Theodore Roosevelt: an Autobiography — Ch 05-Applied Idealism, pt 2

So much for most of the opposition to the reform.

There was, however, some honest and at least partially justifiable opposition both to certain of the methods advocated by Civil Service Reformers and to certain of the Civil Service Reformers themselves.

The pet shibboleths of the opponents of the reform were that the system we proposed to introduce would give rise to mere red-tape bureaucracy, and that the reformers were pharisees.

Neither statement was true.

Each statement contained some truth.

If men are not to be appointed by favoritism, wise or unwise, honest or dishonest, they must be appointed in some automatic way, which generally means by competitive examination.

The easiest kind of competitive examination is an examination in writing.

This is entirely appropriate for certain classes of work, for lawyers, stenographers, typewriters, clerks, mathematicians, and assistants in an astronomical observatory, for instance.

It is utterly inappropriate for carpenters, detectives, and mounted cattle inspectors along the Rio Grande--to instance three types of employment as to which I had to do battle to prevent well-meaning bureaucrats from insisting on written competitive entrance examinations.

It would be quite possible to hold a very good competitive examination for mounted cattle inspectors by means of practical tests in brand reading and shooting with rifle and revolver, in riding "mean" horses and in roping and throwing steers.

I did my best to have examinations of this kind instituted, but my proposal was of precisely the type which most shocks the routine official mind, and I was never able to get it put into practical effect.

The important point, and the point most often forgotten by zealous Civil Service Reformers, was to remember that the routine competitive examination was merely a means to an end.

It did not always produce ideal results.

But it was normally better than a system of appointments for spoils purposes; it sometimes worked out very well indeed; and in most big governmental offices it not only gave satisfactory results, but was the only system under which good results could be obtained.

For instance, when I was Police Commissioner we appointed some two thousand policemen at one time.

It was utterly impossible for the Commissioners each to examine personally the six or eight thousand applicants.

Therefore they had to be appointed either on the recommendation of outsiders or else by written competitive examination.

The latter method--the one we adopted--was infinitely preferable.

We held a rigid physical and moral pass examination, and then, among those who passed, we held a written competitive examination, requiring only the knowledge that any good primary common school education would meet--that is, a test of ordinary intelligence and simple mental training.

Occasionally a man who would have been a good officer failed, and occasionally a man who turned out to be a bad officer passed; but, as a rule, the men with intelligence sufficient to enable them to answer the questions were of a type very distinctly above that of those who failed.

The answers returned to some of the questions gave an illuminating idea of the intelligence of those answering them.

For instance, one of our questions in a given examination was a request to name five of the New England States.

One competitor, obviously of foreign birth, answered: "England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Cork."

His neighbor, who had probably looked over his shoulder but who had North of Ireland prejudices, made the same answer except that he substituted Belfast for Cork.

A request for a statement as to the life of Abraham Lincoln elicited, among other less startling pieces of information, the fact that many of the applicants thought that he was a general in the Civil War; several thought that he was President of the Confederate States;

three thought he had been assassinated by Jefferson Davis, one by Thomas Jefferson, one by Garfield, several by Guiteau, and one by Ballington Booth--the last representing a memory of the fact that he had been shot by a man named Booth, to whose surname the writer added the name with which he was most familiar in connection therewith.

A request to name five of the States that seceded in 1861 received answers that included almost every State in the Union.

It happened to be at the time of the silver agitation in the West, and the Rocky Mountain States accordingly figured in a large percentage of the answers.

Some of the men thought that Chicago was on the Pacific Ocean.

Others, in answer to a query as to who was the head of the United States Government, wavered between myself and Recorder Goff; one brilliant genius, for inscrutable reasons, placed the leadership in the New York Fire Department.

Now of course some of the men who answered these questions wrong were nevertheless quite capable of making good policemen; but it is fair to assume that on the average the candidate who has a rudimentary knowledge of the government, geography, and history of his country is a little better fitted, in point of intelligence, to be a policeman than the one who has not.

