronage nor cash. Almost at once you will be offered pay. You will turn it down. Again and again it will be offered and patronage as well.

  There will come a day when you are offered pay to campaign for an issue or a man in whom you already believe and most heartily and to whom you are already committed. The offer will come from a man who is sincerely your friend and whom you know to be honest and patriotic. He will argue that the organization expects to pay for the work you are already doing and dial you might as well be paid. He honesdy prefers for you to be on the payroll; it makes the whole affair more orderly.

  Everydiing he says is perfecdy true; it is honest pay, from a clean source, for honest work in which you believe. It happens doat just that moment a litde extra money would come in mighty handy. What should you do?

  Don't take it!

  If you take it, it is almost certain to mark die end of your climb toward the top in the policy-making councils of your party. You are likely to remain a two-bit, or at best a four-bit, ward heeler the rest of your life. A volunteer fireman need not have money to be influential in public affairs, but he must not accept money,
even when it is clean money, honestly earned. If you take it you are a hired man and hired men carry very litde weight anywhere.11

  There is a corny old story about a sugar daddy and a stylish and beautiful young society matron. The s.d. offered her five thousand dollars to spend a week at Atlantic City with him. After due consideration she accepted. He then offered her fifty dollars instead. In great indignation she said, "Sir, what kind of a woman do you think I am?"

  "We settled that," he told her. "Now we're haggling over die price."

  Don't make the mistake she did. There is however some sense in haggling over die conditions. If you reach die point where your party wants you to accept a state or national party post, for full-time work in a position of authority, or your government asks the same diing of you, under circumstances where it is evident that you must surrender your usual means of livelihood, go ahead and take it, if you honesdy believe that your services are needed and that you can do the best job that could be done by any of die available candidates. It is well understood in political circles diat public office or major party office is almost always badly underpaid for the talent and experience die jobs need. The salaries, therefore, are regarded simply as retainers to permit the holder to eat while serving die public. But don't be a paid ward heeler!

  On the other hand, it is not wise to hold the petty hired man in the party in contempt. You will have to work widi many of them no matter what party you are in. The biggest reform movements in this country include areas where the Machine is dominant; the most perfectly oiled political machines include areas where all the work is volunteer and unpaid. You will find the paid precinct or headquarters worker as honest and as conscientious as employees usually are; almost invariably he or she will be sincerely loyal to the party employing him. They usually do more work dian their wages justify. Remember diis, and be careful what you say to them or about them. Most of them are as honest as you are and just as anxious for your man to win.

  But don't become one of them if you expect to have any major effect on the future of this country.

  Well, then, if you are never to accept pay, except under remote circumstances in which the job even widi pay is likely to be a financial sacrifice, what can you expect to get out of it?

  The rewards are intangible but very pleasing to an adult mind. The drawbacks are easier to see. You must expect to be regarded with amusement and even suspicion by some of your acquaintances. Most of the station-wagon crowd you used to run around with will be certain that you are in it for what you can get out of it, for that is the only reason their unmatured minds can imagine. They are the free riders in the body politic; despite the fact they do nothing to make our form of government work, they serenely believe that the wheels go around by their gracious consent and think that gives them the privilege of caustic and ignorant criticism of the laborers in the vineyard.

  Moreover, you won't be seeing so much of them from now on. You will find that you are beginning to select your social contacts, your dinner guests and your golf partners from among your political acquaintances. You will do this because you find more intelligence, more brilliant conversation, and more worthwhile solid human values among your political acquaintances than you found among the free riders. You won't plan it that way, but it will work itself out.

  You will play less bridge. Bridge is a good game, but it is dull and tasteless when compared with politics.

  Your brother-in-law will shun your company. That's clear gain!

  There will come to you the warm satisfaction of being in on the know every time you pick up your newspaper. News stories that once were dull will be filled with zest for you, because you will know what they mean.

  From the stand point of sheer recreation you will have discovered the greatest sport in the world. Horse racing, gambling, football, the fights, all of these things are childish and trite compared with this greatest sport! Politics is a game where you always play for keeps, where the game is continuous, always fresh and full of surprises. It will take all of your intelligence and wit and all that you have ever learned or can learn to play it well. The stakes are the highest conceivable, the lives and the futures of every living creature on this planet. How well you play it can make the difference between freedom or a firing squad, civilization or atomic conflagration. For this is the day of decision, the hour of the knife, and none but yourself can choose for you the correct path in the maze.

  Over and above the joy of playing for high stakes is the greatest and most adult joy of all, the continuous and sustaining knowledge that you have broken with childish ways and come at last into your full heritage as a free citizen, integrated into the life of the land of your birth or your choice, and carrying your share of adult responsibility for the future thereof!

  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 fund
s 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?