Political boss

“ Let us now glance at the great man himself, the real Boss, the magnate, the prince of American Democracy, the man who of all men most thoroughly believes in manhood suffrage, understands it and profits by it; one of the real political rulers of the American people; he who makes and unmakes governors, senators and high judges; he for whom sheriffs, aldermen, assemblymen, state senators, and sometimes even our mayors of cities are glad to run errands and to wait in anterooms. ”

“ Some of your opportunists, amateur and professional politicians, with the lust for wealth and easy money, seek and secure high offices, and permanent soft jobs in your Government. Few hirelings of crooked political bosses and machines reach high places in Government, or attain them through political campaign work, contributions, fixed elections, and dishonest political maneuvers. ”

“ The political leader became known as the Boss; a group of Bosses as a Ring; a combination of Rings as the Machine whose power{131} is sometimes irresistible. Especially after the Civil War (1865) the power of the bosses increased, and they habitually after that time distributed nominations, collected assessments, and gave orders to state legislatures. The system thus perfected has continued to the present day and is everywhere working smoothly. The American people have now practically ceased resistance to the bosses. ”

“ The Boss dictates candidates and sketches plans of political action, and if the man desiring an office does not suit the Boss, he may as well take a back seat without waiting to be sat upon and rolled over afterward. ”

“ By the time he has passed through one campaign as a trusted member of a machine, his political illusions are well-nigh destroyed. His childish belief that only the fit should be elevated to positions of responsibility, that public office is a public trust, is pretty well dissipated. “Good” men, he finds, are good only by the tests of partisanship as applied by the bosses. To strike at a boss is lésé majesté, and invites drastic punishment. ”

“ In that way a vast army of public servants, amounting to more than one hundred thousand in number, who were appointed and removed at the pleasure of the Executive, became first the instrument of keeping the dominant party in power, and afterward became not so much the instruments and servants of party as the political followers of ambitious men to whom they owed their office, and on whose pleasure they depended for maintaining them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I need not tell you of the business the subordinate officers of the Government are now so arduously engaged in. Woe to the unfortunate place-holder who dares to call his soul his own and to utter a doubt as to the perfections of his master! He will soon learn that men can be reformed out of office as quickly as into it.
Civil service reform! Never have worthless favorites or political agents been kept in profitable and responsible places in bolder defiance of principle and public opinion. ”

“ The danger not only has a salutary aspect, but it seems a small price to pay for the chance, thereby afforded, for really efficient and responsible government. The chief executive, when supported by public opinion, would become a veritable "Boss" ”

“ The real truth is, as I believe upon a wide variety of evidence, that the President did not find himself able to hold up to his professions when he has been set upon by the whole body of Democratic Senators and Members of Congress and the rest of the Democratic party in the country—nine-tenths of whom believe, as you doubtless know, that offices are the stakes for which political parties play and are the spoils of victory. ”

“ Some time ago, a Republican Senator, whom his colleagues had honored with the presidency pro tempore of the Senate, gave expression to these significant sentiments:
The purification of politics is an iridescent dream. Government is force. Politics is a battle for supremacy. Parties are the armies. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no place in a political campaign. ”

“ We had to go on from there—from the men in general—to the next step; to those to whom the men had handed over the care of their politics.”
“The officeholders, she means,” explained the other.
“And the professional politicians,” continued the older in a matter-of-fact voice. “That set of second-class men—largely discards from other professions—to whom the political control of the United States is handed over by the men; and whom, naturally, we had to look up-especially as they were now opposing us in our desire for the vote, for proper legislation, for everything!” ”

“ But what man is fit to hold office? Only he who regards political office as a public trust, and not as a private perquisite to be used for the pecuniary advantage of himself or his family, or even his party. ”

“ You can certainly not desire to be lifted into the Presidency by a proceeding of doubtful character, so doubtful, indeed, as to trouble the minds of a large number of patriotic men in your own party. An Administration whose title can be questioned by fair argument would be so completely at the mercy of the opposition and so crippled in its power for good that to carry it on would be misery to a man of fine sensibilities and a noble ambition. ”

“ If that branch of our service which is purely administrative and essentially non-political is to be taken out of partisan politics, then some President brought in by a change of party in power must make a beginning. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The vast number of the National offices has ceased to be a menace to the safety of the Republic and has ceased to be a source of strength to the Administration in power, or to become the price or reward of political activity. ”

“ It is already to-day the capital fact of our whole political system. A Prime Minister is made or deposed by the owner of a group of newspapers, not by popular vote or by any other form of open authority. ”

“ I shall not, whilst I have the honor to administer the government, bring a man into any office of consequence, knowingly, whose political tenets are adverse to the measures which the general government are pursuing ”

“ But those who are within the democratic pale will know that any administration in such a country, where official tenure and continued incumbency of the party rest on a popular vote,—any such administration is a political organisation and is guided by political expediency, in the tawdry sense of the phrase. ”

