Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

remote future, trusts should become international in scope, even a freetrade policy would no longer be adequate for the protection of the public. Thirdly, it is conceivable that we might introduce an elaborate system of price regulation. We might accept monopoly as inevitable, but prescribe, in a minute and detailed way, at what rates goods should be sold. On the supposition that this difficult policy were carried out in a spirit of complete honesty, -on the supposition that the officials of the law remained incorruptible, though placed in positions that offered the maximum inducement for corruption, - there would still remain for determination the question as to what principle they should follow in regulating prices. Customary prices have afforded a standard, where the purpose of the law has been to prevent an individual producer from being extortionate; and a price may be adjudged reasonable, if it is the one that prevails among competitors; but such a standard as this is, of course, not available in the case of monopoly. The only available guide for the legal regulation of prices would be the cost of goods; and it would be incumbent on the officers of the law to ascertain the cost in every instance and to guarantee to the producer a fair profit in addition to it. The first objection to such elaborate price regulation is the obvious technical impossibility of it, but from an economic point of view the fatal objection to it is that it would paralyze improvements. Why should a trust ever discard old machinery and spend its accumulations in getting better appliances, if it would still be allowed to make only the profit it is now making? Arguments on this point are, however, rendered unnecessary, not merely by the impossibility of carrying out such a policy, but by the impossibility of securing from the public any serious consideration of it.

Fourthly, we may put all monopolized industries into the hands of the state and thus, within a very extensive field, carry out the program of the socialists. To a casual observer, this looks easier than the other policy; and it will certainly find more and more advocates, as the powers of trusts increase. There is, moreover, no doubt that this measure would abolish certain evils that are inherent in private monopoly. Even if it did not succeed in giving the public cheap goods, it might save the people from the necessity of buying goods that were made dear by private producers' grasping policy. But this measure must stand or fall with the general cause of socialism; and, while so extensive a subject as that is not here to be discussed, it is safe to say that the judgment of the people is against it. It is perhaps safe to add

that, if it were once tried, the result that would prevent a repetition of the trial would be the slow but sure reduction of the productive power of the individual worker. With every inclination to make wages rise, the state would be baffled in its efforts by increasing population and by the check on improvements of method and on the accumulation of capital. The sources of gain for labor would dwindle till the "iron law" would begin to assert itself, and a state that would gladly make workers rich would then be unable to keep them out of misery.

Is there no further recourse? There is one; and it has the advantage of being in harmony with the spirit of our people, with the principles of common law and also with the economic tendencies that have made our present state a tolerable one. It is to give to potential competition greater effectiveness — that is, to give a fair field and no favor to the man who is disposed to become an independent producer, leaving him wholly at the mercy of fair competition but shielding him from that which is unfair. Let the trust crush him, if he cannot produce goods as cheaply as it can; but let him bring the trust to terms, if he can produce them more cheaply. This puts the trust in a position where its security will depend, not on its power to destroy competitors unfairly, but on its power to meet them fairly.

John Bates Clark, Trusts, in Political Science Quarterly, June, 1900 (Boston, etc.), XV, 187-190.

202. The Machine and the Boss (1900)

BY BIRD SIM COLER

Coler was elected comptroller of New York City on the Tammany ticket at the first municipal election under the Greater New York charter. The office is one of great importance and responsibility, and has been administered by Coler wisely and independently of political control. Bibliography: R. C. Brooks, Bibliography of Municipal Administration and City Conditions (Municipal Affairs, 1897, I, No. 1); Bowker and Iles, Reader's Guide in Economic, Social, and Political Science, 99-101, 115-116.

TH

HE political machine is sometimes made odious to good citizens, but it is never wholly bad in itself. It is a fixture in American politics, and while it may be broken and rebuilt, cleaned and reformed, it can not be eliminated. The men who rail loudest against it, as a rule, are ever ready to use it or its broken parts as stepping-stones to place and power, even to a boss-ship. Its reputation for evil is in every case

due to party leaders who have used it for personal purposes and made of it an instrument to defeat the wishes of the people who created it. Contrary to popular belief, a party leader can not make a political machine. The party makes the machine, the machine makes the leader, and then the latter makes himself a boss. A leader of a party is never a boss, because leadership implies followers, and a boss does not lead: he drives, and the machine is his vehicle, the individual members of it his driven cattle. The corrupt political machine of to-day, controlled by a boss, is contrary to the American system of government, and were it not a terrible reality its creation would be deemed an impossibility. It is, in its present state of perfection, rule of the people by the individual for the boss, his relatives, and friends. It is the most complete political despotism ever known, and yet the political machine on which the boss rises as dictator and despot is based on the fundamental principle of democracy

