Franklin MacVeagh

“ There is but one step from all this sense of irresponsibility and self-separation from city government—and I believe this is the very road which is taken—to that deep pit of fallen citizenship into which men plunge who bribe their way through city government to what they want. These men commit the unpardonable sin of city life. I know of nothing in all the range of municipal reform more important than the tearing up by the roots of the infamous practices of bribery. ”

“ It will merely make bad government more difficult for bad citizens. We have, for example, in Chicago, all of these good things except a reformed council, including civil service reform and home rule; but our enemies permit themselves to say that better government than we have is still a possibility of the future.
Now, if the obstacle of obstacles to good city government is the non-participation of the good citizen in city politics and city affairs—and if this is not a mere vague fling at one's neighbors but a scientific fact—let us inquire why this obstacle exists. ”

“ There is no conversion needed, for no sane man defends American city government. What is needed is to educate and stimulate the sensitiveness of the citizens; and to stir their blood. Agitation and publicity are the chosen methods of this education.
The most essential preliminary is to understand the problem—to understand the limits and the particulars of what is needed to be done. After that we have nothing to fear; we have only to "learn to labor and to wait;" for whatever is needed will surely be accomplished by the growing spirit of reform, no matter how long the effort must be prolonged. ”

“ They are right and good—but they after all touch but the lifeless form of city government that can only be made alive, can only be touched by the Promethean fire, by the energy of men without axes to grind. ”

“ Therefore we must first stir the people to see all these things with an abiding consciousness that burns into the brain, and hate them with an abiding hatred that perpetually stirs resentment. Education is the only remedy. This education has begun. It has begun prosperously and hopefully. New citizens are constantly enlisting in the fight which is growing warm against the audacious travesty of free government in our cities. ”

“ The word I especially wish to speak, as to charter reforms, is that the reform of the city council is more imperative by far than anything else, taking all the cities of the country together—and that the existing evils of city legislation are by far the most crying evils of city government. ”

“ Public spirit, the only source, the only spring, of life for good city government in America, cannot gain a foothold in city government except through the energy of the well-intentioned men in the community. I speak of permanent phases. Certainly a mayor, however elected, may be a public-spirited official—and for the time being we may have one man striving against tremendous odds. But right city government can be permanently brought about only through the reform of the bad habits of the good people. ”

“ That would be hopeless—for large numbers of "good citizens" are at present incapable of good citizenship. But all are not needed; for so potent is righteousness and right thinking in city affairs that one righteous citizen is stronger than a hundred workers of evil. It does not take all to gain control. And control is not as far off as it was a few years ago. When New York can have fairly good government for even one year no city need to despair. A new era is at hand. The "good citizen" is to give place to a better citizen.
Much may be done by charter changes and the like to prepare the way ”

“ But most of us both refuse to live in any other country and refuse to really live in this; for a man who in a self-governed country does not help to govern does not live, but merely hangs on. The saving clause is that at the bottom of our minds most of us do admit the responsibility of citizenship even when on the surface we deny it; and certainly those of us who rise to political consciousness in occasional spurts show that we might live useful civic lives if somebody would wake us really up. ”

“ City government fell off more than any other, however; but that was because there were more reasons against it—including the reason that there is less personal distinction to be gained in city politics than in national or in state politics, so that city politics were more easily abandoned and neglected. Many writers and speakers treat bad city government not only as a wholly isolated, abnormal development but as the most hopeless of all our political or social conditions. ”

“ Secondly, there is the customary sentiment toward the city government that it is something apart from ourselves—something we have a right to swear at as outsiders, feeling that its horribly neglected duties are enough to provoke that saint, "the good citizen." It is supposed to be for us, to be sure, but not of us nor by us. It does not occur to us to blame ourselves or to think we do it. ”

“ I suggest the remaining alternative of making punishment apply only to the briber, for though the bribed would not always peach, he is of the sort that certainly sometimes would; and the briber, knowing the grade of man he was dealing with, would always regard him as a man who might; and would be apprehensive that when exposure did not follow, blackmail would; all of which would add new risks that very few monied men would dare to take. Moreover, in city government bribery there are usually so many of the bribed that the risks of exposure or blackmail would be immensely multiplied. ”

“ It would seem that parties counted good enough to decide and direct all the federal affairs of the nation, all the state affairs of the states, and all of our delicate international affairs might, if properly looked after by the people, be made good enough to handle what is left of our political affairs, to-wit : the government of our cities,—especially with the extraordinary aid of that corrective agency, the citizens' ticket, which is wholly lacking in international, national or state politics. ”

