What's Wrong With Congress?

‘Our government is a government by party, and the absence of a strong and coherent opposition to the party in power, if long continued, is sure to develop all the worst features of oligarchic or despotic misrule.’

— RICHARD OLNEY

BY HENRY S. PRITCHETT

ON a February day of 1931, I had occasion to visit the Library of Congress. As I climbed the steps my attention was caught by the movement of hundreds of men, many of them in khaki, who filled the great steps and portico of the House of Representatives just opposite. I inquired of an elderly bystander the meaning of this semimilitary display. ‘That,’he replied, ‘is the charge of the bonus brigade; and,’he added, ‘it is the only charge that many of those boys ever made.’ A charge on the House of Representatives seemed so interesting that I followed in the wake of the column. The occasion of the charge, as one of t he legionaries explained to me, was ‘ to put the fear of God into the Congressmen’ so that they would pass the bill, coming up that morning, which provided for immediate cash payments of the present values of the adjusted-service certificates. The charge was highly successful. Without debate the measure was passed by a vote of 363 yeas to 39 nays. Ten days later the bill was passed over the President’s veto by a vote of 328 to 79. There was no doubt that the fear of God had been put into the hearts of the members of the House!

Probably none of these joyous young legionaries realized that he was engaged in overturning our form of government. But this is precisely what happens when the pressure of group lobbies supplants orderly parliamentary discussion and action. It was by this process that the legionaries of Rome started their government on the way of destruction. For no way has yet been found by which the liberties of a people can be preserved except through a free parliament chosen by the people; and no parliament can remain free if it is subservient to a dictator or to a militant group. For English-speaking peoples the question of a dictator over parliament was settled at Marston Moor and Naseby. The threat of dictation by an organized group still lurks in the shadows of some houses of parliament. On that February day of 1931, the threat was made good against the Congress of the United States.

I

The word ‘government’ derives from the Latin verb meaning to steer a ship. The significance of this origin is worth remembering. For no matter how many passengers the ship of state carries, the steering must be in the hands of a responsible body — whether consisting of an individual, or of a few, or of a group — whose decisions the whole body of citizens must accept.

The simplest solution is to turn the job over to one man.

This solution became unpopular about three hundred years ago. Parliaments, made up of representatives chosen by the people, constitute to-day the accepted method for enabling the whole people to have a part in choosing the course of the ship of state and in naming the steersman.

The nineteenth century witnessed a notable spread of the ideal of parliamentary government. As a result, control of government was in large measure taken out of the hands of autocratic monarchs and lodged in parliaments, to whom the executives, whether hereditary monarchs or elective presidents, were subject.

The twentieth century is only a third spent, yet it has seen an extraordinary reversal of this movement. The reins of government are being transferred from the parliaments back to the hands of autocratic rulers, or rather the autocrats have, with the acquiescence of their various peoples, taken the reins of government into their own hands. True, in most countries, parliaments remain, but in many, as in Italy, they are shorn of their powers.

On the whole our instrument of government set up a hundred and fifty years ago has worked well. It has survived the shock of civil war, the disintegrating tendencies of diverse economic interests, and the pressure upon its machinery due to the transformation of a small nation of farmers into one of a hundred and twenty-five millions. It is to-day one of the oldest governments in existence, and during its century and a half of life the people who live under it have enjoyed to as great an extent as any other people both civil liberty and material prosperity. Moreover, they have shared these advantages generously with all the peoples of the earth by welcoming to their shores the oppressed and discontented of every nation. It was assumed that these streams of humanity would merge peacefully into the broad current of American life under the beneficent influence of our free institutions, of which a free press is one of the most important.

In great measure this result has also been attained.

But to-day thoughtful men and women are troubled over the tremendous growth of the mass lobby and the part it plays in the enactment of legislation.

Many social, economic, and political factors have affected the functioning of the Congress. But these same complexities have confronted all parliamentary governments, — for example, that of Great Britain and of our neighbor Canada, — without such consequences as have befallen our legislative body. No lobby hangs about Westminster such as invades the halls of our Congress. No organization of Veterans threatens the British Member of Parliament with loss of his seat if he refuses to hand out billions for ‘adjusted compensation.’ Why have these things come about in our Republic?

In partial explanation of our legislative decadence, four reasons are evident — two due to the Congress and two to the people themselves.

First is the breakdown of the twoparty system, due to the absence of competent politicians. Second is the growing timidity of the Congress in the face of group lobbies, due in part to the increased compensation and perquisites the Congress has voted to its members since the Spanish War, and to the adjustment of Congressional life to the convenience of a single professional group — the lawyers.

