Part 2

It has been thought worth while to go at some length into the criticism on purely economic grounds of the argument that corruption makes business good; first, because the argument itself is primarily economic in character, and secondly, because its tacit acceptance by certain hard-headed business men might lead to the belief that its refutation on material grounds was impossible. A broad view of the economic welfare of the state as a whole and business in all its forms leads, as we have seen, to the opposite conviction. And this conviction that corruption does _not_ make business good in any solid and permanent way is greatly strengthened when moral and political, as well as financial, values are thrown into the scale. It is not necessary to recite in detail the ethical argument against gambling and vice in order to strengthen this point. The general duty of the state to protect the lives and health and morals of its people, even at great financial sacrifice if necessary, is beyond question. There is a possibility, as Professor Goodnow maintains,[3] that in the United States we have gone too far in attempting to suppress by police power things that are simply vicious, as distinguished from crimes; but however this may be, some regulation or repression of vice is always necessary. The real point here is that, having once drawn the line, the bribery of officials shall not be resorted to in order that vice may be permitted to flourish in certain localities. In such cases the state suffers not only from the effects of the vice but also from the disregard into which the whole fabric of law falls because of the failure to enforce it in part.

With regard to the particular plea that the life and animation and pleasures of a wide-open town stimulate its citizens to greater activity in producing wealth, it should be observed that this amounts virtually to the advocacy of the purchase of a dubious economic benefit at a high and certain moral cost. In the long run most, if not all, the vicious practices which thus find a quasi-justification directly cripple productive efficiency much more than they can possibly stimulate it indirectly. “A short life and a merry one” may serve well as a motto for a criminal career, but not as an economic maxim for a community of sane people. It may be admitted that the world is not to grow perfect in a day. Vice will persist, corruption will persist, although doubtless in less noxious forms, and business will persist with periods of greater or less prosperity under such conditions. It would be arrant folly, however, to expect business to reach its highest development with vice rampant under a corrupt police administration. A policy of repression, firmly enforced, will be best in the long run both for morals and for business. But even if honesty and prosperity were incompatible, it would still be true that it is a higher duty of the state to make men good than to make them rich. Ordinarily, however, both ends may be pursued at the same time and without conflict.

Up to this point the discussion of the argument that corruption makes business good has been confined to the forms of corruption under which vice is illegally tolerated. A dishonest government, however, is also frequently appealed to by businesses perfectly legitimate in their general character for concessions of one sort or another, ranging from the privilege to obstruct sidewalks by show windows up to the granting of public service franchises worth millions of dollars. With an open-handed distribution of such favours business is thought to flourish. Of course, all these concessions must be paid for, but only part of the money goes into the public purse, the rest falling into the hands of boodlers, contractors, and politicians. As the latter could not establish the most perfect title to the rights and franchises they sell they are often inclined to fix prices much below real values. Hence a chance for extraordinary profits to those less scrupulous business men who know the political ropes. A still more important feature of such a situation is that almost anything can be bought. In the lingo of those who are willing to engage in corrupt transactions, business men know “where they are at”; the politicians are men with whom “they can do business.” With reformers in power “favours” are not to be expected. Moreover reformers differ widely among themselves with regard to the proper method of dealing with public franchises and privileges of various sorts. Under “good government” these concessions may not be attainable at all, or, if so, only at such excessive prices and under such onerous conditions designed to safeguard the public interest, that the margin of profit left is extremely small. No wonder that contributions are made by certain kinds of business men to political organisations which the contributors well know to be corrupt, and refused by the same men to reform parties. The argument is, of course, that if the rascals win it is a good stroke of policy to secure their favour in advance, whereas if the reform party wins everybody will be treated alike anyway.