“ The third phenomenon is the almost wild scramble for wealth-producing occupations, which set in before the war was quite over, and quickly grew into a great national movement as the new and varied business opportunities opened wide. It was like the fever created by the discovery of gold in California, but on a national scale; so that men turned from an interest in public affairs to new and more intense interest in private affairs. ”

“ The most underlying of all the causes of the people's neglect of city politics is this want of sensitiveness to the evils of bad city government; for you cannot get people to exert themselves to cure evils they do not mind. ”

“ It is a mistake, however, to consider bad city government the only bad government which grew up after the war. As could not fail to be the case, when public interest became centered in private fortunes, all government deteriorated and the average man in all spheres of public life gradually lowered, and the standards of public life of course went down. ”

“ It seems to me that we must deny our political instincts and habits, and the American commitment to government by parties, before we can assume that the politics of our great cities will get on without permanent parties. ”

“ But even if we could construct such parties, where is the proof that they would be any better than the national ones? Sudden popular movements which result in citizens' tickets may be wise and public-spirited; but regularly established city parties, if conceivable at all, would, in face of the facts of organization and unavoidable machines, have no more chance of wisdom and public spirit than any other party machines. ”

“ Thus we neither govern nor give up self-government; and as a consequence we get a government never contemplated in any system conceived by mortal man, whether monarchic, absolute or limited, aristocratic, oligarchic, democratic or republican. ”

“ Just as the mayoralty is filled by one man, not only for the sake of greater executive efficiency but also to concentrate and make definite the responsibility of mayoralty action, so each department, for both these reasons, should be presided over by one man. Executive boards should not exist in city government. They would paralyze a charter made by the National Municipal Reform League itself. ”

“ This third state of mind is the feeling of the "good citizen" that he can treat citizenship from a pecuniary point of view and thus can afford to endure bad government better than he can afford to give time to get good government. ”

“ It is so strongly my feeling that the trouble lies in the disused or weakly used citizenship of the honest part of the people that I principally care to urge that thought. All that has been so far done is due to the awakening of popular interest, to the stirring up of the latent good citizenship of the communities. ”

“ At present in most cities the council is the branch chiefly to the reconstructed. It is the seat of the worst corruption, and the occasion of the worst evils of the situation. It is also the branch which has had the least actual reform, and the least attention from reformers. ”

“ But even for these faults of the newspapers the people must blame themselves, because newspapers are what people expect them to be, nothing in the world being more dependent upon public taste and public approval than the press. ”

“ It is more true to say, however, that, while it is only one feature of a general political deterioration, it is, in fact, perhaps the least hopeless of our political problems; for the reason that its direful state has come to be almost fully and quite generally realized, and is giving rise to the most earnest, eager, and patriotic political movements of the time. ”

“ We can have business methods in city government with a good charter or without a good charter whenever the citizens who believe in these methods care to take the trouble. It is far easier to accomplish good government with than without a good charter, and with than without the Merit System, and with than without Home Rule ”

“ And if the people really intend to run parties in their cities, after having so long neglected to do so, I do not see why they cannot run the existing parties as well as new ones; and save themselves the impossible task of building up other parties that cannot be built up. ”

“ The third abnormal state of mind which, according to my analysis, leads to the present attitude of the good citizen is chiefly due to the money-getting spirit of the age. This extreme money-getting craze is sure to be modified in time. In its present abnormal degree the money-getting spirit is new, and there is no reason to fear that it can last. ”

“ The effective remedy, as it seems to me, is rapidly growing up—not independent parties in municipal affairs, but independent voting in municipal affairs. A phenomenal increase in this is one of the striking features and factors of the times; and has the advantage, over the establishment of the parties, of being in the actual drift and current of the popular movement. ”

“ So that, it seems to me, we can neither expect to get on without established parties, nor, having established parties, can we expect to escape machine methods whatever the parties divide on; and it also seems to me that, whether we like it or not, we must get on in city politics with the national parties—except that as a last resort there is the citizens' ticket as a corrective of a permanent party system. ”

“ First, there is the feeling that one is under no obligation to take part in city politics and government. Nothing is more abnormal than this, and yet nothing is more common. One would think if a man wished to live without the duties of citizenship he would find a country where government is not done by the people ”

“ We have tried without avail laws making both briber and bribed equally punishable, because, as both are liable to punishment, both have the highest motive for secrecy—and evidence can hardly ever be obtained. ”

“ This is not peculiar to the very rich, but to all well-intentioned citizens, whatever the amount or sources of their income. The feeling is that one may choose between taxes or personal convenience and political effort; that citizenship can be taken for nothing, or, like some foreign titles, can be paid for in cash, and things squared once for all ”