Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
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,