that system of government wherein all men are supposed to be equal and every voter a sovereign. It is the multiplicity of voting sovereigns that makes the machine a necessity for concerted political action; and when sovereignty has been centralized by organization, the great majority of our constitutional rulers go about their private affairs, careless of their rights and powers until their personal or property interests are affected by the ukase of a party boss. For a century the division of the voters into political parties has been a part of our system of being governed by the man who runs the machine of the party in office. This division has been carried up or down, according to the point of view, from national politics to the election of township constables. When the sovereigns are divided on party lines the work of partisan organization is made easy, and the majority need not think or act for themselves; they can leave all such details to the committees. The building of the political machine begins whenever a question of policy seems to demand united party action. The frame is laid in the party caucus or mass meeting, where every voter may be heard. There the necessity for organization is made apparent, and a committee is created. That is the work of the voters of a party in a particular locality, and the first committee is the creation of a majority. So far the plan of procedure is perfect. It is essentially democratic majority rule. But the committee is too large, and a subcommittee is detailed to carry on the work of the organization. From a subcommittee the task passes to individuals — one, two, or three - and behold, in a day a political machine stands complete, awaiting the guiding hand of a boss!

The committee of the township, county, town, or city mass meetings develops into a small machine, which for a time does its work so well that the people are pleased. When the time comes for holding another mass meeting the voters do not turn out. They are busy with their own affairs, and their confidence in the committee is unshaken. Then the machine grows stronger, and the leader of the first meeting is the boss of the second, dictating nominations and dividing patronage. The smaller committees are represented in the State or city organization, and along the same lines a larger machine is built. It is merely the local and political interests and ambitions merged into one harmonious whole the machine finished and ready for business.

The party organization created in this way is not wrong in itself, and has no power to move contrary to the wishes of its creators. It is the mechanism of a party ready for work; but there must be a guiding hand, a directing force provided by the voters as a whole or by a boss. It is only when the rank and file of the party cease to take an active interest in the machine they have created that it ceases to obey their wishes and becomes the tool of the despot. To maintain the organization necessary to keep a political party alive and get out a full vote a large amount of routine work must be done by some one. Men of business have no taste for this labor, and are glad to leave it to those who have no other occupation. When a man takes up politics as a profession usually he expects to make money out of it, and to make money he must get into office himself or put his friends there. It is perfectly natural that the professional politician should become unscrupulous as to means to accomplish his end.

When civic pride and public spirit are withdrawn from the party organization, the modern political machine remains. It stands before the public disguised as a committee; but every member is there for business, and his first thought is to get all he can out of the party before he is succeeded by some one more unscrupulous. In the scramble for spoils that follows the boss is developed. He is a man with enough force of character to bend the other members of the organization to his will and make the machine a weapon of offense and defense. Once a boss is firmly established in his place his first thought is to take care of the machine, to keep it in good working order, for without it he can not longer retain power.

Bird S. Coler, Municipal Government (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1900), 189-194.

CHAPTER XXXIV-SOCIAL PROBLEMS

203.

Political Conditions in the South (1878)

BY SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL, K.C.S.I.

Campbell entered the civil service of India, and rose to be a member of the council of India and later a member of Parliament. He visited the United States in 1878. This extract is from the book in which he recorded his impressions. - Bibliography: Commissioner of Education, Report for 1893-1894, I, 1038-1061; Southern Society for the Study of Race Conditions, Race Problems of the South, 224-240.

I

HAD. . . an opportunity of conversing with a coloured preacher, a clever and influential man. He seems, however, very extreme in his views. He says that during the election there was gross intimidation, and much unfair influence, but in spite of it all the blacks voted Republican as solid as ever. Nevertheless, the boxes were stuffed and the majority stolen. The election commissioners are all on one side, and so are the newspapers, and they openly published violent threats.

I gather that the United States election supervisors were a poor lot often coloured men; and they were frequently hustled and insulted. One of them was arrested on some frivolous pretext. According to one Northerner nothing but United States troops at every polling-place will prevent a strong and embittered minority from triumphing over a weak majority. In this part of the country the Republican or Radical party is dead for the present. The victory of the whites is now so complete that there is certainly peace such as there was not before. . . .

I paid a visit to my namesake Mr. C―, the independent Democrat, who stood for State Senator for this district, but was defeated. He is a lawyer, and all agree that he is a very superior man. I found him very moderate, and not at all inclined to be vituperative, although the election was bitterly contested. He says that he represented the principle of Conciliation against those who would not yield anything. The election was won by simple cheating; that is, by stuffing the ballotboxes. At one polling-place not more than a thousand voted, but there

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »