Party discipline

“ The plea of bringing the government back to the people was catching and plausible, and it found eager response in the deeply rooted dislike of party machinery, party discipline and party constancy on the part of those who habitually neglect all attention to politics and the political duties of citizenship except during periods of popular excitement and upheaval. ”

“ Not only is the usefulness of party as a political instrument closely connected with the peculiar circumstances of English history; it is closely connected also with the peculiar circumstances of an age of unscientific politics, of combinations formed upon class interests, of little independence of mind, feeble reasonings, and strong passions. With the advance of political knowledge, of independent thought, and it must be added of public morality, allegiance to party grows less possible, party discipline loses its hold, the cohesion of party is broken up and refuses to be restored. ”

“ Party discipline there must be, but it can be kept well within bounds. Nothing is more wholesome than for party leaders to know that if they push things too far and too often ask their followers to condone doubtful acts, their followers will leave them. ”

“ They do not spring from the wiles and intrigues of “political Catilines,” as an indignant party organ expressed itself. They are not the cause but the result, the natural outgrowth of the situation. They are elementary upheavings; and if you try to repress them by a violent enforcement of party discipline you will only provoke more violent and formidable explosions. And now, while the prospect of a new line of division may to-day appear rather dim, yet I repeat something of the kind will come with the necessity of a natural process. ”

“ And party drill and discipline is the only strength of the Democracy. Your leaders boast of it, and secretly laugh at your ever ready obedience. How tauntingly they assert that the Republican party is no party at all, because there exists a certain freedom of opinion in it, and the leaders can not rule the rank and file just as they please. ”

“ Influences like these are more likely to grow than to decrease; and when once the machinery of political parties falls into their hands, with the resources of patronage and all the appliances of professional management, what will the consequences be unless the spirit of individual independence breaks through the routine of party drill and discipline? ”

“ The need of party leadership and discipline. Let us remember, however, that a political party, like an army, requires discipline and leadership for its success. If every soldier insisted on following his own inclinations rather than the advice or orders of his officers, he would never be on the winning side in any battles. So, if every voter declines to be led by anyone’s counsel but his own, there will be no unity of party effort and no real triumph of one set of principles over another. ”

“ I am confident that the day of the general revival of the true national pride would already have come had not the excessive party spirit stood in the way, which so frequently induces men to permit their reason and their conscience to be overruled by the command of party discipline. ”

“ The unreasoning obedience of their cohorts is the bulwark of their strength, failing which the dictatorship of the bosses would soon lose its footing. It is equally intelligible that the sworn henchmen of the bosses, who feed at their crib, should insist upon strict party allegiance as the primary virtue of the citizen, for their political, and usually also their material, existence depends upon the favor of the bosses, which, in its turn, depends upon the success with which they keep their subordinate commands in strict discipline. ”

“ Organization and discipline were insisted upon throughout the party as the first political duty. There is scarcely a phenomenon more interesting to the social philosopher than to observe, under a political system remarkable for its looseness and lack of organization, the social bond returning and vindicating itself in the form of party tyranny, and to observe under a political system where loyalty and allegiance to the Commonwealth are only names, how loyalty and allegiance to party are intensified. ”

“ The discipline and organization of party, are expedients to defeat the intention of the institutions, by putting managers in the place of the people; it being of little avail that a majority elect, when the nomination rests in the hands of a few.
Party is the cause of so many corrupt and incompetent men's being preferred to power, as the elector, who, in his own person, is disposed to resist a bad nomination, yields to the influence and a dread of factions. ”

“ No party will resist them easily. But when such influences take an organization in which habit, drill and discipline are so potent as in the Democracy, in hand, they are for these very reasons apt to be come irresistible. ”

“ To proceed systematically, what you need the most is a party with workers of the type discussed above with clear-cut ideas and keen perception and ability of initiative and quick decisions. The party shall have iron discipline and it need not necessarily be an underground party, rather the contrary. ”

“ Even in its best estate, when there are organic issues, issues which create genuine enthusiasm and raise the combatants above the meanness of faction, is party a good government? Is not the possession of power and place always present as a motive warping the conduct of the leaders on national questions? Does not sheer passion always rage among the rank and file? Is not corruption an almost indispensable instrument of party organization? ”

“ It means, in the second place, as to the responsibility of the party to the public, that when such partisan officers, in doing all they can for the benefit of their party organization, offend the moral sense of the public and get into difficulty, the party organization will do all it can to cover up their misdoings and to help them out. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You can lift party politics up to a higher plane by striking the decisive blow at the spoils system. You can extend and perpetuate the reform of the civil service. You can thus bring about a state of things in which public questions can once more be discussed on their own merits. ”

“ But while we are ready to accept any and every good result of party action, we affirm that the moral reform of our public concerns is infinitely superior in importance to the interests of any political party. ”