From a business point of view that considers immediate profits and nothing more, this reasoning is of great significance. Several deductions must be made from it, however, before the final balance is struck. It sometimes happens that corrupt organisations fix a regular tariff for privileges of all sorts. So long as the rates are low business appears to boom. But with the wide distribution of privileges the purchasers may lose any monopoly advantage which they enjoyed when the number of concessions was limited. Worse still, a corrupt gang that feels firmly entrenched in power is apt to develop a pretty fair sense of values itself, and to raise the rates for concessions to figures that prove well-nigh prohibitive. The very willingness of business interests to pay and keep quiet encourages the politicians to increase their demands and to devise new methods of levying tribute. In the end the gang may determine to assume the profits in certain lines by the formation of inside contracting rings which make all competition from the outside futile. Of course, while this process is going on the worst and most unscrupulous competitors in the businesses affected by it have a decided advantage over their fellows. Business men who complain of railroad rebates should certainly be able to recognise the destructive character of corrupt and unfair political conditions of the kind described above. Even those who most profit by alliance with the gang are apt to repent it in the end. They may have succeeded in securing all the favours which they need, and yet stand in constant terror of blackmail and strike legislation by their former political confederates or of exposure by reformers. Finally, although they may be so fortunate as to escape indictment for particular misdeeds, the general belief that a business has been corruptly managed is likely to bring about a demand for legislation affecting its conduct which, temporarily at least, may reduce its profits and the value of its securities very materially. The agitation for municipal ownership is a case in point. Quite apart from the logical weight of the arguments advanced in support of this policy, there can be no doubt that many people favour it largely because of the corrupt methods believed, although in most cases not legally proved, to have been practised by public service corporations.

II. The second argument to be considered is that corruption may be more than compensated for by the high efficiency otherwise of those who engage in it. Such a plea may be offered either for an individual or for an organisation, such as the machine. Many historical cases could be cited of statesmanlike ability of a high order and undoubted honesty on great issues coupled with a shrewd eye for the main chance whenever minor opportunities presented themselves. Even for men who are currently credited with having possessed a much larger share of guile than of ability, admiration is sometimes expressed. There are those who think that New York owes a statue to Tweed, and Pennsylvania already has a statue of Quay—if not a place for the statue.[4] The same manner of thinking prevails in other fields than politics, especially whenever graft can be made to appear as a sort of tribute levied upon a supposedly hostile social class. For example, a labour leader who extorted checks from employers by threatening and even calling strikes was defended by many of his followers on the ground that he had shown wonderful ability in organising the union and securing higher wage scales.[5]

The question is sometimes raised as to whether or not some purely personal moral obliquity should be held against a candidate for office whose qualifications otherwise are unimpeachable. A practical answer would, of course, depend largely upon the kind of evil charged against the man and the probability that it would interfere with the performance of his public duties. Even an extremist upon such an issue would have to admit that certain statesmen who have given most distinguished service to their countries have been, for example, intemperate in the use of liquor or unfaithful in the marriage relation. If in such cases we excuse and forget, why not also excuse and forget corrupt transactions that have been more than repaid by general brilliant conduct of affairs of state? No answer to this second question, however, can avoid the distinction that while certain kinds of personal immorality may affect the value of a man’s public service to an infinitesimal degree only, corruption in any part of his political career strikes directly at whatever efficiency he may possess as a public servant. In the former case his sins are in a different category from his virtues, whereas in the latter case they belong to the same category. Moreover a corrupt record even on a minor point in a man’s official career is apt to prove a great stumblingblock forever after. Usually designing persons can more readily employ their knowledge of it to force him to the commission of further and worse corrupt actions than they could hope to do had his earlier offences been of the same degree but of a purely personal character.

There is, of course, no quantitative measure whereby we can reckon exactly the efficiency and honesty of men, and, striking a joint average, definitely appraise their value for a given position in the service of the state. If there were such a measure assuredly it would seldom, if ever, register both perfect efficiency and perfect honesty. The work of government, like that of all social institutions, must be performed by relatively weak and incapable human instruments. At best we can only seek to secure the greatest attainable honesty and the greatest attainable efficiency. There may be cases where a degree of the latter amounting to positive genius may offset a serious defect in the former. Distinguished ability, however, ought to be relatively free from moral weakness. Men of more than average capacity, to say nothing of genius, should find it less necessary than others to stoop to equivocal practices in order to succeed. If no higher motives swayed such men, then at least an intelligent appreciation on their part of the risks they ran in pursuing crooked courses would serve as sufficient deterrent. It is your stupid and incapable official ordinarily who, because of moral insensibility or in order to keep pace with his abler fellows, is most easily tempted to employ shifty devices. The weakness of the second apology for corruption is thus apparent. Normally corruption and efficiency are not found together. On the contrary honesty and efficiency are common yokemates. A public sentiment which weakly excuses corruption on the ground of alleged efficiency will be deceived much more often than a public sentiment which insists upon the highest attainable standard of both.

