Take Back Your Government!

CHAPTER VI

The Practiced Art of Politics (continued)

Political Influence, Its Sources, Uses, and Abuses

How to Have Votes in Your Pocket.

Many times we hear that So-and-So has such-and-such district "in his pocket." Usually it isn't true, except by default - when the local leader has no real opposition of any sort and has the only vote-getting organization in his district.

It is even less likely to be true when So-and-So shows up at headquarters, claims to have the West Heights district "eating out of his hand," and wants to know what sort of arrangements you want to make, Le., how much cash you will pay him personally for his support, such as it is.

You can disregard such fellows. Such a man usually controls his own vote, that of his wife (if she remembered to register), and, possibly, the votes of members of his own family living at home. I have yet to meet a man who claimed to control a district who actually did. Tell him you're sorry, congratulate him on his party loyalty, assume that he is so public-spirited that he is certain to support the cause anyhow, ask his opinions and his advice. Tell him you wish to high heaven that times were good and the cupboard wasn't bare. But never, never, never give him any money!

It isn't even worthwhile to give him a little money as a sop, to keep him from working against you. True, he will work against you, but you can get more votes for the money you have in more direct ways. Besides, it isn't fair to the hard-working volunteers, many of whom need money worse than he does.

There may be someone in his district who does in feet control it but you will have to scout around and dig him (more usually her) out, as he, or she, will be busy mending fences instead of trying to cadge money at headquarters. This person, when found, can be entrusted with campaign funds - they will not be wasted.

But there is a way whereby every "volunteer fireman" in politics can have, and does have, votes in his pocket, sure votes. As your acquaintances become aware that you are active in politics they will start to lean on you for political advice, as fast as they realize that you treat it as a "hobby" (from their point of view) and not as a money-making trade.

This influence even cuts across party lines, especially with respect to the so-called "minor" offices. Many of your acquaintances of the other party, because they know you, respect you, and consider you well informed, will let you vote the whole ballot for them, propositions and candidates, except for the head of the ticket. (Votes for the head of the ticket can't be influenced anyhow, enough times to matter, except by the process of seeing to it that the lazy voter registers and then hauling him to the polls.)

This slug of votes that you control will creep up on you, without your knowing it, and grow from year to year. There will even come a time when your public endorsement, for political advertising, is sought after. You will then realize, and even then it will surprise you, that you are a powerful politician.

The first election your influence will come from private conversation, on social occasions. Your advice will be taken because you quite evidently know something about the whole, confusing ballot.

You may not be aware, the first time, of the votes you have changed. But next year your telephone will ring steadily during the week before the election. "Say, Bill, tell me about these judge candidates. You know some of them, don't you?" You oblige. He adds, "How are you voting on the propositions?" You tell him.

You may have to explain in some detail your reasons for each vote during this second campaign. Such-and-such a judge is stupid, or plays games with the traffic patrol, or takes dirty campaign Kinds. Proposition #9 has a trick clause which makes it mean something different from what the tide says, or # 12 is a clever way to divert money from the school system. Thereafter you will make fewer explanations; all they want is the verdict-they have come to trust you.

These people are serious in their intent, mean to be independent voters, and have no intention of voting for a political machine. They welcome a chance to get any honest source of information other than the newspapers. Their votes cannot be purchased, they are not in politics themselves, and their name is legion, in any community.

You may find that fifty or sixty people make it a regular habit to call you up in the last day or two before an election and ask you how to mark their sample ballots. It is a "must" to place a typed list of your choices by the telephones a couple of weeks before the election so that even your twelve-year-old son can pass out the gospel in your absence. These people simply want your choice; they pay no attention to politics, but they do vote. You are a "find" to them-and their votes are in your pocket!

Not only their votes, but the votes of many of their families and of their friends. They become secondary centers of influence for you - dope from the horse's mouth is scarce; they are rather proud of knowing you and they pass the word along. You are safe in figuring about five votes for each person who looks you up or telephones you.

Fifty times five is two hundred and fifty - you have 250 votes "in your pocket," quite aside from all your regular campaigning activities. Many an election is won by a smaller margin than that!

