Sagebrush Rule

LADY ASTOR (in Moscow). But there is no freedom here in the Western sense. G. B. S. Well, at least they are free from the illusion of democracy.

IN motoring over thousands of miles of magnificent roads in Wyoming, Oregon, Colorado, and Idaho last summer, we sometimes passed only a few dozen automobiles or wagons during a whole day. In answer to my question how the states could possibly afford to spend the huge amounts that must have gone into the construction of these little-used roads, my hosts stated that the money came largely from the Federal treasury. I wondered why this money had not been spent for roads in the populous East, where a hundred persons would have benefited to every one who received any advantage from the expenditures actually made. This article endeavors to answer this question, and in addition calls attention to some other manifestations of the undemocratic nature and operation of our national government.

Under our system of Federal government, a measure, however strongly supported by the House and President, cannot become law without the affirmative vote of a majority in the Senate. The Senate is composed of two, and only two, members from each state. Twenty-five states containing only one fifth of the total population elect fifty out of the Senate’s ninety-six members, and thus, in final analysis, have power to control our Federal government. New York has 12,588,000 inhabitants, Nevada 91,058. Through his representation in the Senate, the citizen of Nevada outvotes the citizen of New York 139 to 1. With few exceptions the controlling electorates are Western and Southern agricultural states, the economic interests and mores of which (speaking in terms of majorities within the states) are frequently at wide variance with those of the populous industrial and commercial states. The Reform Act of 1832 wiped out Old Sarum and the other ‘rotten’ boroughs of England, but the rotten boroughs of our own national government flourish unabated.

I

The two-votes-a-state system is, of course, a creature of the original Constitution. The Constitution makers recognized, however, that the provision was intrinsically unfair, and adopted it only as a last resort to induce two or three of the smaller states to enter the proposed Union. In practical operation the system was at first not grossly unjust. Although Virginia, the largest of the original states, had twelve times the population (including slaves) of Delaware, the smallest, and Massachusetts had six times that of its neighbor Rhode Island, the lines of cleavage on economic and social matters did not follow the large and small state groupings.

The purely agricultural states included not only states of small population, such as Delaware, Georgia, and New Jersey, but also the populous states of Virginia and North Carolina. Likewise, the commercial and industrial states included the small states of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut as well as the large states of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York. The Puritanism of New England and the more cavalier point of view of the South and Central states likewise cut across the large and small state groups alike. The same was true of the slavery issue. Under these circumstances, there was relatively little practical injustice in giving the citizen of Rhode Island or Delaware a Federal vote worth several times as much as that of his neighbor across the line in Massachusetts or Virginia.

Up to the time of the Civil War there was no significant change in the situation as it existed in 1789. The differences in population between states had somewhat increased, but the extreme discrepancies which exist today had not yet developed. Furthermore, the balance between agriculture and industry in both the large and the small state groups had been, on the whole, maintained. The forging ahead of commerce and industry over agriculture in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts had been offset by admission to the Union of the large and predominantly agricultural states of Kentucky, Indiana, and Alabama.

In the years after the Civil War an entirely new situation developed. This period of amazing industrial and commercial expansion brought about an unprecedented concentration of population in the Eastern, industrial states. Half of the people in the entire country are now congregated in nine states, all but two of which, Texas and California, are predominantly industrial and commercial. This alone would have resulted in a seriously disproportionate representation between the industrial and commercial states on the one hand and the agricultural states on the other. But the disproportion was carried to a fantastic extreme by the admission to statehood of the eleven new, sparsely settled states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The combined population of these states, plus that of their neighbor, Oregon, even to-day is far less than that of New York State alone.

The differences in economic interest between the industrial states and the agricultural states are, to a considerable extent, paralleled by differences in their ethical points of view. The rural, Nordic, teetotaler constituents of the sagebrush Senators may perhaps be a more desirable type than the Celtic, Latin, Semitic, Anglo-Saxon, Teuton potpourri that predominates in the industrial East; but the question we are now considering is not whether an oligarchy selected from what may be the soundest stock in the country is best fitted to govern, but whether our government, as now constituted, is democratic.