III. The third apology for corruption is that it saves us from mob rule. In Professor Ford’s felicitous phrase the appearance of corruption “instead of being the betrayal of democracy may be the diplomatic treatment of ochlocracy, restraining its dangerous tendencies and minimising its mischiefs.”[6] According to this view the machine, dominated by the boss or gang, is the defender of society itself against the attacks of our internal barbarians. Tammany Hall had the brazen effrontery to assume this attitude during the New York mayoralty campaign of 1886, when it nominated Mr. Hewitt in opposition to Henry George. “Yet it would be difficult to name a time in recent years when frauds so glaring and so tremendous in the aggregate have been employed in behalf of any candidate as were committed in behalf of Mr. Hewitt in 1886.”[7] Society would seem to be in desperate straits, indeed, if it needed such defenders and such methods of defence. In favour of their employment it is sometimes said that our propertied and educated classes have grown away from the great democratic mass. Of themselves they would be quite incapable of protecting the goods, material and ideal, which are intrusted to them. The corrupt machine, seeking its own interest, it is true, nevertheless performs the invaluable social service of keeping the restless proletariat in subjection. In order to obtain the votes of ignorant and venal citizens the unscrupulous political leader is obliged to perform innumerable petty services for them, as, for example, securing jobs, both in the public service and outside, supplying or obtaining charitable relief in times of need, speaking a friendly word to the police magistrate after a neighbourhood brawl, providing recreation in the form of tickets to chowder excursions during the summer and to “pleasure club” balls during the winter. Bread and circuses being thus supplied, our higher civilisation is presumably secure. If the corrupt machine did not perform these services, it is assumed by some timorous persons that the mob would break forth, gut our shops, rob our tills, burn, and kill in unrestrained fury.

If catastrophes so great and terrible were actually impending the situation would seem not only to justify our present corrupt rulers, but might also be held sufficiently grave to induce us to establish new bosses and gangs, giving them license to graft to their heart’s content, provided only that they continue their beneficent mission of saving civilisation. Dictatorship would be cheap at the price. The whole argument, however, rests primarily upon a shockingly unjust view of the real character of our proletariat class. Even if this very indefinite term be interpreted to mean only the poorest and most ignorant of our people, whether of native American or of foreign stock, the view that they need to be constantly cajoled by the corrupt politician in order to prevent them from resorting to the violent seizure of the property of others is a grotesque misconception. In the great majority of cases such persons desire nothing more than the opportunity to earn an honest and frugal living in peace. We must admit, of course, that lynching and labour riots occur with appalling frequency in the United States. No one should attempt to minimise the danger and disgrace of such outbreaks. Let us not, on the other hand, fall into the gross error of regarding them as deliberate revolutionary attacks upon the existing social order.

With such circumstances confronting us, what shall be said of the alleged utility of the corrupt machine as prime defender of social peace? If we should conclude to recognise the gang frankly in this capacity any materials for the formation of revolutionary mobs that we may possess would certainly be encouraged to increase the demands made as the price of continued quiet, and even to furnish a few sample riots from time to time as a means of enforcing their demands. In reality, however, corrupt political machines care very little for social welfare. The very essence of corruption is self-interest regardless of public interest. Familiarity with the favours bestowed by politicians is hardly the best means of encouraging quiescence among poor and ignorant recipients. It may become the first step toward idleness and crime. But besides the distribution of favours the corrupt politician has many other means of procuring power. Hired thugs, and sometimes members of the regular police force, are employed to drive honest voters from the polls, and every manner of tricky device is resorted to in order to deceive them in casting their ballots or to falsify the election returns. Do such things allay social discontent? Even the rank favouritism shown by the corrupt organisation to its servile adherents must make enemies of those who feel themselves slighted. Few forms of political evil are more dangerous than the fear sometimes displayed by mayors or governors that the vigorous employment of the police to suppress rioting may cost them votes when they come up for re-election. And there are many other consequences of corrupt rule which indirectly but none the less surely inflame the sufferers against the injustice of the existing order: insufficient and inferior school accommodations, the absence of parks and other means of rational recreation, dirty streets, impure water supply, neglect of housing reforms, poor and high-priced public utility services and so on. All things considered, the corrupt machine is the sorriest saviour of society imaginable.