How to Mark a Ballot in a Hurry:

There will come a year when sickness, or an extended trip out of town, or something, causes you to be caught with your lines of communication down. This time you don't know the answers; most of the ballot is a mystery to you. But the people who have come to depend on you will still expect your advice in marking their sample ballots.

Here is an easy, fool-proof way to get a satisfactory list in a hurry. Use it-but tell your clients that you are somewhat out of touch and may make some mistakes. The mistakes will never be important but you don't want to shake their confidence in your truthfulness and good sense. To some of them you can explain the process; to others, just give them the selections.

Here is the process: Get a copy of the newspaper you despise the most. (You have it - of course you have it Don't you want to know what the opposition is doing?) Note their selections and vote against all of them. Make that your list

In some cases some candidates and some propositions will be so overwhelmingly popular that you will find out afterwards that you voted the wrong way - both parties, or factions, were in agreement. But it does not matter in the least, because those candidates and those propositions, you will find, will have won by overwhelming majorities. Your mistaken vote meant nothing.

You will be able to eliminate some such cases by casual inspection and correct them as you make out the list, thereby saving yourself some embarrassment - but that will be the only significance.

You may well ask why not use the newspaper you favor most and vote for its selections, rather than against the selections of that despised opposition rag. Well, I admit I am prejudiced on this point - but I have yet to see a newspaper which seemed to me entirely altruistic and public-spirited in its policies at all times. Even with the best of them, it seems to me that the Brass Check occasionally shows through. I think I have detected some terrific swindles on the trusting public in many a list of recommendations which was, on the whole, good.

I think it is more nearly fool-proof, when you are in a hurry, to make a reversed use of recommendations which, in your opinion, come from unmitigated scoundrels.

How to Dispense Patronage:

This is one of the touchiest problems in politics but one that you can't duck. No matter how anxious you may be to avoid all contact with a "spoils" system the matter is bound to come up and you will have to pass on it, as long as there are any public jobs which are filled by appointment rather than by honest competitive examination. There are still lots of such appointive jobs and there is no end in sight. Even, come the millennium, when all possible spoils are abolished, there will be appointive jobs on the policy-making level and the favor of politicians will be sought in the filling thereof.

On the policy-making level the touchstone of political belief and loyalty is both moral and a practical necessity. There has been a lot of starry-eyed guff talked about this; in my opinion the people who talk it are spiritual descendants of the mice who voted to bell the cat. Of course the policy-making administrators of the executive branch of the government should be active and loyal party members of the party in power since they will be called on to bring to life the party platform of the party in power. Any other arrangement is a swindle on the people. Would you hire a surgeon to give a Christian Science lecture? Or a Rabbi to say mass?

Under special circumstances a chief executive, state or national, may draft an elder statesman of the other party to do a difficult top-policy job for which such man is peculiarly fitted. Such statesmen, of both parties, can and usually do carry out their special assignments with high patriotism and without obstructing the program of the party elected to power. When such a case comes up, don't go overboard in being a partisan. Some pipsqueak in your county committee will pop up with a resolution condemning such a coalition action. Don't handicap your governor or president by supporting such a narrow view.

But the much more usual case is the one in which partisanship is appropriate. Your party has just won an election; there are numerous policy-level appointive jobs to fill. As an active party politician your support and endorsement will be sought; in such cases you are not only justified, you are obligated, to consider the politics of the candidates as well as their several abilities. Your governor (or mayor, or president) is entitled to assistants who are loyal and of the same political beliefs. A man can best demonstrate his devotion to the party principles by getting out and hustling for the party ticket. Such party support may not in itself prove anything, but the lack of it is does prove something - it proves either that the appointment seeker does not really believe in the party program he now asks to help carry out as a public official or it proves that he is too indolent and too selfish to make a good public servant. Thumbs down!

I want to elaborate this point because there is so much nonsense talked about it. It seems to be part of the Great American Credo that it is statesmanlike to forget all about party lines as soon as the election is over and pick the "best men" for the big jobs whether they helped in the campaign or not. It's pretty but it's not true to life. The "best men" - for this purpose - are not to be found among the spectators, nor on the other team; they are to be found among the men who were in there scrapping for what they believed in!