Until recently, certain rules of the Senate gave the East an advantage which offset the disproportionate voting strength of the West. The rules provide that a bill cannot reach a vote unless it is reported out of committee with the consent of the committee’s chairman, and that the senior member of the committee (in point of service) from the political party in control shall be the chairman. Senators are notable for their longevity and for their ability to secure repeated reelection. Until well into the present century, almost all of the important Senate committees were headed by old-timers, the beginning of whose periods of service in the Senate antedated the time when the sagebrush states had been admitted to the Union. All these old stand-bys — Platt, Aldrich, Frye, Cullom, and the rest — have since died or retired, and to-day the West has its full proportion of Senate chairmanships, including those of the three powerful committees on Foreign Relations (Borah), Finance (Smoot), and Banking and Currency (Norbeck). The numerical voting strength of the West is, therefore, now fully effective.

Moreover, prior to the adoption in May 1913 of the Seventeenth Amendment, the undemocratic nature of the representation in the Senate was tempered by the fact that Senators were elected by the state legislatures, and not by popular vote. State legislators were usually party men, and, as such, chose Senators who could be counted on to stand by measures sponsored by a President elected as their party candidate — a candidate chosen by delegates apportioned roughly on the basis of population. Whatever its faults, this system gave to a majority of the nation ultimate, if somewhat remote, power of control over the Senate. The Seventeenth Amendment, coupled with the direct primary, has inaugurated a new era. Senators are no longer elected by dyed-in-the-wool party men, but by voters in the mass, many, perhaps most, of whom in the Northern states take pride in the fact that they are not regular party men; that they vote for whatever candidates best suit their particular tastes and interests. Borah, Norris, Frazier, and others thus find it possible to secure election to the Senate, nominally as Republicans, but on a programme having no necessary relation to that of their party. The sole qualification for nomination and election is that the candidate shall support the policies favored by his particular constituents. If the party as a whole has a different programme, so much the worse for it.

II

The first temptation to a dominant sectional minority naturally is to shift the cost of running the government to the rest of the country. This danger was forcibly pointed out in the debates in the Constitutional Convention on the question of representation in the Senate. The representatives of the smaller states argued that the provision requiring money bills to originate in the Lower House would be a sufficient safeguard. Madison, representing Virginia, challenged this, maintaining that the particular House in which a bill originates would prove to be of little practical significance. That he was right has been demonstrated again and again, but never more strikingly than in the enactment of the two greatest revenue-producing measures in our history — the Revenue Acts of 1918 and 1921. These measures, of course, ‘originated’ in the House. But the Senate put through 265 amendments to the 1918 Act and 760 amendments to the 1921 Act, and the bills as enacted were, in substance, Senate bills.

Convinced of the danger that the smaller states would, if unchecked, tend to use their disproportionate voting strength to saddle an excessive share of the cost of the Federal government on the larger states, Madison and the other large-state representatives successfully insisted upon the adoption of the provision in Article I (3) of the Constitution that ‘direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbersUnder this provision, if Pennsylvania, for example, had one tenth of the population, its citizens could not be forced to pay more than one tenth of any direct tax imposed by the Federal government. The inclusion of this protective provision was one of the principal inducements to Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York to accept the provision giving equal representation in the Senate to the smaller states.

This safeguard was swept away by the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified February 25, 1913, which provides that Congress shall have power to impose taxes on incomes ‘without regard to any census or enumerationUnder the sanction of this amendment, over two thirds of our Federal revenue is to-day raised by income taxes, and, despite the fact that the residents of the sagebrush states have a per capita wealth in excess of that of Eastern states, they pay (relatively speaking) almost no income tax. This is the result of various factors. Wealth is more equally distributed in the West than in the East, and the higher rates of income tax apply only to large incomes. A larger proportion of the wealth in the West than in the East is invested in homes occupied by their owners, and the rental value of a self-owned home is not subject to income tax in the United States, as it is, for example, in England. Finally, the income of all corporations, no matter how small their capital and income may be, is subject to a heavy tax, and most business in the East is carried on through corporations, while farms are rarely incorporated. Whatever the reasons, the fact is that during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1931, the entire tier of twelve sagebrush states paid an aggregate of only 34 million dollars of Federal income tax, against 35 millions collected in little Connecticut alone, and 614 millions in New York.