Therefore I felt convinced, after full experience, that as regards very large classes of public servants by far the best way to choose the men for appointment was by means of written competitive examination.

But I absolutely split off from the bulk of my professional Civil Service Reform friends when they advocated written competitive examinations for promotion.

In the Police Department I found these examinations a serious handicap in the way of getting the best men promoted, and never in any office did I find that the written competitive promotion examination did any good.

The reason for a written competitive entrance examination is that it is impossible for the head of the office, or the candidate's prospective immediate superior, himself to know the average candidate or to test his ability.

But when once in office the best way to test any man's ability is by long experience in seeing him actually at work.

His promotion should depend upon the judgment formed of him by his superiors.

So much for the objections to the examinations.

Now for the objections to the men who advocated the reform.

As a rule these men were high-minded and disinterested.

Certain of them, men like the leaders in the Maryland and Indiana Reform Associations, for instances, Messrs. Bonaparte and Rose, Foulke and Swift, added common sense, broad sympathy, and practical efficiency to their high-mindedness.

But in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston there really was a certain mental and moral thinness among very many of the leaders in the Civil Service Reform movement.

It was this quality which made them so profoundly antipathetic to vigorous and intensely human people of the stamp of my friend Joe Murray--who, as I have said, always felt that my Civil Service Reform affiliations formed the one blot on an otherwise excellent public record.

The Civil Service Reform movement was one from above downwards, and the men who took the lead in it were not men who as a rule possessed a very profound sympathy with or understanding of the ways of thought and life of their average fellow-citizen.

They were not men who themselves desired to be letter-carriers or clerks or policemen, or to have their friends appointed to these positions.

Having no temptation themselves in this direction, they were eagerly anxious to prevent other people getting such appointments as a reward for political services.

In this they were quite right.

It would be impossible to run any big public office to advantage save along the lines of the strictest application of Civil Service Reform principles; and the system should be extended throughout our governmental service far more widely than is now the case.

But there are other and more vital reforms than this.

Too many Civil Service Reformers, when the trial came, proved tepidly indifferent or actively hostile to reforms that were of profound and far-reaching social and industrial consequence.

Many of them were at best lukewarm about movements for the improvement of the conditions of toil and life among men and women who labor under hard surroundings, and were positively hostile to movements which curbed the power of the great corporation magnates and directed into useful instead of pernicious channels the activities of the great corporation lawyers who advised them.

Most of the newspapers which regarded themselves as the especial champions of Civil Service Reform and as the highest exponents of civic virtue, and which distrusted the average citizen and shuddered over the "coarseness" of the professional politicians, were, nevertheless, given to vices even more contemptible than, although not so gross as, those they denounced and derided.

Their editors were refined men of cultivated tastes, whose pet temptations were backbiting, mean slander, and the snobbish worship of anything clothed in wealth and the outward appearances of conventional respectability.

They were not robust or powerful men; they felt ill at ease in the company of rough, strong men; often they had in them a vein of physical timidity.

They avenged themselves to themselves for an uneasy subconsciousness of their own shortcomings by sitting in cloistered--or, rather, pleasantly upholstered--seclusion, and sneering at and lying about men who made them feel uncomfortable.

Sometimes these were bad men, who made them feel uncomfortable by the exhibition of coarse and repellent vice; and sometimes they were men of high character, who held ideals of courage and of service to others, and who looked down and warred against the shortcomings of swollen wealth, and the effortless, easy lives of those whose horizon is bounded by a sheltered and timid respectability.

These newspapers, owned and edited by these men, although free from the repulsive vulgarity of the yellow press, were susceptible to influence by the privileged interests, and were almost or quite as hostile to manliness as they were to unrefined vice--and were much more hostile to it than to the typical shortcomings of wealth and refinement.

