Politics

THE war against the liquor-dealer bids fair to spread over the surface of the habitable globe. Beginning a generation ago in an obscure community on this side of the Atlantic, it rapidly extended itself throughout most of the Northern States of America, then through England, and now we hear of devotees of the cause making their appearance even in Russia. The length of time during which the cause has maintained itself, the ardor of the prohibitionists, and the importance of the subject itself, all show that the popular feeling is no momentary whim, but a genuine and deep sentiment, which must be taken into grave consideration by all those who are inter ested in government. It has been laughed at, reasoned against, and voted against for a generation, and it is to-day stronger than ever. The parallel which we have just suggested — between the zeal which now animates the vast legions of the “Alliance" in England, of the prohibitionists in America, and their new allies in Russia, and the zeal which a thousand years ago animated the hosts which marched out of Europe under Peter the Hermit to rescue the Holy Land from the Paynim — though curious, is not in reality very far-fetched. The early crusades were religious ; this crusade, though directed to a moral end, is guided by religious leaders. The early crusades manifested a reckless disregard of consequences ; and so do also the hosts of Neal Dow and Dr. Miner. If the Holy Land could be rescued from the infidel, that was enough. Whether it ever could be held by the Christians was a question which troubled no one. And so to-day it is not prevention, but prohibition, which is demanded.

At the present moment, parliamentary bodies all over the world are engaged in enacting laws for the prohibition or restriction of the sale of intoxicating liquors. In Massachusetts a controversy is raging, now in the Legislature and now in the courts, over the exception of malt liquors from the prohibitory statute in force. In New Jersey a constitutional war over the “ local-option clause ” has been going on. In many of the other States some legislation will probably be had during the next few months. Under these circumstances it cannot be inappropriate if we call attention to one or two considerations connected with the subject which are habitually overlooked, and which yet have a direct bearing upon its ultimate decision.

It is not with the old question of license or prohibition that we propose to deal. We take it to be settled by a long and painful experience, in the minds of all those who are not actually engaged in the struggle itself, that absolute prevention is out of the question ; that men will drink, it not openly, then secretly ; and that the effect of prohibitory laws is thoroughly bad. Restriction by way of license is the only other means left, and the license system is now in vogue in some States. The theory on which the license system rests is, that, though the sale of liquors cannot be prevented, it may be placed by the government in good or bad hands, and that it is the duty of the government to see that it is in good hands ; that if the licensee makes a bad use of his license, it is the duty of the government to revoke his authority.

It cannot be denied that licensing has generally proved a failure. The effect of it has not been to restrict sales, but really to throw the business open to all. Licenses have proved no guaranty for the character of public houses, bars, hotels, or restaurants. In Massachusetts the license system and the prohibitory system have each alternately proved the best argument in favor of the introduction of the other. No doubt this has been mainly due to the generally low tone of political character throughout the country : it is idle to expect a good license system, when the hands which issue the licenses are corrupt or clumsy, and the eyes which inspect the licensees are blinded by partisanship or something worse. But this does not exhaust the matter. There are other difficulties connected with the subject which will have to be removed before a good licensing system can be obtained.

The radical defect in all the plans which have yet been proposed is that no provision has been made in any of them for the responsibility of the seller for violation of his license. In theory he is always responsible to somebody, either the selectmen or the supervisors or the judges. In theory, top, this responsibility is enforced in cases of violation by the revocation of the license. But who ever heard of a liquor license being revoked ? Those who are in theory charged with the duty of supervising the seller never do supervise him. And the question is, whether this difficulty can be surmounted. If we assume at the outset, as the theorists of thirty years ago did, that the only means of securing official responsibility is universal suffrage, the difficulty is at an end. But few people, after the experience of this method which we have had, can be induced to make the necessary assumption. The alternative generally proposed is a long and secure tenure of office. Once give officials confidence, it is said, that their reputation is in their own hands, that their tenure of office depends, not on the necessities of party, but on their own good behavior, and the natural desire of every man to make the most of his opportunities will be a quite sufficient motive to keep him in the straight path. If he goes wrong, let him be removed from office. And there can be little doubt that, of the two plans for securing efficiency and honesty in administration, both reason and experience point to the latter. But it is not at this point that the difficulty arises. We are all agreed that the first step in administrative reform must be by making the tenure of office different from what it is now. But when that is done, when we have a reformed civil service and a judiciary appointed for life, much will remain uneffected. When we have secured these reforms, we shall only be in the same position in which our predecessors stood in 1846 ; and even in 1846 the world was not perfect.

