Campaigning

“ THE year which has elapsed since our last annual meeting has been, in various ways, one of extraordinary prosperity to the cause of civil service reform. The recent election campaign has served to exhibit in a singularly clear light some of the remarkable and beneficial changes which the merit system has wrought in our political life, and to expose in their whole futility many of the fallacies, deceptions and superstitions, which the reform movement has had, and, in some measure, still has to overcome. ”

“ As your nomination and election marked a most hopeful revival in political morals, so may your administration, born of the noblest impulses of the American people, become a lasting example of good government, to serve as an instruction and encouragement to coming generations and to write your name into the annals of the Republic with imperishable honor. ”

“ More intriguing, bargaining, and bribery in a hundred forms, more or less subtle, to secure election and appointment to positions within the gift of the legislature. Little or no heed is given to the primary question of capacity and public interests. Political considerations—that is, ability to help or to harm some one—control all elections and appointments. What is the next thing done? It is the preparation, introduction, discussion, and passage of the measures thought to be essential to the preservation of civilization. ”

“ But the privilege of election is the privilege of service. It is like the privilege of a Member of Parliament, the favoured candidate—the privilege of being elected to serve others. Every election is for the sake of somebody else. ”

“ And it is also well to remember that, when the campaign had drifted away from its original program and repelled a large number of men who at first intended to support you—and of this I could give you many striking instances!—a considerable number of Republican papers and speakers found it necessary, at the eleventh hour just before the election, to hold up once more before the people your letter of acceptance, which during the campaign they seemed to have forgotten, in order to revive the first impression. ”

“ I promised my voters to be their voice. In this branch of government in which I now serve, it is my separate but equal obligation to weigh in on this election and object.
Are we not a government of, by, and for the people? ”

“ We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps, all principle, as it is called—all party—all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. We shall support no party—be the organ of no faction or coterie, and care nothing for any election or any candidate from president down to a constable. ”

“ A campaign that is one simply of party management, a campaign by committees and public speakers, may fail; but a campaign to which the men and women of the country give their unselfish and earnest efforts can never fail. [Great applause.]
It is no personal interest in the candidate that stirs these emotions in your hearts; it is the belief that questions are involved affecting your prosperity and the prosperity of your neighbors; affecting the dignity of the nation; affecting the generation to which you will presently leave the government which our fathers built and you have saved. ”

“ Platforms are drawn up stating the things which each candidate favors. The candidates, together with other speakers, go out and make addresses; pamphlets are distributed broadcast giving reasons why people should vote for one candidate or the other; meetings and rallies are held in halls and on the street corners; the newspapers print the arguments on the respective sides; the people are worked up to a white heat of enthusiasm; and finally, on the day of election, the issue is decided. ”

“ The last election has shown us what resolute men can do on a trifling occasion, if they will. You know the efforts of the three parties—what meetings they held, what money they raised, what talent was employed, what speeches made, what ideas set forth: not a town was left unattempted; scarce a man who had wit to throw a vote, but his vote was solicited. You see the revolution which was wrought by that vigorous style of work. ”

“ When the highest dignity in the state is to be conferred by popular election once in every few years, the whole intervening time is spent in what is virtually a canvass. President, ministers, chiefs of parties, and their followers, are all electioneerers: the whole community is kept intent on the mere personalities of politics, and every public question is discussed and decided with less reference to its merits than to its expected bearing on the presidential election. ”

“ When the people have approved a policy at a national election, confidence on the part of the officers they have selected and of the advisers who, in accordance with our political institutions, should be consulted in the policy which it is their duty to carry into effect is indispensable. ”

“ In no instance, however, has this refutation been more striking than it was in the election just behind us. A campaign more earnest we have never had. The number of citizens with whose earnestness the possession of office or the hope of spoil had anything to do, was no doubt unprecedentedly small. ”

“ It rests with you to take your resolution—now, in the flush of victory, to find these men who have voted for us, and bring them to our meetings, and organize them and bind them to us! We shall not find all our campaigns as easy as this one. Everywhere in the country tonight the old party politicians are studying this vote, and setting their sails by it; and nowhere will they be quicker or more cunning than here in our own city. ”

“ For a long while before the appointed time is at hand, the election becomes the most important and the all-engrossing topic of discussion. The ardour of faction is redoubled; and all the artificial passions which the imagination can create in the bosom of a happy and peaceful land are and brought to light. ”

“ These tools of the Know-Nothing leaders would fill the room where the election was held, take possession of the line, crowd out their opponents by threats or violence, return again and again, force their way, after passing the spot where the votes were received, once more into the line, and repeat the farcical act of voting a second and third time, keeping up the villany until relieved by another squad of repeaters, who continued to enact the same scenes until the close of the polls. ”

“ While the foregoing propositions constitute the platform upon which our party stands, and for the vindication of which its organization will be maintained, we recognize that the great and pressing issue of the pending campaign, upon which the present Presidential election will turn, is the financial question, and upon this great and specific issue between the parties we cordially invite the aid and co-operation of all organizations and citizens agreeing with us upon this vital question. ”

“ Those who seek election must present themselves in the public square and stand facing the sun, twenty paces apart; they may not ask support of any one, but each may briefly state his policy so that every one may hear. ”