On the other hand, the Congress has been subjected in the Veterans’ lobby to a pressure more subversive of good government than any agency of legislative intimidation ever set up in any other country. The people themselves are responsible for the existence of such an agency of legislative intimidation.

Finally, the voters of the United States have exhibited, to a greater extent than those in other Englishspeaking commonwealths, that apathy and neglect of political duty which have been the weakness of all government of the people by the people.

II

Hitherto only the English-speaking peoples have learned to make the compromises necessary to bring their politics into two parties.

No better example of the futility of seeking to conduct a republic on a multiple-party basis can be found than in the history of the short-lived German Republic whose collapse opened the way for the Hitler autocracy. The Weimar Constitution, modeled on those of England and the United States, broke down because the German politicians lacked the political judgment to compromise on a twoparty plan. Some thirty parties sprang up, and, although by gradual elimination these had been reduced in 1932 to eighteen, the situation was hopeless. Election after election was held and no party had a majority. It was a pathetic sight to see the earnestness with which German men and women went to the polls in the effort to work impossible governmental machinery.

The American Republic was inaugurated by a group of men who early in our history learned the fundamental rôle of party government. And, no matter what the names have been, the two parties represented the only fundamental cleavage upon which a party system can be built — one a party seeking to conserve the governmental régime, the other to change it. In the evolution of causes the party called conservative will sometimes favor a change and the liberal party will oppose it. But the people under a two-party system have the opportunity to decide who may govern, which they cannot have under any system of blocs.

Ever since the so-called ‘ progressive ’ campaign of 1912 there have remained in the Senate a group or bloc calling themselves ‘progressives’ but claiming at the same time the privileges of party membership.

When a man calls himself a ‘progressive’ or an ‘independent’ there is a natural tendency among forwardlooking people to regard him as a defender of the rights of the people in a sense that the loyal party man is not. Nothing could be more illusory than this naïve assumption. An incident in recent history well illustrates it.

The greatest legislative injustice ever inflicted upon American voters was the passage of legislation by the Congress that threw billions of dollars to the men drafted in the Great War. No country had treated its soldiers in that war with more generosity than had the United States, and no country provided so generously for those who suffered injury. But the Armistice was barely signed before there began, among the politically-minded of the enlisted men, an organization to repeat the history of the G. A. R. The American Legion, organized in Paris and chartered in 1919 by the Congress, stipulates in its charter that it shall be ‘non-political, and as an organization shall not promote the candidacy of any person seeking public office.’ This was an empty gesture. A lobby, the most powerful and grasping ever known in any country, was let loose upon the Congress.

The aim of the lobby was to enable every drafted man to dip his hand into the nation’s treasury. Not one in ten of these men had been under fire. The proposal was an outrage upon the nation and a reflection upon its former soldiers, many of whom were thoroughly ashamed of it. The war-worn veterans of the Great War in other nations had for it only contempt.

The reaction of our government to this selfish demand illustrates why the country has more faith in its Presidents than in its Congress, and throws light as well on the practical meaning of the word ‘progressive’ in politics.

Every President from Harding to Roosevelt has stood up like a man against the bonus outrage and in defense of the country’s honor, the Legion’s honor, and the interest of all the people. The reaction of the Congress makes a sorry contrast.

President Harding’s veto of the ‘Adjusted Compensation Act’ was sustained by the Congress. The bill was reintroduced at the next session with a more powerful lobby behind it. It was promptly passed in both houses. President Coolidge vetoed it on May 16, 1924, in a message that left it not a leg to stand on. A two-thirds vote in both houses is required to enact a measure over the presidential veto. The next day, under the threat of the lobby, both houses voted to override the veto. Twenty-six members of the House, who had voted for the bill when it passed, changed their votes on May 17 and supported the President’s veto. Nevertheless the veto was overridden in the House by the overwhelming majority of 313 to 78, with 15 absent and not voting. The House simply stampeded like a flock of frightened sheep.

There was a different situation in the Senate. The more thoughtful men of both parties realized the gravity of the question and voted to sustain the veto. The vote was close. The decision lay in the hands of the ‘progressive’ and ‘farmer labor’ groups, who are loudest in the claim that they are, in a special sense, defenders of the interests of the people. Of the men usually recognized as belonging to the ‘progressive’ group, Senator Borah voted to sustain the veto. Senator Hiram Johnson and Senator Norris, two of the most vocal of the ‘progressives,’ voted to override their President’s veto. That militant reformer, Senator La Follette, played a still sorrier role. He ducked by being absent without pairing, which was equivalent to a vote for the bonus. So close was the decision that the votes of Senators Johnson, La Follette, and Norris, if cast in favor of the veto, would have sustained it. Never have a group of professed reformers had a greater opportunity to serve their country, and never have such champions made a more cowardly showing.

