Take Back Your Government! Read online

  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. Paren
ts 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