“ That speech was your keynote utterance for the campaign which would give your election its meaning. Upon it you stand, and it makes it impossible for me to support you, and to write the article you suggest. ”

“ And you, who hold the remedy in your own hands, what will you do? Will you at election times put a stern question to every candidate for the Commons, and demand a straight and unqualified answer to your questions. ”

“ If the elections are in a large country like England, for example, or one of the United States of America, where various cities, towns, boroughs, and corporations are to be represented, each scene of election will have two or more candidates, and two or more parties, each of which will study its sleights and projects, disguise its designs, draw in tools, and worm out enemies. ”

“ To obtain your election, even though you may have the support of an active and ardent party, you must also have a somewhat extended political notoriety, or, at any rate, some provincial backing of family or fortune. ”

“ Sometimes I fancy that, in a snap election taken at a moment of public excitement within myself, the ne'er-do-wells get on top. These accidents will happen, and the best I can hope is that the general trend of policy in the multitudinous kingdom that I carry under my hat is in the hands of the decent people. ”

“ As the campaign unfolds and the candidates take to the airwaves, I ask them to talk more about how they will build up the nation rather than tear down their opponents. Give the electorate real choices and not just sweet talk. ”

“ State and local campaigns cost a great deal less. The money is spent for the publication and mailing of campaign literature, for the traveling expenses of speakers, for hire of meeting-places, and for a great many other things which go to make up an election campaign. ”

“ The campaigns increase in intensity week after week and expire, or explode, in a blaze of glory the night before election, at which time the committees of the leading parties set forth the reasons that make each side certain of success. On election day a hush spreads over the land and the voters wend their way to the polling places, where each voter is permitted to register a sovereign's will. ”

“ The great game of the government was to sow, if not dissension, at least distrust, in the ranks of the national party,—to chill the ardor of patriotism, and, wherever possible, to excite different views, and different roads to success, amongst the popular leaders of the time. ”

“ We know that in other countries which have constitutional government, and political parties, and elections, but no distribution of offices as party spoil, and no bands of mercenary party workers living on politics, party contests are as energetic as they are here. ”

“ Then in no other hands can be more safely lodged this greatest trust in the gift of a great people. Was public office created for the welfare of the people and the prosperity of the country? Then under his leadership in the coming campaign may we confidently hope to achieve these great ends in human government. ”

“ This system, in practice, provides that political workers belonging to a victorious party may, as far as possible, receive reward for their services in the shape of some office. "To the victors belong the spoils of the enemy" is the familiar motto of those who have advocated this system. ”

“ If he can satisfy them that his plans are good, then undoubtedly, without agitation, without controversy in newspapers, without harangues from hustings, without clamorous meetings in great halls and in marketplaces, without petitions signed by tens of thousands, you may have a reform effected with one stroke of the pen. Not so here. Here the people, as electors, have power to decide questions of the highest importance. ”

“ A campaign can perfectly well be conceived in which an opponent, consciously inferior in the field, will avoid action throughout, and by such a plan can actually win the campaign in the end. Historical instances of this, though rare, exist. ”

“ When we turn to the political results of the competitive selection of candidates, it is necessary to keep in mind the causa eundi of the spoils system — the fact that it came into being to supply a means of supporting political organization, that its essence lies in making the offices the campaign fund of the different parties. ”

“ Then, everything—inclusive of serious consequences, extending far beyond the mere result of the election—depends upon the skill, temper, and experience of the real and responsible directors of the election. ”

“ There is the other curious conceit that the spoils of office are necessary to hold political parties together, to create an interest in public affairs among the people and to give life and spirit to our political contests. ”

“ Let political preferment and partisan proclivities bide their time, and as a united and one-minded people, devote heart and mind, strength and money, to the prosecution of the campaign, without considering what may be its duration, and without fear of circumstance or expenditure. ”

“ I expect to see similar things spring up in other States, and when the preliminary movements of the next Presidential election come on, such organizations may be strong enough to represent a formidable balance of power. ”

“ The Opposition parties complain bitterly of the scarcity of persons who, when it comes to the test, have the requisite courage to boldly face the Government as opponents, either as candidates for Parliament or as speakers at election meetings. ”

“ It could do so only by being used before the election. Being satisfied that I could observe your conditions, and that J. M.’s speech was simply the expression of an individual opinion, I felt at liberty to pledge your funds for various purposes in connection with the election. ”

“ One electioneering campaign in a quiet town would give a salutary lesson to any politician who resolutely set himself to penetrate into the secret life of the society whose suffrages he sought; he would learn why it is that the agents of all the factions treat the drink-seller with deference. ”

“ In a system in which all offices are elective, and in which elections are frequent, politics becomes a profession for those who subordinate their private interests to it, and who find it of personal advantage ”

“ It is only immediately after an election that one hears criticisms of party management from within a party. A campaign is a great time-eater, and when a man has given six months or possibly a year of hard work to making an aggressive fighting machine of his party he is naturally grieved when it goes down in defeat. ”

“ The week preceding a hearing is your busy week. You must plan your campaign, down to the smallest details. Pick the men whom you wish to have speak (for ten minutes each) on the various parts of your bill, and divide the topics and the time between them. Call upon the friends of the bill in various portions of the state to attend and "say something." Go up with a strong body of fine men. Have as many organizations represented as you possibly can! The "organizations" represent the great mass of people, and the voters also. ”