It is impossible to prove just how far the over-representation of the West in the Senate is responsible for its immunity, or near-immunity, from Federal taxation. The controversies over a revenue bill usually take place in committee, and an analysis of the Senate vote on the final passage of a revenue bill gives no real clue to the struggles and compromises which take place in framing it. It is significant, however, that on the amendment to reduce the rates of surtax in the 1928 Revenue Bill the sagebrush Senators (whether from sectional motives or for altruistic reasons) in fact voted almost to a man against this amendment, which would have given some relief to the East from the extreme disproportion of Federal tax burden which it now bears. There is no sound objection to high surtaxes as a war or other emergency measure, but to make a practice of limiting taxation to the few is the surest road to extravagant and inefficient government. Relieve the average citizen of the cost of government, and you remove his chief incentive for taking a serious interest in securing an honest and efficient administration.

III

The sectional attitude of the sagebrush Senators on taxes has been matched by their stand in the matter of expenditures. There has grown up in recent years a system of so-called Federal ‘aids’ to the states, of which much the most costly is that for the construction of state highways, such as those referred to in the opening paragraph of this discussion. This road subsidy, inaugurated in 1916 under the innocent guise of a bill to open up new post roads, was amended to substantially its present form in 1921. The votes in the Senate both in 1916 and in 1921 were unrecorded. But the votes in the House show almost unanimous opposition to the Act, both in 1916 and in 1921, on the part of the representatives of New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, and almost unanimous support for the Act from the sagebrush states, which were to be among the chief beneficiaries under it.

The original appropriations under this ‘Federal Highway Act’ were spent long ago, but fresh and ever-increasing appropriations under the Act have been made from year to year as part of the general appropriations for the Department of Agriculture, or as one of the items of an omnibus Deficiencies Appropriation Bill, thus making it impossible for the opponents of the appropriation to vote against it without jeopardizing other appropriations of vital national importance. The roads appropriation for 1930 reached the enormous sum of one hundred and twenty million dollars.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the unfairness of this road-subsidy measure. The Act provides that the subsidy shall be apportioned on the basis of three equal factors: population, area, and mileage of rural-free-delivery routes. The last two factors give an overwhelming advantage to the sagebrush states, which are the very states that contribute least toward the fund from which the subsidies are paid. These twelve states, which contain less than 6 per cent of the total population and pay less than 2 per cent of the total Federal income taxes, received 20 per cent of the 1930 road subsidy. Five of them — Idaho, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming — receive from the Federal government in the form of this direct subsidy alone from two to four times as much as they pay in Federal income taxes, and considerably more than their entire estimated contributions to the Federal government. So far as the upkeep of our national government is concerned, they are having a free ride at the expense of the industrial East.

Moreover, far from being satisfied with their present favored position, the demands of the prairie states are constantly increasing. The latest attempted raid on the Treasury was the Farm Debenture scheme, which provided that the farmers should be paid in Federal debentures a subsidy of twenty-one cents a bushel on wheat, approximately ten dollars a bale on cotton, and similarly large bounties on other farm products exported from this country. This was primarily a Democratic measure, but nine Republican Senators from the sagebrush states deserted their party and joined with Democratic members of the Upper House to pass this unsound measure. But for the rejection of this bill by the Lower House, the Western Senators might have fastened on this country the most costly subsidy it has ever known.

Something must be done, if possible, to protect the populous East from this and similar legislation designed to promote the selfish, sectional interests of the sagebrush states.

IV

The Constitution expressly provides that ‘no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.’ The collective voting strength of the sagebrush Senators is therefore indestructible and will continue permanently to give them a position of undue power. But their present overwhelming predominance would be reduced if the support afforded them by Eastern liberals, which gives the words and acts of these Senators a nation-wide backing, were withdrawn. This support is based on the assumption that the Western Senators are the champions of liberalism, an assumption which is demonstrably unwarranted.

The test of a politician’s statesmanship is his votes. Fine speech, unsupported by legislative action, is so much cant. Mention has already been made of the sectionalism reflected in the votes of the sagebrush Senate group ¹ on the surtax and Farm Debenture proposals. Their votes on the proposed Senate amendments to the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Bill are even more illuminating. Here in the compass of a few weeks is a record of decisions on a wide variety of significant questions, as the following analysis of the record of Senator Borah will show. On many issues, not involving the peculiar economic interests of his constituents, Senator Borah has taken a liberal and farseeing point of view, and we have chosen to analyze his particular record not because it is especially vulnerable (which it is not), but because the senior Senator from Idaho is the most conspicuous and powerful, yet at the same time a representative, member of his group.