“ Those forces consist of the small politicians who covet the offices for their personal advantage, the political leaders who seek to control the offices as party spoil in order to hold together and increase their following, and the unsteady statesmen in power who, while professing, often not without sincerity, to be “also” in favor of civil service reform, have indeed courage enough to assert their professed principles against their party enemies, but not firmness enough to maintain them against their party friends. ”

“ To have admitted that men differed on the principle of responsible government, was to have admitted that party strife had some justification; and all the other details—affections and antipathies, national, sectarian, and personal—were the circumstances natural to party life as that life has everywhere come into existence. ”

“ Both sides of every leading public question of the day are presented in the rival party policies, and the people are invited to decide between them. The forces on which the parties rely to move the people are enthusiasm for measures and enthusiasm for men—party and personality, or, in other words, organization and leadership. It is in opposing these forces to counteract the selfish and anti-social passions that party government acquires its virtue. ”

“ We too must pause in every keen emergency to cajole, to persuade, to placate, to reconcile conflicting interests, to humour conflicting opinions,—termed by those who hold them, "principles." We too must forever bear in mind the political party which is in power, and the political party which waits to get into power ”

“ Eternal vigilance is the price of good government.
Modern Political Reforms.—Political reform has been proceeding recently in many particular ways. Perhaps the most noticeable in America is that of civil service reform. Strong partisanship has been a ruling factor in American politics, often to the detriment of the financial and political interests of the country. Jealous of their prerogative, the people have insisted that changes in government shall occur often, and that the ruling party shall have the privilege of appointing the officers of the government. ”

“ The intensity, the anxiety depicted, while results far-reaching and momentous are pending, furnish a scene vivid and striking that cannot be pictured. Here is being formed the policy of a party which is to be subjected to the winnowing fan of acute and honest criticism, and by denunciation by opposite parties, striving to obtain the administration of the Government, the fiat of which and the selection of the standard-bearer constitute the claim for the suffrage of the people. They are the preparatory cornerstones of self-government, fashioned and waiting for the verdict of the nation. ”

“ If the Party System continues to develop along its present lines, it may ultimately prove as fatal to the principle of democracy as the ivy which covers and strangles the elm-trees in our hedgerows.
Leadership is our greatest present need, and it is there that the Party System has played us false. ”

“ We maintain party government not to promote intolerant partisanship but because opportunity must be given for expression of the popular will, and organization provided for the execution of its mandates and for accountability of government to the people. ”

“ The question whether the spoils system, or whether the distribution of offices among its members, will make a political party strong or, which is practically the same thing, save it from defeat, has been answered by recent events in so drastic a fashion as to shake the faith even of the most inveterate spoilsman. ”

“ We shall support no candidate, however conspicuous his position or brilliant his ability, in whom the impulses of the party manager have shown themselves predominant over those of the reformer; for he will be inclined to continue that fundamental abuse, the employment of the Government service as a machinery for personal or party ends. ”

“ A host of salaried political workers—agents, organisers, secretaries, etc.—will make popular representative government a mere matter of political rivalry, an affair of "ins and outs," and by this development of the party system will exclude from active politics all who are not loyal to the "machine," and are not strong enough to break it. ”

“ How can a representative assembly work for good if its members can be bought, or if their excitability of temperament, uncorrected by public discipline or private self-control, makes them incapable of calm deliberation, and they resort to manual violence on the floor of the House, or shoot at one another with rifles? How, again, can government, or any joint concern, be carried on in a tolerable manner by people so envious that, if one among them seems likely to succeed in any thing, those who ought to cooperate with him form a tacit combination to make him fail? ”

“ Thus we are asked to return to the spoils system in the interest of the public virtue, and strange to say, I have known cases in which this appeal has had some effect upon otherwise sensible persons. Their reasoning is this. We must have political parties. A party must have an organization. An organization must have workers to get out the vote. The workers must have reward. ”

“ The second is to strike out boldly and consistently in the line of reform, aiming straight at a non-partisan service. A portion of the party, not however a large one, might revolt, but you would find a powerful public sentiment on your side with recruits far more than enough to fill the gap. ”

“ But in every case let him be man enough to follow the dictates of his conscience. I repeat, it is through political parties, in a certain sense, that this government must be carried on; but when political party organizations know that there is a large force of citizens who will follow conscientious convictions, and not blindly obey the command of party drill-masters, these parties will learn to respect. and follow conscience themselves. ”

“ But the higher the standard of official conduct and of party principle and character is raised, the more difficult it is to show them that for the sake of the party they ought to do something which in their judgment is entirely unworthy of the party. ”

“ The lessons of the past should be unlearned, and such officials, as well as their successors, should be taught that efficiency, fitness, and devotion to public duty are the conditions of their continuance in public place, and that the quiet and unobtrusive exercise of individual political rights is the reasonable measure of their party service. ”

“ If the voters of the party were in truth the source of authority within the party, then a means had to be devised of ascertaining their will. The democratic principle, in short, had to be applied to party. ”

“ The same abilities of leadership, instead, are made subservient to the party as a whole rather than to the demands of a faction in the party or to the love of power on the part of their fortunate possessors. ”