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  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 sma
rt 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.