Have Faith In Massachusetts On The Nature Of Politics
by Calvin Coolidge
Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process.
It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits.
So much emphasis has been put upon the false that the significance of
the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning
of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere
service. The Greek derivation shows the nobler purpose. Politikos means
city-rearing, state-craft. And when we remember that city also meant
civilization, the spurious presentment, mean and sordid, drops away and
the real figure of the politician, dignified and honorable, a minister
to civilization, author and finisher of government, is revealed in its
true and dignified proportions.
There is always something about genius that is indefinable, mysterious,
perhaps to its possessor most of all. It has been the product of rude
surroundings no less than of the most cultured environment, want and
neglect have sometimes nourished it, abundance and care have failed to
produce it. Why some succeed in public life and others fail would be as
difficult to tell as why some succeed or fail in other activities. Very
few men in America have started out with any fixed idea of entering
public life, fewer still would admit having such an idea. It was said of
Chief Justice Waite, of the United States Supreme Court, being asked
when a youth what he proposed to do when a man, he replied, he had not
yet decided whether to be President or Chief Justice. This may be in
part due to a general profession of holding to the principle of Benjamin
Franklin that office should neither be sought nor refused and in part to
the American idea that the people choose their own officers so that
public service is not optional. In other countries this is not so. For
centuries some seats in the British Parliament were controlled and
probably sold as were commissions in the army, but that has never been
the case here. A certain Congressman, however, on arriving at Washington
was asked by an old friend how he happened to be elected. He replied
that he was not elected, but appointed. It is worth while noting that
the boss who was then supposed to hold the power of appointment in that
district has since been driven from power, but the Congressman, though
he was defeated when his party was lately divided, has been reflected.
All of which suggests that the boss did not appoint in the first
instance, but was merely well enough informed to see what the people
wanted before they had formulated their own opinions and desires. It was
said of McKinley that he could tell what Congress would do on a certain
measure before the men in Congress themselves knew what their decision
was to be. Cannon has said of McKinley that his ear was so close to the
ground that it was full of grasshoppers. But the fact remains that
office brokerage is here held in reprehensive scorn and professional
office-seeking in contempt. Every native-born American, however, is
potentially a President, and it must always be remembered that the
obligation to serve the State is forever binding upon all, although
office is the gift of the people.
Of course these considerations relate not to appointive places like the
Judiciary, Commissionerships, clerical positions and like places, but to
the more important elective offices. Another reason why political life
of this nature is not chosen as a career is that it does not pay. Nearly
all offices of this class are held at a financial sacrifice, not merely
that the holder could earn more at some other occupation, but that the
salary of the office does not maintain the holder of the office. It is
but recently that Parliament has paid a salary to its members. In years
gone by the United States Senate has been rather marked for its number
of rich men. Few prominent members of Congress are dependent on their
salary, which is but another way of saying that in Washington Senators
and Representatives need more than their official salaries to become
most effective. It is a consolation to be able to state that this is not
the condition of members of the Massachusetts General Court. There,
ability and character come very near to being the sole requirements for
success. Although some men have seen service in our legislature of
nearly twenty years, to the great benefit of the Commonwealth, no one
would choose that for a career and these men doubtless look on it only
as an avocation.
For these reasons we have no profession of politics or of public life in
the sense that we have a profession of law and medicine and other
learned callings. We have men who have spent many years in office, but
it would be difficult to find one outside the limitations noted who
would refer to that as his business, occupation, or profession.
The inexperienced are prone to hold an erroneous idea of public life and
its methods. Not long ago I listened to a joint debate in a prominent
preparatory school. Each side took it for granted that public men were
influenced only by improper motives and that officials of the government
were seeking only their own gain and advantage without regard to the
welfare of the people. Such a presumption has no foundation in fact.
There are dishonest men in public office. There are quacks, shysters,
and charlatans among doctors, lawyers, and clergy, but they are not
representative of their professions nor indicative of their methods. Our
public men, as a class, are inspired by honorable and patriotic motives,
desirous only of a faithful execution of their trust from the executive
and legislative branches of the States and Nation down to the
executives of our towns, who bear the dignified and significant title of
selectmen. Public men must expect criticism and be prepared to endure
false charges from their opponents. It is a matter of no great concern
to them. But public confidence in government is a matter of great
concern. It cannot be maintained in the face of such opinions as I have
mentioned. It is necessary to differentiate between partisan assertions
and actual conditions. It is necessary to recognize worth as well as to
condemn graft. No system of government can stand that lacks public
confidence and no progress can be made on the assumption of a false
premise. Public administration is honest and sound and public business
is transacted on a higher plane than private business.
There is no difficulty for men in college to understand elections and
government. They have all had experience in it. The same motives that
operate in the choice of class officers operate in choosing officers for
the Commonwealth. Here men are soon estimated at their true worth. Here
places of trust are conferred and administered as they will be in later
years. The scale is smaller, the opportunities are less, conditions are
more artificial, but the principles are the same. Of course the present
estimate is not the ultimate. There are men here who appear important
that will not appear so in years to come. There are men who seem
insignificant now who will develop at a later day. But the motive which
leads to elections here leads to elections in the State.