The Republican majority in the Senate supported increases in the House rates of duty on pig iron, wire, aluminum, certain other manufactured articles, wool, and hides. Senator Borah and most of his sagebrush colleagues joined with the Democratic members of the Senate in defeating the proposed increases on manufactured articles. This was heralded by many as another example of the Senator’s splendid independence and statesmanship. So it might be if he had voted consistently against all tariff increases — although even then one might well question the ethics of securing election as a Republican and then deserting the party on critical votes. But there was no such consistency. When it came to the tariff on wool and hides, which were already highly protected, Senator Borah and his sagebrush colleagues voted with the majority in favor of the proposed increase. By what possible stretch of the imagination can it be considered liberal statesmanship to vote against tariff increases in general if this vote is accompanied by votes in favor of tariff increase on commodities, already highly protected, produced by one’s own constituents?

Had the matter stopped with this, it might at least be said that, if Senator Borah’s record on the tariff is no better, neither is it any worse than the average. But this was only the beginning. Four amendments to the House bill, dealing with matters other than the mere increase or decrease in specific rates of duty, were clearly adverse to the interest of the country as a whole or to sections of it. Idaho, however, might derive some sectional benefit from the adoption of the respective amendments, and in every case Senator Borah voted ‘Yea.’

The first of these amendments, introduced by Senator Howell of Nebraska, provided for a bounty of approximately one-half cent a pound on ‘sugar produced in Continental United States only.’ This amendment was not designed to assist American sugar growers as a whole. On the contrary, it was evident that it must cripple the sugar industry of Hawaii, which is not in the continental United States, by giving to the sugar producers of Nebraska, Idaho, Louisiana, and certain other agricultural states a differential that would permit them to undersell their Hawaiian competitors. Here is bonus legislation in its most vicious form; a type of legislation which, if given a foothold, would be utterly subversive to fairness and decency in our national government. The amendment fortunately was defeated, but its defeat was accomplished in spite of, not with, the support of Senator Borah.

The next proposed amendment was a rider to the tariff bill designed to put over the Farm Debenture measure, which had been defeated in its original appearance as a part of the Farm Marketing Act. With an eye not to national but to purely sectional advantage, Senator Borah voted with his sagebrush colleagues, Ashurst, Bratton, Cutting, Frazier, Hayden, Howell, McMaster, Norbeck, Norris, Nye, Pittman, Thomas, Walsh, and Wheeler, in favor of this pernicious measure.

The third amendment was a measure included here for consideration, not because of the importance of its subject matter, but by reason of its very pettiness. It dealt with the exemption of tourists from duty on articles imported for personal use. The existing exemption was being abused by persons living in border states, who would do their shopping in Canada or Mexico and then bring back their purchases into the United States, duty free. The amendment in question was designed to put a stop to this practice by providing that ‘residents of the United States shall not take advantage of the provision herein granted within a period of 30 days from the last exemption claimed.’ Your atlas will show that Idaho has a panhandle jutting up to the Canadian border. Senator Borah voted with eighteen other border Senators to strike out this thirty-day limitation.

The last of the four amendments was introduced by Senator Walsh of Montana. The tariff law had long permitted American flour mills to import foreign wheat (under bond) free from duty, provided it was manufactured into flour solely for export. If the flour was sold for domestic consumption, the import duty must be paid. Most of the wheat so imported comes from Canada, and, but for this provision, would be milled in Canada instead of in American mills. The abolition of this privilege would force United States millers to build new plants on the Canadian side of the border or lose their Canadian wheat business. The amendment would have produced no permanent benefit to the American farmer — only loss to the American miller. Temporarily, however, the amendment might have given an advantage to the American wheat grower, because, until Canadian subsidiaries could be established, American millers might have been forced to supply their foreign customers with flour milled from American wheat. Idaho is to a considerable extent a wheat-growing state, and Senator Borah, as has been stated, voted in favor of this amendment. Is support of shoddy measures of this kind reconcilable with statesmanship — liberal or otherwise?

The ‘masses ’ are perhaps in need of a Ramsay MacDonald or Arthur Henderson to make their wants politically articulate. But in this country everyone in political life has a multitude of local interests, which, rightly or wrongly, he regards as paramount. The liberal support given to the Western insurgent leaders does more to strengthen their effectiveness in extracting funds from the common treasury for local benefits than it does to advance liberal measures. It is high time for the Eastern liberals to turn away their eyes from the trans-Missourian plains and try to find a leader whose local interests are more in harmony with the requirements of the general welfare.