Although policy-making appointees should be party regular and active campaigners, there is no reason why typists, surveyors, truck drivers, or food inspectors should be selected for their political beliefs and many reasons why they should not be. Despite the prevalence of civil service, good and bad, many such jobs are purely appointive and you will be called on to help people get such jobs.

Patronage is not an easy matter and I know of no perfect solution. I suggest the following pragmatic rules for making the best of a bad situation:

(a) Accept the responsibility. When it comes to pass that you have the power, through influence or direct authority, to decide or help to decide who shall hold the myriad little jobs below policy-making level, meet it head on, make the decisions - and the mistakes-and take the consequences. To pass the buck is moral cowardice, similar to that of the person who can't bear the thought of killing but eats meat and wears fur, and it will result in someone else passing out the jobs in a fashion which may not please you and which may be contrary to public interest.

(b) Don't adopt a "spoils" attitude. Discuss qualifications for the job, not whether or not the candidate is politically "deserving." Make it quite plain that you think such jobs should be filled by civil service methods and that you are acting in trust for the public, not for your party. (This advice is contrary to that of many successful politicians, I must admit. Nevertheless I think my attitude is more practical in the long run. You will have to find out for yourself. But I submit that my advice is not only moral, it is practical - and that any other course leads to a long succession of headaches and loss of votes.)

(c) Be completely honest with the applicant If you don't intend to help him get the job, tell him so, bluntly -and take the consequences. There is no difference of opinion here on the part of any of the successful politicians, but the advice is hard to carry out. It is so much easier to promise to do "anything you can to help him," then fail to follow through. I must admit that I balked at this hurdle when I was new to the business. I did not have the courage to disappoint a man to his face. It takes guts and I did not have the requisite supply. I have learned better - I won't make that mistake again. But it still upsets me to have to say "no."

(d) Be warm-hearted. Don't adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. Help the poor devil if honesty permits it Err on the side of charity. After all, he has to eat - at least he thinks so. Job hunting isn't easy at best, and he, or she, wouldn't be there if the wages weren't a matter of consequence. Even if you have to say no, you can be friendly and give him the dignity that every human being wants quite as much as he wants a full belly. Sit him down, offer him a cigarette, a cup of coffee. Listen to his troubles. Perhaps, if you can't give him the job he wants, you will recall one in the course of the conversation which he is qualified to hold.

There is nothing unstatesmanlike in helping another fellow human being to find a job. It is as righteous as healing lepers or causing the lame to walk. Most of your applicants will be second-raters, but don't let that worry you; most of the world's work is done by second-raters. You won't be cheating the taxpayers in recommending a person who is merely adequately qualified instead of being an ideal candidate for the job. First-raters hardly ever seek these minor public jobs, as they can make more money in private industry.

Don't try to monkey with any job covered by federal civil service! Tell the applicant that the job he wants is beyond politics and that he should go straight to the civil service commission where he will be given, not one but many, fair competitive chances to get a job if one is available. The federal civil service commission comes as near to being above reproach as any public agency you will find.

There is one apparent exception to the above rule: Many agencies under federal civil service make seasonal, temporary appointments, without examination, to cover their peak load period. For example the railway mail service and the postal service need a lot of help around Christmas time and the Internal Revenue Service has other rush seasons. It is frequently impossible to get sufficient help from the certified civil service lists. This means jobs for clerks, typists, laborers, chauffeurs, etc. Most of the jobs require only minor skills and no experience.

Don't try to use political pressure to get these jobs for people - it's wrong and you don't need to. What you can do is make it your business to know when such jobs are available. You can pass along the tip to the unhappy creature you have had to turn down and let him go get the job on his own. Most people simply don't know the ropes; they are not too familiar with the world around them. You can often lend a helping hand just by knowing more than the applicant. He may even be grateful to you; at least you have not refused him help.