They favored Civil Service Reform; they favored copyright laws, and the removal of the tariff on works of art; they favored all the proper (and even more strongly all the improper) movements for international peace and arbitration; in short, they favored all good, and many goody-goody, measures so long as they did not cut deep into social wrong or make demands on National and individual virility.

They opposed, or were lukewarm about, efforts to build up the army and the navy, for they were not sensitive concerning National honor; and, above all, they opposed every non-milk-and-water effort, however sane, to change our social and economic system in such a fashion as to substitute the ideal of justice towards all for the ideal of kindly charity from the favored few to the possibly grateful many.

Some of the men foremost in the struggle for Civil Service Reform have taken a position of honorable leadership in the battle for those other and more vital reforms.

But many of them promptly abandoned the field of effort for decency when the battle took the form, not of a fight against the petty grafting of small bosses and small politicians--a vitally necessary battle, be it remembered--but of a fight against the great intrenched powers of privilege, a fight to secure justice through the law for ordinary men and women, instead of leaving them to suffer cruel injustice either because the law failed to protect them or because it was twisted from its legitimate purposes into a means for oppressing them.

One of the reasons why the boss so often keeps his hold, especially in municipal matters, is, or at least has been in the past, because so many of the men who claim to be reformers have been blind to the need of working in human fashion for social and industrial betterment.

Such words as "boss" and "machine" now imply evil, but both the implication the words carry and the definition of the words themselves are somewhat vague.

A leader is necessary; but his opponents always call him a boss.

An organization is necessary; but the men in opposition always call it a machine.

Nevertheless, there is a real and deep distinction between the leader and the boss, between organizations and machines.

A political leader who fights openly for principles, and who keeps his position of leadership by stirring the consciences and convincing the intellects of his followers, so that they have confidence in him and will follow him because they can achieve greater results under him than under any one else, is doing work which is indispensable in a democracy.

The boss, on the other hand, is a man who does not gain his power by open means, but by secret means, and usually by corrupt means.

Some of the worst and most powerful bosses in our political history either held no public office or else some unimportant public office.

They made no appeal either to intellect or conscience.

Their work was done behind closed doors, and consisted chiefly in the use of that greed which gives in order that in return it may get.

A boss of this kind can pull wires in conventions, can manipulate members of the Legislature, can control the giving or withholding of office, and serves as the intermediary for bringing together the powers of corrupt politics and corrupt business.

If he is at one end of the social scale, he may through his agents traffic in the most brutal forms of vice and give protection to the purveyors of shame and sin in return for money bribes.

If at the other end of the scale, he may be the means of securing favors from high public officials, legislative or executive, to great industrial interests; the transaction being sometimes a naked matter of bargain and sale, and sometimes being carried on in such manner that both parties thereto can more or less successfully disguise it to their consciences as in the public interest.

The machine is simply another name for the kind of organization which is certain to grow up in a party or section of a party controlled by such bosses as these and by their henchmen, whereas, of course, an effective organization of decent men is essential in order to secure decent politics.

If these bosses were responsible for nothing but pure wickedness, they would probably last but a short time in any community.

And, in any event, if the men who are horrified by their wickedness were themselves as practical and as thoroughly in touch with human nature, the bosses would have a short shrift.

The trouble is that the boss does understand human nature, and that he fills a place which the reformer cannot fill unless he likewise understands human nature.

Sometimes the boss is a man who cares for political power purely for its own sake, as he might care for any other hobby; more often he has in view some definitely selfish object such as political or financial advancement.

He can rarely accomplish much unless he has another side to him.

A successful boss is very apt to be a man who, in addition to committing wickedness in his own interest, also does look after the interests of others, even if not from good motives.

There are some communities so fortunate that there are very few men who have private interests to be served, and in these the power of the boss is at a minimum.

There are many country communities of this type.

But in communities where there is poverty and ignorance, the conditions are ripe for the growth of a boss.