The part played by the ‘ progressives ’ in breaking down party loyalty has been a blow at good government, however well-meaning the movement may have been. A clear-thinking man will make his fight inside his party councils (if his party ever holds councils), and if his difference is deep and irreconcilable he will give his allegiance to the party that expresses his conviction. A guerrilla sometimes makes a good shot, but guerrilla practice as a permanent rôle is not politics.

Party effectiveness has also been impaired by certain well-meant devices intended to circumvent the wily officeseeker, but which have played into his hands. Among these the direct primary is the most demoralizing.

When sincere and well-meaning members of the Congress are confronted with these facts they reply that, since the organization of the Legion, members of the Congress have been subjected to a pressure more ruthless than any other legislative body has had to meet. How large a proportion of the four millions of drafted men approve of the action of the Legion administration in bringing this pressure upon the Congress there is no way of knowing. Probably two things are true—the average legionnaire did not realize the nature of the blow his leaders were dealing against the fundamental principles of our government, and a minority in control were allowed to speak for the whole body. Like the three tailors of Tooley Street, who began their address, ‘We, the people of England,’ so the Legion managers based their campaign on the claim that they represented four million voters. The fact is they represented a greedy minority, while the great majority of legionnaires did not bestir themselves on behalf of their country and of their own honor. Milton’s line, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ may apply to selfish causes as well as noble ones. The legionnaire who stood by and did nothing was counted as a supporter of the treasury raiders.

The plain fact is that the integrity of our government is threatened by a group lobby claiming to speak for millions of ex-soldiers. Unless the voters of the various states will give serious thought to this matter and live up to the responsibilities of the ballot, the corruption of our political life in the next four decades will be beyond anything which any country has experienced with its soldiery since the days when Rome entered upon its decline.

III

It may seem trivial to mention in this connection the increase of compensation to members of the Congress as a factor affecting the morale of legislators. It will not seem trivial to those who have had long contact with public business, or who have themselves been members of the Congress.

For many years five thousand dollars was considered the limit of salary in Congress and among bureau chiefs. But in 1873 Congress passed a bill which came to be known as the ‘ Salary Grab.’ The act, besides providing for increases in the salaries of the President and of the Justices of the Supreme Court, raised the pay of Senators and Representatives from five thousand to seventy-five hundred dollars. The people approved of the increases of salary for the executive and for the justices, but the proposal to increase the pay of Congressmen (including back pay for two years at the increased figure) caused a popular explosion that sent many Congressmen back to private life and brought about a prompt repeal of the bill (so far as increases of Congressional pay were concerned). In 1873 the voters still assumed some responsibility for the behavior of their representatives in the Congress and kept an eye on their pay and perquisites.

After the Spanish War, there began a quiet but systematic boosting of the Congressman’s income and perquisites. To-day the governmental income of a Congressman consists partly of salary and partly of other emoluments whose exact money equivalent varies with individual practice. A member of our national parliament gets ten thousand dollars as pay, a mileage allowance, and from two to four personal clerks paid by the government. He franks his mail, and is furnished with an office which he uses mainly for his personal business. The pay for clerks, or at least a great part of it, is ‘ kept in the family ’ in many cases by appointing members of the Congressman’s family to these places. A considerable number of Congressmen appoint their wives chief clerk, thus enabling them to corral a salary from Uncle Sam. Altogether a Congressman’s compensation amounts to an equivalent of somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand dollars, depending on the individual thrift. He spends on the average about six months a year in Washington.

The rise in Congressional compensation, direct and indirect, is closely related to the fact that the American Congress, in striking contrast to the parliaments of other nations, is made up from a single professional group. Two thirds of the members of the Congress are lawyers.

As a rule American lawyers do not leave an active practice to enter politics. Most of these gentlemen in Congress have come from legal positions in their state or county government — prosecuting attorneys, assistant attorneys-general, and the like. When the prosecuting attorney at a county seat compares his own meagre salary with the pay and emoluments of a Congressman, these seem to him to constitute an income beyond the dreams of avarice. He begins to lay plans to go to Congress. The rise in the Congressional pay and perquisites has brought down upon the holder of a seat in Congress a far fiercer competition than existed in former days. As long as a Congressman lived on a pay comparable to that of a college professor, it did not make so much difference if he did go back to practise law. When the emoluments were increased, the desire to hold on to his place grew, and the competition for it became fiercer. Men became correspondingly timid and afraid.