The question, then, which we think is yet in need of a solution, and which will remain unsolved, even with a reformed civil service and a reformed judiciary, is this : how to secure official responsibility for negligence, incapacity, or malfeasance. The reforms we are interested now in carrying through have in view the admirable object of getting into office good men ; the question will still remain how to get bad men out. The question is an old one, and has often arisen in political debates, but it has always been answered in an unsatisfactory and feeble manner.

The most ancient and familiar method is that of impeachment. The danger of a solemn trial and removal from office, it was once supposed, was enough to terrify the most brazen official into rectitude. But we have ample evidence that this did not prove so, even in those early times in which the penalty, on conviction of high crimes and misdemeanors, was not infrequently the scaffold. In England, certainly down to a very late period, the danger of impeachment has been so remote that it has had no deterrent effect whatever. In this country, since the trial of Andrew Johnson, impeachment proceedings have been a farce. There has been at least one impeachment trial in almost every Southern State ; and each trial has been more ridiculously partisan than the one preceding.

The reason why impeachment has failed is a simple one : it has hardly ever been for any one’s interest to move in honest impeachment. The official against whom accusations are made is almost always of the same party with the court which tries him ; when he is not, the proceedings merely become partisan. And this will remain so, as long as the spoils of office include the distribution of official positions among the dominant party. It may be supposed that this danger will, with a reformed civil service, be removed : on the contrary, it will be increased. What slight sense of responsibility there may now be for acts committed by party adherents will then be gone, for the civil servants of the government will not any longer be party adherents. And the inertia of public bodies is always so great that houses of representatives will be but little likely to take measures for the impeachment of an official whom they had no share in appointing, and whose removal will bring with it no patronage. Under the present system it may occasionally be for some one’s interest to move an impeachment : with a reformed service, it will be for no one’s interest. Even as an attack on the administration, the impeachment of subordinate officials, to whom alone the competitive system will apply, is never likely to become popular, partly because of the cumbrous and antique character of the proceeding. A “ ventilation ” or “ exposure ” through the press will be a far simpler means of making party capital ; and there will always be something too laughable for serious politics in the preference of articles of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors against an obscure collector of internal revenue or a country postmistress.

One other method has been tried ; and that is the one which the civil-service commissioners propose to retain, — the right of removal by the executive. The commissioners are of the opinion that, in order to increase official responsibility for misconduct, it is of the last importance that this power should remain where it is. The President, they say, under the new system, will have no inducement to continue improper appointments, and every motive of patriotism and reputation will impel him in such cases to revoke commissions.

This brings us at once to the principle which, in discussions on this subject, has been always overlooked, and is yet the one on which the whole matter hinges. This principle is that the only means of securing official responsibility is by placing the power of effecting a removal from office in the hands of those who have a direct interest in the faithful performance of the duties of the office.

This principle is one which rests, not on tradition, but on fundamental facts. It would hold good under any form of government. To be sure, under a monarchy or an empire, the means of carrying it into effect might be different from the methods which the conditions of democracy would necessitate ; but the principle would still hold good, because in all forms of government the fact upon which it rests would still exist. That fact is the inertia of salaried officials and public bodies, and the routine of political life. That the employees of government always do their work with less zeal than those engaged in private employment, that they make it their aim to establish a minimum of efficient work, instead of throwing themselves heart and soul into their occupation, is a fact which has long been admitted by all who have given attention to the scientific study of government. This is a necessary consequence of the system of salaries, and it was in order to get over this difficulty that the fee-system was first introduced. But the evil of the fee-system, at all events as we see it practised by the Leets and Stockings of the present day, seems to outweigh the disadvantage on the other side ; and we are much more likely to see the system of salaries extended and perfected than any other. The salaried official, as we have said, whether he be congressman, judge, president, or postmaster, works in a rut, and prefers to work in a rut, and does his work far better in than out of his rut. The business of enforcing official responsibility by removal from office, however, is not one of routine ; it is not, or ought not to be, a matter of every day ; it is a solemn and disagreeable duty. There is probably no task more irksome or odious to the vast majority of mankind than that of preferring charges against their fellow-men. The man who should habitually undertake the work would acquire, as the professional informer does, a reputation too odious to be borne. Yet it is a business which must be performed ; it is to the last degree unlikely that any of the ordinary motives of patriotism or duty will induce superior officials to move in the matter. Some extraordinary motive must be brought into play. And the only motive which can be confidently relied upon is interest.

To some of our readers this argument may seem vague ; an application of it to some of the practical questions of the day may serve to render it more plain.