Moreover, wherever big business interests are liable either to be improperly favored or improperly discriminated against and blackmailed by public officials--and the result is just as vicious in one case as in the other--the boss is almost certain to develop.

The best way of getting at this type of boss is by keeping the public conscience aroused and alert, so that it will tolerate neither improper attack upon, nor improper favoritism towards, these corporations, and will quickly punish any public servant guilty of either.

There is often much good in the type of boss, especially common in big cities, who fulfills towards the people of his district in rough and ready fashion the position of friend and protector.

He uses his influence to get jobs for young men who need them.

He goes into court for a wild young fellow who has gotten into trouble.

He helps out with cash or credit the widow who is in straits, or the breadwinner who is crippled or for some other cause temporarily out of work.

He organizes clambakes and chowder parties and picnics, and is consulted by the local labor leaders when a cut in wages is threatened.

For some of his constituents he does proper favors, and for others wholly improper favors; but he preserves human relations with all.

He may be a very bad and very corrupt man, a man whose action in blackmailing and protecting vice is of far-reaching damage to his constituents.

But these constituents are for the most part men and women who struggle hard against poverty and with whom the problem of living is very real and very close.

They would prefer clean and honest government, if this clean and honest government is accompanied by human sympathy, human understanding.

But an appeal made to them for virtue in the abstract, an appeal made by good men who do not really understand their needs, will often pass quite unheeded, if on the other side stands the boss, the friend and benefactor, who may have been guilty of much wrong-doing in things that they are hardly aware concern them, but who appeals to them, not only for the sake of favors to come, but in the name of gratitude and loyalty, and above all of understanding and fellow-feeling.

They have a feeling of clan-loyalty to him; his and their relations may be substantially those which are right and proper among primitive people still in the clan stage of moral development.

The successful fight against this type of vicious boss, and the type of vicious politics which produces it, can be made only by men who have a genuine fellow-feeling for and understanding of the people for and with whom they are to work, and who in practical fashion seek their social and industrial benefit.

There are communities of poor men, whose lives are hard, in which the boss, though he would be out of place in a more advanced community, if fundamentally an honest man, meets a real need which would otherwise not be met.

Because of his limitations in other than purely local matters it may be our duty to fight such a boss; but it may also be our duty to recognize, within his limitations, both his sincerity and his usefulness.

Yet again even the boss who really is evil, like the business man who really is evil, may on certain points be sound, and be doing good work.

It may be the highest duty of the patriotic public servant to work with the big boss or the big business man on these points, while refusing to work with him on others.

In the same way there are many self-styled reformers whose conduct is such as to warrant Tom Reed's bitter remark, that when Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel he was ignorant of the infinite possibilities contained in the word reform.

Yet, none the less, it is our duty to work for the reforms these men champion, without regard to the misconduct of the men themselves on other points.

I have known in my life many big business men and many big political bosses who often or even generally did evil, but who on some occasions and on certain issues were right.

I never hesitated to do battle against these men when they were wrong; and, on the other hand, as long as they were going my way I was glad to have them do so.

To have repudiated their aid when they were right and were striving for a right end, and for what was of benefit to the people--no matter what their motives may have been--would have been childish, and moreover would have itself been misconduct against the people.

My duty was to stand with every one while he was right, and to stand against him when he went wrong; and this I have tried to do as regards individuals and as regards groups of individuals.

When a business man or labor leader, politician or reformer, is right, I support him; when he goes wrong, I leave him.

When Mr. Lorimer upheld the war for the liberation of Cuba, I supported him; when he became United States Senator by improper methods, I opposed him.

The principles or methods which the Socialists advocate and which I believe to be in the interest of the people I support, and those which I believe to be against the interest of the people I oppose.

Moreover, when a man has done evil, but changes, and works for decency and righteousness, and when, as far as I can see, the change is real and the man's conduct sincere, then I welcome him and work heartily with him, as an equal with an equal.