Assuming, finally, for the sake of argument, that there is real danger of class war in the near future, the best defence would obviously lie in strong police, militia, and army forces. The life of the state itself would require the destruction of every vestige of corruption in these branches of its service at least. If the danger of class war were real but not imminent a thoroughgoing policy directed to the establishment of social justice and the elimination of public abuses would be imperative. Among other things, better education, sanitation, poor relief, and public services, would have to be supplied, and to get these we would have to get rid of the corrupt machine as far as possible. Under either assumption, therefore, the state threatened with social disturbance would find safety not in corruption but in honesty and efficiency. However, in exposing the hollowness of the pretence that society needs to be saved by crooked means, we should not fall into the error of assuming that the corrupt politician alone is responsible for all our social ills. We who not only tolerate his works but who tolerate many other abuses with which he has no connection whatever, should remember our own responsibility for the improvement and continued stability of society. It is the custom to castigate the rich in this connection, but the indifference, snobbishness, and narrowness of large sections of our middle classes are also very gravely at fault.[8]

IV. The fourth apology offered for corruption is that it is part of an evolutionary process, the ends of which are presumed to be so beneficent as to more than atone for existing evils attributable to it. Complaint might justly be made that this is a highly general statement, but its formulation in the broad terms used above seems necessary in order to include the various details of the argument. A similar sweeping defence might be set up for any conceivable abuse or evil—for tyranny as well as for corruption, for immorality or for crime. In all such cases, however, it would be necessary to prove—although it seems quite impossible to do so—that the ultimate beneficent end would more than repay the evil involved; and further, that no better way existed of attaining the promised goal. It must be freely conceded that we know little or nothing of the remote ends of the evolutionary process as it exhibits itself in society. Repulsive as are many of its details, there seem to be sufficient grounds for believing in wonderful ultimate achievement. An apology for contemporary corruption based on such considerations may therefore be worthy of attention, provided, however, that it does not attempt to bind us to a purely _laissez faire_ attitude in the presence of admitted and immediate political evils.

From the latter point of view political corruption may be regarded as a symptom, bad in itself but valuable because it indicates the need, and in some degree the method, of cure. Like pain in the physical economy it is one of the danger signals of the social economy. Thus, as we have seen, the neglect of proper facilities for education, sanitation, poor relief and so on, particularly in our large cities, is both a resultant in part of corruption and a cause of further corruption. By providing better facilities along these lines we may, therefore, hope ultimately to improve the whole tone of our citizenship and the life of the state. A still more concrete illustration is supplied by Professor Goodnow’s masterly discussion of the boss in his “Politics and Administration.”[9] According to his view certain defects in our governmental organisation, notably the decentralisation and irresponsibility of much of our administrative machinery, the futile attempt to secure by popular vote the election of a large number of efficient administrative officials and the lack of a close relationship between legislation and administration, all combine to produce a situation which only a strong party organisation dominated by a boss can keep from degenerating into chaos. From this aspect it might be maintained that the evil political practices commonly associated with the boss are only incidental and in part excusable after all. Fundamentally he exists because of defects in the organisation of our government, and his activities go far to correct these defects. Even accepting this argument fully, however, some choice in bosses as Professor Goodnow points out,[10] would still be left open to the electorate. By the progressive overthrow of the worse and the selection of better aspirants for political power the boss may evolve into the leader, who will retain many of the great functions of his predecessor but will exercise them in a responsible manner and free from corruption. The practical significance of Professor Goodnow’s argument, however, lies far less in the explanation it gives of the temporary ascendency of the boss and the system which he presides over than in the conviction it enforces of the necessity of certain reforms in the organisation of our government that will bring its functions into harmony with each other, and ultimately, it is hoped, make corrupt and irresponsible bosses Impossible.[11] In no proper sense of the word, however, can this line of argument be considered an apology for corruption such as is usually alleged to be associated with bossism. It makes clear only that the power of the boss, under present conditions, has its uses as well as its abuses. But these uses do not justify the abuses. On the contrary the corruption associated with the great powers of the boss is a menace so great as to make necessary the most far-reaching reforms.