“ AMONG the new political leaders whom a reviving democracy is raising up to beat the bosses (and perhaps the real rulers) of the Republic, is Everett Colby, the state senator from Essex County, New Jersey. Born in 1874, he was only thirty-two years old when he “busted” his boss; he shows what a young man can do. The son of Charles L. Colby, builder of the Wisconsin Central Railroad, he inherited wealth and the associations of big business; he shows what a rich young man may do if he rises above his class. And the gentleman from Essex was brought up in a class. ”

“ Here is the leader of a great party engaged in a most important contest. The character of the government, the welfare of the greatest city of the republic, one of the greatest cities of the world, is at stake. But this is nothing to him. All he things of is not the interest of three and a half millions of people, not the prosperity and good name of one of the world's most important emporiums of commerce and industry—what he thinks of is simply the spoils of office—patronage. ”

“ Our politicians tell us that they rely upon the voice of the people, yet often they employ the political machine which they control, for the express purpose of evading it. A few years ago a Liberal statesman was appointed to Cabinet-rank, and had in consequence to go to his constituency for re-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. ”

“ Here is the sorely aggrieved patriot who has been accustomed to be taken care of by influential politicians, who finds himself debarred from the public crib by the merit system, and who insists that a boss, or a party committee, or a member of Congress is a better judge of a man's fitness for office than an examining board. ”

“ Our rulers are but our agents, chosen in obedience to the convictions which govern the policy of the selection, and mere political success is no enduring constituent of greatness. The public servant, and the private citizen, will alike be honored or condemned, as they are faithful or unfaithful to their responsible duties. ”

“ Your controlling class who largely contribute to political campaigns influence your ruling class through political parties who openly or secretly help to elect some of their representatives to your Congress, or appoint former directors, and attorneys as members of important key cabinet and diplomatic offices. ”

“ The heads of such offices commanded in their subordinate and satellites large and well drilled forces of party workers most of whom owed their official positions and salaries only to their influence or efficiency as political menials. ”

“ The discussions of these questions in Congress, were earnest, and often intemperate and violent, and the opinions and conduct of the President were often criticised by his own political friends, with a degree of passion rarely paralleled by the attacks of even political opponents upon the Executive. ”

“ You fear that another party coming into power will, in its eagerness to get possession of the offices, turn out the good men together with the bad, and you ask whether there is a man who as President would be strong enough to withstand the pressure of his partisans. ”

“ Then, too, the political world is well to the front. There are honest and unscrupulous Ministers of State, upright and venal deputies, enthusiastic and cautious candidates for power, together with social theoreticians of various schools. ”

“ It is thought by many—not by me—that in spite of your own intentions, you have fallen under obligations which will force your Administration to a great extent into the old obnoxious ruts. You will, therefore, at first be met by a good deal of apprehension which, unless promptly removed, may have an unwholesome effect upon your personal surroundings. Certain classes of politicians will, of course, at once press eagerly around you: the party leaders, great and small, who want to take possession of your influence and make it subservient to their ends; the multitude who want offices. ”

“ Such survival of the ablest in debate seems the only process available for selecting leaders under a popular government. The mere fact that such a contest proceeds with such a result is the strongest possible incentive to men of first-rate powers to enter legislative service; and popular governments, more than any other governments, need leaders so placed that, by direct contact with both the legislative and the executive departments of the government, they shall see the problems of government at first hand ”

“ Being, then, the elected representative of a definite political party, his acts are expected by those who have elected him to be used towards continuing their party in power, and thus the person from time to time holding the position of President becomes a distinct vehicle for the exercise of party political warfare instead of being an impartial administrator. ”

“ Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and labor due to the Government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials. ”

“ How does permanent political headship arise? Such political headship as results from bodily power, or courage, or sagacity, even when strengthened by supposed supernatural aid, ends with the life of any savage who gains it. The principle of efficiency, physical or mental, while it tends to produce a temporary differentiation into ruler and ruled, does not suffice to produce a permanent differentiation. ”

“ Just as the control of the ballot paper constituted the party leaders the dictators of the party, so the power to appoint, remove, promote, and reward the party workers, who in turn have charge of the enrollment, the registration, the marshaling of the member- ship at the polls, has constituted the boss the private proprietor of the institution. ”

“ They are at once the servants and scapegoats of their parties. It is these well-established privileges and responsibilities of theirs which make their utterances considered worth hearing,—nay, necessary to be heard and pondered. Their public speeches are their parties’ platforms. What the leader promises his party stands ready to do, should it be intrusted with office. ”

“ They were the classes in which embryotic statesmen acquired the political alphabet, the ABC of political procedure, the manner of putting a motion, taking a vote, making a nomination, and the correct order of precedence governing the motions and amendments. There too, was acquired the first great requisite of a politician,—the art of saying non-committal things in a most convincing tone of voice, and of treating with much politeness those whom one held in secret abhorrence.
There were two offices, those of school trustee and pathmaster, and these two were equal in power and glory. ”