For thirty years after the Civil War the creed of mere materialism was rampant in both American politics and American business, and many, many strong men, in accordance with the prevailing commercial and political morality, did things for which they deserve blame and condemnation; but if they now sincerely change, and strive for better things, it is unwise and unjust to bar them from fellowship.

So long as they work for evil, smite them with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon!

When they change and show their faith by their works, remember the words of Ezekiel: "If the wicked will turn from all the sins he has committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.

Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?

saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways and live?"

Every man who has been in practical politics grows to realize that politicians, big and little, are no more all of them bad than they are all of them good.

Many of these men are very bad men indeed, but there are others among them--and some among those held up to special obloquy, too--who, even although they may have done much that is evil, also show traits of sterling worth which many of their critics wholly lack.

There are few men for whom I have ever felt a more cordial and contemptuous dislike than for some of the bosses and big professional politicians with whom I have been brought into contact.

On the other hand, in the case of some political leaders who were most bitterly attacked as bosses, I grew to know certain sides of their characters which inspired in me a very genuine regard and respect.

To read much of the assault on Senator Hanna, one would have thought that he was a man incapable of patriotism or of far-sighted devotion to the country's good.

I was brought into intimate contact with him only during the two and a half years immediately preceding his death.

I was then President, and perforce watched all his actions at close range.

During that time he showed himself to be a man of rugged sincerity of purpose, of great courage and loyalty, and of unswerving devotion to the interests of the Nation and the people as he saw those interests.

He was as sincerely desirous of helping laboring men as of helping capitalists.

His ideals were in many ways not my ideals, and there were points where both by temperament and by conviction we were far apart.

Before this time he had always been unfriendly to me; and I do not think he ever grew to like me, at any rate not until the very end of his life.

Moreover, I came to the Presidency under circumstances which, if he had been a smaller man, would inevitably have thrown him into violent antagonism to me.

He was the close and intimate friend of President McKinley.

He was McKinley's devoted ally and follower, and his trusted adviser, who was in complete sympathy with him.

Partly because of this friendship, his position in the Senate and in the country was unique.

With McKinley's sudden death Senator Hanna found himself bereft of his dearest friend, while I, who had just come to the Presidency, was in his view an untried man, whose trustworthiness on many public questions was at least doubtful.

Ordinarily, as has been shown, not only in our history, but in the history of all other countries, in countless instances, over and over again, this situation would have meant suspicion, ill will, and, at the last, open and violent antagonism.

Such was not the result, in this case, primarily because Senator Hanna had in him the quality that enabled him to meet a serious crisis with dignity, with power, and with disinterested desire to work for the common good.

Within a few days of my accession he called on me, and with entire friendliness and obvious sincerity, but also with entire self-respect, explained that he mourned McKinley as probably no other man did; that he had not been especially my friend, but that he wished me to understand that thenceforward, on every question where he could conscientiously support me, I could count upon his giving me as loyal aid as it was in his power to render.

He added that this must not be understood as committing him to favor me for nomination and election, because that matter must be left to take care of itself as events should decide; but that, aside from this, what he said was to be taken literally; in other words, he would do his best to make my Administration a success by supporting me heartily on every point on which he conscientiously could, and that this I could count upon.

He kept his word absolutely.

He never became especially favorable to my nomination; and most of his close friends became bitterly opposed to me and used every effort to persuade him to try to bring about my downfall.

Most men in his position would have been tempted to try to make capital at my expense by antagonizing me and discrediting me so as to make my policies fail, just for the sake of making them fail.

Senator Hanna, on the contrary, did everything possible to make them succeed.

He kept his word in the letter and the spirit, and on every point on which he felt conscientiously able to support me he gave me the heartiest and most effective support, and did all in his power to make my Administration a success; and this with no hope of any reward for himself, of any gratitude from me, or of any appreciation by the public at large, but solely because he deemed such action necessary for the well-being of the country as a whole.