Is there any especial obligation on the part of college-bred men to be
candidates for public office? I do not think so. It is said that
although college graduates constitute but one per cent of the
population, they hold about fifty per cent of the public offices, so
that this question seems to take care of itself. But I do not feel that
there is any more obligation to run for office than there is to become a
banker, a merchant, a teacher, or enter any other special occupation. As
indicated some men have a particular aptitude in this direction and some
have none. Of course experience counts here as in any other human
activity, and all experience worth the name is the result of
application, of time and thought and study and practice. If the
individual finds he has liking and capacity for this work, he will
involuntarily find himself engaged in it. There is no catalogue of such
capacity. One man gets results in one way, another in another. But in
general only the man of broad sympathy and deep understanding of his
fellow men can meet with much success.
What I have said relates to the somewhat narrow field of office-holding.
This is really a small part of the American system or of any system.
James Bryce tells us that we have a government of public opinion. That
is growing to be more and more true of the governments of the entire
world. The first care of despotism seems to be to control the school and
the press. Where the mind is free it turns not to force but to reason
for the source of authority. Men submit to a government of force as we
are doing now when they believe it is necessary for their security,
necessary to protect them from the imposition of force from without.
This is probably the main motive of the German people. They have been
taught that their only protection lay in the support of a military
despotism. Rightly or wrongly they have believed this and believing have
submitted to what they suppose their only means of security. They have
been governed accordingly. Germany is still feudal.
This leads to the larger and all important field of politics. Here we
soon see that office-holding is the incidental, but the standard of
citizenship is the essential. Government does rest upon the opinions of
men. Its results rest on their actions. This makes every man a
politician whether he will or no. This lays the burden on us all. Men
who have had the advantages of liberal culture ought to be the leaders
in maintaining the standards of citizenship. Unless they can and do
accomplish this result education is a failure. Greatly have they been
taught, greatly must they teach. The power to think is the most
practical thing in the world. It is not and cannot be cloistered from
politics.
We live under a republican form of government. We need forever to
remember that representative government does represent. A careless,
indifferent representative is the result of a careless, indifferent
electorate. The people who start to elect a man to get what he can for
his district will probably find they have elected a man who will get
what he can for himself. A body will keep on its course for a time after
the moving impulse ceases by reason of its momentum. The men who
founded our government had fought and thought mightily on the
relationship of man to his government. Our institutions would go for a
time under the momentum they gave. But we should be deluded if we
supposed they can be maintained without more of the same stern sacrifice
offered in perpetuity. Government is not an edifice that the founders
turn over to posterity all completed. It is an institution, like a
university which fails unless the process of education continues.
The State is not founded on selfishness. It cannot maintain itself by
the offer of material rewards. It is the opportunity for service. There
has of late been held out the hope that government could by legislation
remove from the individual the need of effort. The managers of
industries have seemed to think that their difficulties could be removed
and prosperity ensured by changing the laws. The employee has been led
to believe that his condition could be made easy by the same method.
When industries can be carried on without any struggle, their results
will be worthless, and when wages can be secured without any effort they
will have no purchasing value. In the end the value of the product will
be measured by the amount of effort necessary to secure it. Our late Dr.
Garman recognized this limitation in one of his lectures where he
says:—
"Critics have noticed three stages in the development of human
civilization. First: the let-alone policy; every man to look out for
number one. This is the age of selfishness. Second: the opposite pole of
thinking; every man to do somebody's else work for him. This is the dry
rot of sentimentality that feeds tramps and enacts poor laws such as
excite the indignation of Herbert Spencer. But the third stage is
represented by our formula: every man must render and receive the best
possible service, except in the case of inequality, and there the
strong must help the weak to help themselves; only on this condition is
help given. This is the true interpretation of the life of Christ. On
the first basis He would have remained in heaven and let the earth take
care of itself. On the second basis He would have come to earth with his
hands full of gold and silver treasures satisfying every want that
unfortunate humanity could have devised. But on the third basis He comes
to earth in the form of a servant who is at the same time a master
commanding his disciples to take up their cross and follow Him; it is
sovereignty through service as opposed to slavery through service. He
refuses to make the world wealthy, but He offers to help them make
themselves wealthy with true riches which shall be a hundred-fold more,
even in this life, than that which was offered them by any former
system."
This applies to political life no less than to industrial life. We live
under the fairest government on earth. But it is not self-sustaining.
Nor is that all. There are selfishness and injustice and evil in the
world. More than that, these forces are never at rest. Some desire to
use the processes of government for their own ends. Some desire to
destroy the authority of government altogether. Our institutions are
predicated on the rights and the corresponding duties, on the worth, of
the individual. It is to him that we must look for safety. We may need
new charters, new constitutions and new laws at times. We must always
have an alert and interested citizenship. We have no dependence but the
individual. New charters cannot save us. They may appear to help but the
chances are that the beneficial results obtained result from an
increased interest aroused by discussing changes. Laws do not make
reforms, reforms make laws. We cannot look to government. We must look
to ourselves. We must stand not in the expectation of a reward but with
a desire to serve. There will come out of government exactly what is put
into it. Society gets about what it deserves. It is the part of educated
men to know and recognize these principles and influences and knowing
them to inform and warn their fellow countrymen. Politics is the process
of action in public affairs. It is personal, it is individual, and
nothing more. Destiny is in you.