AMERICAN TYPES

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

AMERICAN TYPES

THE MAN IN POLITICS

(By

T.C.L.)

There are three main classes of politicians in the United States—local. State and Federal. It would be unfair to judge them merely by the actions and policies that obtain notoriety. In municipal politics the vagaries of Tammany Hall in New York have enriched the English language with expressions that everyone knows stand for what is undesirable in democratic rule. The extravagances of a “Bill” Thompson at Chicago in speech and in finance have left a record that is a warning to his fellow-countrymen and to all who most sincerely believe that “self-government is better than good government.” Most of all, the appalling conditions 1 which obtain in the poorer quarters of America’s big cities after more . than half a century of almost unbroken prosperity are the most damning evidence that local government has been misdirected either through ignorance or design. In Britain the nucleus of the city was the village, a community first drawn together for self-protection, and usually clustering around the mansion or the dJistle of the lord of the manor. To do him justice, he did to some extent accept the duties as well as the advantages of his position, but as villages grew into towns, often in a haphazard fashion, the development of government by the citizens proceeded, and the power of the individual gradually disappeared. But it has taken 900 years for that development in England and the present efforts to eliminate slumdom from her cities and towns show - the errors and shortcomings that crept into municipal management in Britain. Nor were all those shortcomings avoided when cities and towns in the Dominions came into being, and partly for the very reason that demands some charity in judgment of American local government. Speaking generally, there has been no influx of foreigners in a body into New Zealand. For at least a generation in America there has been a steady stream of immigrants from countries in Europe where the standards of life were lowest, where education was almost unknown, and where any idea of civic duties was something beyond the comprehension of the men and women who left their homes for that America which offered them a better chance. There are exceptions, of course. Political refugees fleeing from tyranny have given the Re- 1 public some of her. most successful citizens, but' in the larger centres, at all events, there has been for years a huge element of mixed races with differing standards of living, differing languages, clinging to the customs of their fatherlands so far as circumstances would permit, and using their votes when they have obtained full citizenship as directed by. astuter minds than their own. That is a potent factor in'political happenings that must be taken into account all the < time.

Then, again, Americans had a deep distrust of publicly-owned enterprise. They had no use for official interference in business. Such men as controlled Tammany Hall traded upon this to gain support for private ownership of what are accepted in New Zealand as public services. Nor was the instinct for private enterprise wholly wrong. Even London has found public control of transport services not entirely desirable, and has set up a new authority to combine private initiative with safeguards against exploitation of the public. In the United States there were no safeguards, and consequently the grafter could score a success who could take a fortune out of the pockets of the people by unjust charges and at the same time placate them by seeming to give back to the poorest some of the ill-gotten gains.

The result of it all was that the clever manipulator ruled. He had the power to distribute rewards in the shape of appointments or . to discipline by dismissal any official who tried to put the rights of the public before the profits of the local politician. The ramifications of the grafter were tremendous. His skill in organisation was the envy and sometimes the despair of the reformer. To him every man had his price—and he was astute enough to pay it. But paradoxical as it may seem, tire demand for local authorities was ever growing. President Roosevelt has shown in his book, “Looking Forward,” that the number of such authorities ran into thousands, and very often overlapping and waste resulted. Local prejudices could be used to block progress or reform.' Jealousy could be stirred up to cloak nefarious jobbery, and so the sorry business developed. Yet in spite of all this'there are many “local” politicians in America with as ■keen ,a desire to serve their district and their . State as the members of local bodies in Taranaki. But their work may be never heard of, and in a land where exuberance and self-sufficiency are common this quiet public service is a remarkable tribute to their staunch belief in their "country’s destiny. They are earnest and single-minded. Sometimes the grafter can out-manoeuvre them; sometimes, they admit, they have to meet guile with guile. Others again regard the local experience as but a training ground for a wider sphere in politics.

For, except in the graver national affairs, it is the State Parliament that comes nearest the lives of the citizens. The magnificent Parliamentary buildings to be found in practically every State are splendid manifestations of pride in . their institutions and the tenacity of the desire for self-govern-ment that permeates all the States. Sometimes the feeling runs to extremes,, and you have the unhappy spectacle of a State attempting to. define what are true ethics or what is the proper attitude in regard to such a matter as the verbal inspiration of the Bible!

The State Legislatures are not afraid of experiments. " Prohibition was tried by many of them before it became a Federal ruling. State Governments spend large sums in scientific research and in higher education. The quality of’ the debates is at least as high as that of Dominion Parliaments, and the type of politician much the same. But over State politics lies the blight of political patronage. Public servants “go out” when an Administration falls, for “spoils to the victors” is still a rule in many of the States, though it is said the electorates are gradually beginning to. see the wastefulness of the system as well as its more sinister effects.

Tire Federal politician moves in the bigger’sphere of world affairs. Congress ;at Washington is a world of its own. In the Senate there is accommodation for 700 spectators, and in the House of Representatives 1800 strangers can listen to the speeches. Men so far removed in temperament as Colonel House and Senator Borah have admitted that the atmosphere of Congress is notoriously distorting. The rules of debate, the “swinging” of power into committees, sometimes the freak legislation due to an itch for notoriety, all tend to create conditions that are the despair of the

plain business man and sometimes the chief aid to those who have ulterior ends in view. , To the visitor the .wonderful Capitol and the Library of Congress are a sheer joy to behold. He finds it difficult to think that graft and meanness could flourish in such magnificent and inspiring surroundings. He hears, • alas, much that is sordid .of American politics and politicians. But he remembers, on reflection, that 70 years ago President Lincoln set out along an utterly untried path. He showed neither hesitancy nor misgiving, and in the end he won through. ’■ ‘ In difficult circumstances but in a crisis just as severe, another President had recently shown similar courage. He, 100, has had to take fresh action day by day, whether- supported or condemned by his colleagues, and without vaiting to inquire how far the common people might be expected to follow his lead. If such can be the product of American politics, from municipal ward through State Legislature to White House, the visitor pauses before he condemns. It may be that his final impulse is of sympathetic admiration—not of the. weaknesses—but of the highest product of a system still in the evolutionary stage.