Such devices are necessary if you are to compete successfully with the Machine. Never forget that the strength of the Machine lies in giving help when it is asked. You can do likewise - and not attach strings to it. Bread cast on the water comes back of itself; you don't need to harry unfortunate people by insisting that they demonstrate loyalty to your political organization.

(Incidentally, the successful machine politicians know that fact. They will help anyone, not merely the "faithful." They count on a backlog of good will rather than on cracking the whip. The whip-cracking comes later, if at all.)

Appointments to Annapolis and West Point should be purely competitive but are not. The civil service commission will serve as an impartial referee in selecting candidates for appointment as the agent of any congressman or senator who asks for the service. You will be performing a patriotic service by urging your congressmen and senators to avail themselves of this service.

You will be approached frequently by parents of young hopefuls who want to go to one of the service academies. You can encourage such laudable ambition without mixing politics into it - but which will nevertheless redound to your political advantage! In the first place these persons usually do not know how to go about any phase of the matter; the kid has simply been struck by the bug. Full information may be obtained by anyone by addressing requests to the Adjutant General of the Army, concerning West Point, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Personnel) for Annapolis, or the Commandant of the Coast Guard, Treasury Department, for the Coast Guard Academy. They can get this information just as quickly from any public library or recruiting station, but they don't know that, and they will love you for your helpfulness. From the same sources you may, if you wish, obtain free pamphlets which set forth the requirements for each academy, along with typical entrance examinations. You can also obtain lists of prospective appointments and the names of the officeholders who control them.

If you have these items in your possession you will seem almost omniscient to the lad and his parents. You can also pass out some good, non-political advice. All three schools are basically engineering schools. Therefore an applicant needs solid grounding in mathematics and physical science, plus one modern language. Make sure the kid knows this. All three schools have stringent physical requirements, and the applicant should find out at once whether or not he can meet them, or whether corrective measures will enable him to meet them. It is a sad thing to see a boy spend a couple of years trying for an appointment, then eat his heart out because some disqualifying disease in his past record prevents his accepting it when it comes along.

Don't use your political influence in connection with appointments to the service academies. It may not be dishonest, but itis certainly notin the public interest. Limit yourself to helpful advice and supplyinginformation.

I have dwelt at length on these service appointments because, first, you will be faced with the problem with certainty every year, and second, because I am advising you not to give the political help asked for. Since you are to refuse to basic request (for political influence) you should know specifically what you can do to be helpful to all comers. The matter is touchier than most requests for political favor because of the emotions stirred up by the parent-child relationship. It is easier and safer to turn down the father in a request for a job for himself than it is to refuse him help for his boy.

How to Tell a Trojan Horse from a Political Party:

In any city or town in which a well-entrenched machine has been in power without interruption for many years, the party of the political label opposite to the label worn by the Machine will also have a public organization, somewhat smaller, which regularly puts a ticket on the ballot, opposing the Machine, and with equal regularity gets beaten.

One will be the "Democratic" organization; the other will be the "Republican" organization. One of them will be the party in power and will be known as the "Machine." But it is almost a foregone conclusion that they are both the Machine.

It's a partnership. They get along fine together - except in public. Each year they put on a whoop-t'-do campaign, a grunt and groan match for the cash customers. They exchange insults, demand investigations, and hold rallies-but the fight is fixed, the results certain, and the take split two ways by arrangement.

In addition to these official organizations there will be unofficial organizations of each party, reform in nature, and probably unrecognized by their respective national committee. That makes four parties - or, more truthfully, three. The latter two are honestly opposed to each other and to the Machine. More confusing than amusing, isn't it? Well, take a glance at the multiple parties of some other countries; it will make you feel better.

The question is: What should the honest citizen do when faced with this situation?

It is a very real problem, for the "reform" wings of each party usually suffer from pernicious anemia. As for the official organizations, they are not the Republican and Democratic halves of the American Eagle; they are the twin wings of a turkey buzzard. For these reasons, the honest citizen in a machine-ridden community usually stays out of politics, and limits his participation to voting for the national ticket of his choice in the general elections.

But we'll never get out of the mud that way!