The most unfortunate and far-reaching in its effects of these emoluments presented to Congressmen by their own votes was the acquisition of a private office and a staff of personal clerks at government expense.

When Mr. Cannon introduced a bill to erect an office building for the use of members of the House, he had not the faintest notion that the Senate would demand an office building also. Senators were fairly well supplied with committee rooms. Their numbers could never grow and an office building for the use of Senators was not thought necessary. But the Senate had no intention of giving the House an office building unless the Senate had one also. A long wrangle followed. It was resolved in the usual way when there comes a tug of war between House and Senate — both got what they demanded. Enormous office buildings were erected, connected with the two chambers by a costly underground passage. The consequences of this lavish expenditure have been more destructive of legislative morale than any other single measure.

In the first place, it has helped to clear the halls of members. Men speak to empty benches. A real debate on the floor has almost ceased to be. Congressmen pass their days in their private offices, and the whole process of Congressional life and the ideals of Congressional duty have been affected thereby. Honest debate in Congress on real questions has almost disappeared. Even the men who voted against the bonus did not get on their feet and set forth its injustice to the people whose money was being misused.

The huge private offices have also been a factor in the growth of lobbies. The ordinary lobbyist has no desire to crash the gates of Congress after the manner of the Legion. It is far more to his taste to make a quiet call on the Congressman in his private office than to hunt him down at his committee room. The sensibilities of the Congressman are also greatly relieved by this arrangement.

These two things, the decadence of party loyalty and the steady increase of pay and privilege, lie at the doors of the Congressmen themselves. But not once have the voters objected as in 1873.

IV

The situation which constitutional government faces in twentieth-century America is not wholly unlike that which confronted our English forefathers in the sixteenth century. The nations of Europe were moving away from the absolutism of the mediæval state and were seeking new sanctions for the conduct of national life. In our own country the provisions of the Constitution which sought to regulate the relations of citizens in the body politic do not protect the whole people against new forces that have arisen in our national life.

No student of politics in this country during the last thirty-five years can doubt that a distinct deterioration has taken place in our legislative morale. The fact that Congress is made up of lawyers of a certain type is no accident. Nor is it accidental that the emoluments added to the Congressman’s pay have become a source of demoralization. These emoluments — huge office buildings, a staff of clerks paid for by the government, the mail frank, unlimited ability to print and distribute mail at government expense — are precisely those that fit the vocational needs of a lawyer. In another generation, if these tendencies continue, the Congress will be made up of this type of professional Congressman taken from a single calling.

The forefathers, when they framed our Constitution, were thinking in terms of a small nation dwelling along the Atlantic littoral. They could not look into the future far enough to visualize a nation of a hundred million people occupying the whole continent, and with time and space practically obliterated. Their memories harked back to Charles Stuart. The fear of the interference of the executive with the legislative branch of the government was always present. They limited the presidential term to four years. They could not foresee that the invasion of the independence of the Congress would come, not from the executive, but from organized groups bringing pressure to bear upon the Congress for their own ends. Had they anticipated such an outcome, they would no doubt have made one of the houses of the Congress independent of such pressure by some such provisions as these: —

1. The President shall be elected for a term of six years and shall be ineligible for reëlection.

2. Members of the Senate shall be elected for a term of twelve years and shall be ineligible for reëlection.

3. Members of the House of Representatives shall be elected for a term of three years and the alternate Congressional elections shall synchronize with presidential elections.

We, their successors, with the experience of one hundred and fifty years behind us, may well ponder the wisdom of these changes, for legislative independence cannot permanently survive the onslaught of organized groups like that of the American Legion. Inspired by their success, other groups in the body politic are already preparing to follow the unfortunate example set by the Legion.

However devoted to his government an American may be, he is apprehensive, as he looks back upon parliamentary history, over two outstanding facts — the disappearance of leadership among our politicians, and the absence of the sense of responsibility in our composite citizenship. Once in four years, under the spur of a presidential campaign, American voters go to the polls. They take no interest in the choice of their legislators. Congressmen are chosen by the votes of small minorities.

If these are permanent habits of our democracy, it is difficult to see how government of the people through its elected representatives can endure. To the question, ‘What’s Wrong with Congress?’ the real answer is, ‘The People! ’