MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION 643 The first case of city corruption to catch the public attention was the infamous Tweed Ring, which robbed New York City of a hundred million dollars in two years (1869–1870). This ring was finally broken up, and "Boss" Tweed was sent to Sing-Sing, largely through the fearless skill of Samuel J. Tilden, soon after the Democratic candidate for the presidency (p. 571). For long it was a pet delusion of "respectable" Republicans that the New York scandal was an exceptional case, due to the deplorable fact that New York was controlled by a Democratic organization (Tammany); but later it developed that Tammany's methods were coarse and clumsy compared with those by which a Republican "ring" had looted Philadelphia. "Big Slowly the people have learned that corruption has no party. The biggest "boss" naturally allies himself with whichever party is usually in control in his district; but he has a perfect understanding with Business" corrupt leaders of the other party, upon whom he bipartisan can call for help against any revolt within his own organization, so "playing both ends against the middle." The surest weapon at the service of these sly rogues is an appeal to the voters to be loyal to the party, - so dividing good men and obscuring real issues in local government. Nor does one housecleaning and the punishment of a few rascals end the matter. Gains are too great. In a few years, New York and Philadelphia were again dominated by rings quite as bad as the first ones. With an occasional spasm of ineffectual reform, such conditions remained characteristic of practically every important city until the rising of the mighty tide of reform about the opening of the new century; and the fight for clean government is not yet won. The graduation of corrupted scoundrels from city and State politics into National politics was one cause of the degradation that befell the latter. But National politics had also its own troubles. What a street car company or a gas company was to a city council or to a State judiciary, a railroad or a Standard Oil Company was to Congress and the Federal bench. Corporations which wish to keep on good terms with the party machinery in State and Nation have been the main sources of campaign funds. Usually such a corporation has kept on the safe side by contributing to both parties, somewhat more liberally to the one in power, from which favors are the more likely to come. The immense contributions from such sources have been a chief means of political corruption in campaigns. Meantime, the people have to pay these contributions indirectly in higher prices, since the amounts are charged up to “ “operating expenses" by the corporations. The law of 1911 to compel publicity by the National Committees of all political parties as to the source of all their funds is helping to correct this evil. In 1912 a congressional investigation proved conclusively, by the sworn testimony of the heads of the great "trusts," that there really had existed a close alliance between certain privileged interests and guiding forces in the government, such as the general public had only dimly suspected. Mr. H. O. Havemeyer, President of the Sugar Trust, was asked whether his Trust made political contributions in the campaigns. "Yes," he said frankly; "we always do that. In New York [controlled by Democrats] we throw [our contribution] their way. In Massachusetts, where the Republicans are dominant, they have the call.' Wherever there is a dominant party .. that is the party that gets the contribution, because it is the party that controls local matters [election of congressmen, governors, State judges, etc.]. Search for 44 the man This public corruption does not come in any considerable degree from ordinary competitive business. Public corruption comes from the desire to secure special privilege. The public service corporation in the higher up" city is the source of municipal corruption: the ordinary business man, who pays a bribe perhaps to secure a city contract, is rather a victim than a first cause. So in the Nation, the railroads, with their land grants or their desire to evade legal control, and, later, the fattened trusts which wish to preserve some tariff "protection," are MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION 645 the source of National corruption. The city or State "boss" who "delivers the goods" to these privileged corporations seems at first sight the front and substance of the corruption; but, in real fact, he is merely an agent, permitted to pay himself in loot, but set in motion and protected by "the man higher up," the respectable head of great business interests. These large interests draw after them smaller business men, sometimes by brutal coercion, but more commonly by merely playing artfully upon the phrase that any attempt at reform "hurts business." Almost every genuine reform movement in America so far has found its chief foe, after a brief run, in this despicable phrase. 1 Every American should read Judge Ben B. Lindsey's The Beast and the Jungle, the best and most dramatic portrayal in literature of the truth stated above. CHAPTER XLII FORWARD-LOOKING MOVEMENTS BEFORE 1917 THE new moral earnestness of 1890, we have said, wandered blindly for a while. But about 1900, men began to see that the first step toward industrial freedom was to | restore self-government to the people and to enlarge it by the enfranchisement of women and through new political machinery the referendum, the initiative, the recall, the direct nomination of all elected officials, and the more direct control of the Federal courts. The forward-looking movements treated in this chapter have all placed these matters foremost in their immediate programs. THE LABOR MOVEMENT The ten years preceding the Civil War, with the new conveniences for communication and combination, saw a Labor organi zation after the Civil War few trades organize on a national scale (instead of for localities only); but these first national "unions" were confined to trades whose total membership was small. The sixties witnessed a remarkable spread of the movement. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers organized in 1863, the cigar makers in '64, the brickmakers in '65, railway conductors in '68, railway firemen in '69 — all strong unions. By 1870 forty trades had achieved national organization, and the movement continued until all skilled trades became so organized. Nearly every union has its weekly or monthly organ, The Carpenter, The Fireman's Magazine, and so on; and in every large town the Trades' Assembly has a labor paper devoted to the general welfare of the movement. And, apart from industrial matters, these organizations have exerted a notable influence and training. Many a local 66 THE LABOR MOVEMENT 647 Assembly" conducts its business and debates with a promptitude and skill that would be highly instructive to college faculty or State legislature. But organization of single trades, even on a national scale, was not enough. In 1869 a few workingmen in Philadelphia founded The Noble Order of the Knights Knights of of Labor, to include all workers, skilled or Labor unskilled, with the motto, "The injury of one is the concern of all." The strike year of '77 (page 648) popularized the movement; and in '78 it held its first National Assembly, made up of delegates from local and district assemblies. For years this Order exercised vast influence for good, and was the fount of much wholesome legislation in State and Nation. Especial gratitude is due it for its early recognition of the right of women to equal pay with men for equal service, and for its hearty welcome to worldpeace movements; but it joined the Populists in the Free Silver campaigns, and virtually fell with the failure of that movement. Federation The American Federation of Labor rose, phoenixlike, from the ashes of the Knights. Its units are the national unions of single trades; it does not recognize unskilled The Amerlabor in its organization. It counts some two ican million men, besides three quarters of a million more organized in railway unions and affiliated with it. It has encouraged the formation of Trades' Assemblies (the "Trades-union" of the thirties) in all large places, composed of delegates from the local unions and standing to them somewhat as the National Federation stands to the national unions. The annual convention and the executive council of the American Federation exercise tremendous influence over the separate unions, but have no binding power over them, except authority to levy assessments to sustain a strike approved by the central council. Samuel Gompers has been annually reëlected president for some twenty-eight years (1920), and has proven himself a notable leader, though in more recent years a large and growing element regard him as too timid and too conservative. |