The responsibility of such officials as mayors and aldermen for official misconduct under the present system in most of the United States is theoretically secured in two ways. Officials who have been guilty of misconduct may be removed, either by impeachment or, at the end of their term, by a new election. The value of these constitutional provisions we have recently had the opportunity of testing in the struggle with the ring in New York. The antiquated and unpractical character of impeachment has rendered this remedy not only out of the question, but ludicrously impossible. The only resource left is election. And it is true that, by means of a spasmodic exercise of public virtue, such as a community is capable of making once in a generation, men like Hall, Tweed, Conolly, and Sweeney may be got out of office, and a legislature elected which may, possibly, prevent the creation of a new ring, and on the other hand is almost as likely to create a ring of its own. Considering the open robbery by which New York was plundered, and the close approach of the city to actual bankruptcy, it cannot be denied that the election of a legislature and municipal government for which the most that can be said is, that their character is doubtful, is rather a lame and impotent beginning for reform, whatever conclusion the good luck of New York may bring. And, moreover, it cannot be said that the means of removal afforded by election is of much value ; as the careers of Tweed and his confederates have proved that a single term of office is quite enough to give opportunity for the most profitable rascality.

Suppose that, instead of the antiquated machinery of the present Constitution of New York, provision for the removal of delinquent mayors, aldermen, or commissioners had been made by placing the means of removal in the hands of those who have a direct pecuniary interest in the good administration of such officers, — in the hands of the tax-payers. Suppose that it had been required that, on the petition of a certain proportion of the tax-payers of the city, a corrupt mayor should be peremptorily tried in a court of justice, like any other suspected felon, and, if found guilty, removed. Can any one doubt that Hall and his confederates would have found their vile careers much more perilous than they actually proved ? No doubt it will be objected to this plan, that it opens the door to intriguing petitions, — petitions designed with a view, not to getting rid of dishonest or incompetent officials, but to making an office vacant for the petitioners’ friends. This objection, however, has really nothing in it. To imagine that any considerable number of tax-payers (of course it would have to be provided that they should not be office-holders) would make a combination for political ends of this kind, is to imagine a capacity for political chicane which the non-political classes are far from possessing. Men actively engaged in commerce and trade have little time for political intrigue ; the history of New York shows that such little time as they can be induced to devote to politics is mainly given because of their fear of the effect of maladministration upon their property.

As to Federal offices, the civil-service commissioners have, as we said above, recommended that the power of removal be retained where it now is, that is, in the hands of the President. The head of the administration, it is said, as he appoints, ought to have the power of removal. Undoubtedly with a reformed civil service, the President’s power of removal would not be so dangerous as it is now. But it may certainly be doubted whether the heads of departments have not a far more direct interest in the faithful performance of their duties by their subordinates than the President. The true system would seem to be, responsibility of the subordinate officials to the heads of departments ; the latter, of course, being responsible to the President. If, in addition to this, some plan could be devised by which charges could, at any time, be preferred by a certain number of those who have a direct pecuniary interest in the administration of these offices, the machinery would be made still better.

To return now to the liquor question, let us see whether the principle cannot be applied to license. As we said before, the reason the license system always breaks down is that the supervision of the licensees is purely theoretic and never takes place. But it would take place, if we could place the right of inspection in the hands of those who have a direct interest in the faithful execution of the authority of the license. Those who have this direct interest are not the supervisors or selectmen, to whom the duty is usually intrusted. There is, however, a class in every community to whom the sale of liquor is a matter of vital interest, inasmuch as it not infrequently involves them in beggary and ruin. This class consists of the married women. And it is in the hands of the married women that we would place the right of inspection. That is to say, we would have the law provide, as in the other cases, a judicial investigation into the licensee’s conduct, upon the motion of a certain number of the married women of the community, and we would have the proof of his misconduct peremptorily followed by the withdrawal of his license. A dim perception of the necessity of some provision of this kind has before now occurred to legislators ; but the idea has only found expression in the enactment, in some States, that a married woman may forbid the sale of liquor to her husband. But this provision is useless ; because, although she may forbid it, if she is an unusually brave and independent woman, she cannot prevent it. A perpetual supervision of men’s habits by their wives would break up family life in a very short time. But a supervision of fiquor-dealers would not.

These suggestions we have made rather for the purpose of calling attention to the principle which ought to govern in all constitutional arrangements providing for the removal of delinquent officials, not because we are wedded to any of the details proposed. The principle is a fundamental and eternal one in politics; the method of using it must be governed by circumstances. It will be seen that the changes we propose would all tend to increase the power of the judiciary : there may be some people who think this is a dangerous experiment. Of course we suppose in all our changes a pure judiciary, and we would have judges themselves subjected to the same tests which we have proposed for other officials.