If you live in a machine-dominated city and if you entered politics by the direct routes suggested in Chapter II, you probably landed first off in the Machine, either main tent or sideshow. It hasn't hurt you, but you have cut your teeth and now is the time to strike out on your own. The six months or so that you spent with the Machine has taught you more than anything else could in the same length of time.

Move in on one of the two reform organizations, take it over, and, through it, capture the party of its affiliation in the primaries. Operation time: Six months to three years.

Use the party organization you have captured to turn the Machine out of power at the following city final election. Then do your darnedest to get a satisfactory governor, state attorney general and county prosecuting attorney at the next general election in order to tie down your victory.

Does it sound too hard? Remember what was said of the people who crossed the plains: "The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way." Don't despair; you will not be alone. There will be others marching beside you. It is not too likely that you yourself will be called on to be the generalissimo of this war; you may find yourself a non-com or a junior officer.

But it can be done. I know it can be done because I have been present when it happened. Many American cities have carried offsuch reforms successfully; it is not too hard to do. The hard part is to make the reform stick. The ordinary reform organization falls to pieces after the first successful campaign and the ordinary reform candidate turns out to be a sorrier specimen in office than the Machine politician he displaced. The anatomy and pathology of reformers and reform organizations will be discussed in the chapter Footnotes on Democracy. Choosing a candidate will come up in the next chapter.

Many machine politicians are so sure that a reform group will hang itself that a lost election does not worry them. They take an off-year philosophically as a chance to clean out the dead wood and strengthen the organization. Much of the organization is secure through a phony civil service; die rest can live on its fat

You, presumably, have learned already that politics is a process that continues. You will not fall into the error of thinking that you need to plan for only one election. Let us consider then how you will choose your field of operations and what you will do.

Pick your medium on principle, not expediency, or you will never be happy. If you are a Republican in your national politics, if Republican party principles are what you believe in, then go into the Republican reform organization, even though the Democratic reform organization may seem to have the better chance of achieving your immediate purpose, defeat of a corrupt machine. Vice versa if you are a Democrat at heart

In some cities the local offices are "non-partisan" by law. This changes the labels but not the facts; a "non-partisan" city machine will always turn out to be owned by the leading politicians of one party, assisted by tame dogs who nominally carry the other party label. A "non-partisan" set up makes it a little easier to form a coalition to defeat a machine onc(e - and makes it much harder to preserve a reform once instituted, because a lack of organizational responsibility and lack of basic community or interests and belief among the coalitionists.

"Non-partisan" in local affairs was a bill of goods sold to the people of this country early in this century by a bunch of starry-eyed political theorists who were not semantically oriented and thereby confused symbols with facts. They saw the corrupt city machines - party machines - and figured out that they could do away with all that by outlawing political parties in local affairs. It was a cinch for the machine boys; the labels were abolished, but not the Machine! (I wonder why that didn't occur to the theorists?) It enabled the same old corruptionists to get away with murder without leaving finger prints around the corpse.

If you still have party labels in your local affairs for goodness sake, hang on to them! Otherwise, when they steal the city hall, you'll never be able to pin it on anybody.

Let us assume a concrete case so that we can be specific. You will have to shift it around for other circumstances but the principles will not vary. We will

assume partisan local offices and we will assume that your party is not in power. The only difference the latter assumption makes is that in such case it takes a primary election and a final election to gain power; in the other case, when the Machine proper wears your party label, the primary election is the only real struggle and the final election may be a pushover.

First, you and your friends take over the reform organization of your party. This is about as hard to do as beating up on a butterfly; you just join up and start running things by the techniques described elsewhere in this book. You get new members for the existing clubs and form new dubs where needed. For all practical purposes you behave as if the anemic older organization never existed; you form a new political organization and start getting ready for your first primary fight

That is your practical, factual behavior; your symbolic behavior is something quite different. The old, moribund reform organization has its officers and notables. You will find them to be, with few exceptions, a bunch of prima donnas and political masochists as well. They never really expected anything as strenuous as success-and they bleed easily.

You must avoid hurting their feelings. They may not be much use to you but they have the power to do you a great deal of harm.

Remember the old story about the new lodge member who was elected "Lord High Exalted Ruler of the Universe"? He was not the lodge master; his was the very lowest position in that lodge. There is your technique.

Flatter them. Defer to them. Ask their advice... in such terms that you get the advice you want! Never ignore them. Have them speak to new dubs. Put them on "dignity" committees (people who greet visiting notables, sit on platforms during programs, and have their names printed on political stationery). Never displace them from club or organization office unless they wish to retire. You can always create new offices- "executive" this and "executive" that - without disturbing them. If some old fuddy-duddy is now chairman and can't conduct a meeting properly you can always carry out basic business in a committee-of-the-whole, with your own choice as chairman of the committee-of-the-whole - or you can through an executive committee - or provide the office of parliamentarian-or even teach him some parliamentary law if you are subtle about it. You yourself will work as floor leader, in his good graces. Be sure never to surprise him with what you bring up on the floor. Tell him about it before-hand.

But don't replace him until he wants to retire, then create some equivalent of Lord High Exalted Ruler of the Universe for him - "critic," "senior adviser," "chairman of the reception committee."

I was present once when an elderly man, just the sort I have referred to, addressed a mass meeting for twenty minutes on how he had been ignored by the johnny-come-latelies in the campaign just completed. That was his whole plaint; the campaign had been successful - he could not deny that. It had turned out a bunch of vultures and had taken over an entire state organization. But he had not been consulted; he was the dean of the reformers in the party; his nose was out ofjoint.

His point was ridiculous, as a reformer he had been a consistent failure. But he was a powerful, persuasive orator; he managed to convince the crowd that he had been wronged. It started a crack in the organization which widened and destroyed it.

He is nationally known but I shall not name him - he is rich in years and honors and fought many a gallant fight in his youth. I cite him only as a warning.

Some few of the old-timers will turn out to be good workers; if you are considerate of all you can salvage the useful ones as well as avoiding the dangerous pique of the dead wood.

Let us now suppose that you have won your first primary (see Chapter X) and thereby control the official party machinery. You are the Party, you and your friends, in the legal sense; this obligates the state and national committees to deal with you.

You have still to cope with the persons you have displaced. This will be a headache!

Here we are assuming that these persons are not sincerely members of your party at all; they are stooges of the Machine who wear your party label for the purpose of selling out your party. These jackals lack even the limited honesty of the ordinary successful machine politician; they are professional traitors. You cannot trust them under any circumstances.

(This case is very different from the normal post-primary situation described in Chapter X where your object would be to heal the wounds between factions all loyal to your party.)

You are likely to find it very difficult to throw these crooks out of the party. You can't keep them out of public meetings; in any case some of them will have been elected to your county committee. There is probably no method of unseating them, but this is not the time to compromise. Don't let them hold any office if you can possibly prevent it. If you let one have so much as an honorary vice-chairmanship in a subcommittee, he will go out, print up stationery with his title on it, and write letters of endorsement for the Machine which will appear to be, through judicious use of large and small type, official endorsements from your organization.

Another favorite trick, and one almost impossible to stop, is for them to incorporate a dummy political "club" under an official-sounding title, such as: The 12th District Official Republican Club or The Democratic Assembly of Gedunkus County. Sometimes you can stop this sort of thing with an injunction, but not often.

There is no sure cure here. All I can recommend is to keep them at arm's length, don't trust them, and don't give them anything. Some of this phony organization may be poor lost souls, honestly devoted to the party and happy at the change. Very well, let them prove it by a long, long, term of volunteer work at a low level. Keep them on parole until you are sure of them.

I have elaborated this point because, once you build an organization, these termites will try to dominate it, under the pretext that they are the "real" (Democrats) (Republicans), and you will be tempted to meet them half-way, particularly because pressure will almost certainly be brought to bear on you from the state capital or from Washington by senior party members who are interested in party harmony and may not understand the local situation. Don't do it. If you know, of your own knowledge, that the official party organization you replaced had unclean relationships with the Machine you are opposing, then this is one of the times not to compromise, even though the national chairman of your party gets you on long distance to plead with you!

You have built an organization; you have captured party machinery - now to win an election!