|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 50
According to the same law, the positive evils of corrupt government are
bound to fall heaviest upon the poorest and least capable. When the
water of Chicago is foul, the prosperous buy water bottled at distant
springs; the poor have no alternative but the typhoid fever which comes
from using the city's supply. When the garbage contracts are not
enforced, the well-to-do pay for private service; the poor suffer the
discomfort and illness which are inevitable from a foul atmosphere. The
prosperous business man has a certain choice as to whether he will treat
with the "boss" politician or preserve his independence on a smaller
income; but to an Italian day laborer it is a choice between obeying the
commands of a political "boss" or practical starvation. Again, a more
intelligent man may philosophize a little upon the present state of
corruption, and reflect that it is but a phase of our commercialism,
from which we are bound to emerge; at any rate, he may give himself the
solace of literature and ideals in other directions, but the more
ignorant man who lives only in the narrow present has no such resource;
slowly the conviction enters his mind that politics is a matter of
favors and positions, that self-government means pleasing the "boss" and
standing in with the "gang." This slowly acquired knowledge he hands on
to his family. During the month of February his boy may come home from
school with rather incoherent tales about Washington and Lincoln, and
the father may for the moment be fired to tell of Garibaldi, but such
talk is only periodic, and the long year round the fortunes of the
entire family, down to the opportunity to earn food and shelter, depend
upon the "boss."
In a certain measure also, the opportunities for pleasure and recreation
depend upon him. To use a former illustration, if a man happens to have
a taste for gambling, if the slot machine affords him diversion, he goes
to those houses which are protected by political influence. If he and
his friends like to drop into a saloon after midnight, or even want to
hear a little music while they drink together early in the evening, he
is breaking the law when he indulges in either of them, and can only be
exempt from arrest or fine because the great political machine is
friendly to him and expects his allegiance in return.
During the campaign, when it was found hard to secure enough local
speakers of the moral tone which was desired, orators were imported from
other parts of the town, from the so-called "better element." Suddenly
it was rumored on all sides that, while the money and speakers for the
reform candidate were coming from the swells, the money which was
backing the corrupt alderman also came from a swell source; that the
president of a street-car combination, for whom he performed constant
offices in the city council, was ready to back him to the extent of
fifty thousand dollars; that this president, too, was a good man, and
sat in high places; that he had recently given a large sum of money to
an educational institution and was therefore as philanthropic, not to
say good and upright, as any man in town; that the corrupt alderman had
the sanction of the highest authorities, and that the lecturers who were
talking against corruption, and the selling and buying of franchises,
were only the cranks, and not the solid business men who had developed
and built up Chicago.
All parts of the community are bound together in ethical development. If
the so-called more enlightened members accept corporate gifts from the
man who buys up the council, and the so-called less enlightened members
accept individual gifts from the man who sells out the council, we
surely must take our punishment together. There is the difference, of
course, that in the first case we act collectively, and in the second
case individually; but is the punishment which follows the first any
lighter or less far-reaching in its consequences than the more obvious
one which follows the second?
Have our morals been so captured by commercialism, to use Mr. Chapman's
generalization, that we do not see a moral dereliction when business or
educational interests are served thereby, although we are still shocked
when the saloon interest is thus served?
The street-car company which declares that it is impossible to do
business without managing the city council, is on exactly the same moral
level with the man who cannot retain political power unless he has a
saloon, a large acquaintance with the semi-criminal class, and
questionable money with which to debauch his constituents. Both sets of
men assume that the only appeal possible is along the line of
self-interest. They frankly acknowledge money getting as their own
motive power, and they believe in the cupidity of all the men whom they
encounter. No attempt in either case is made to put forward the claims
of the public, or to find a moral basis for action. As the corrupt
politician assumes that public morality is impossible, so many business
men become convinced that to pay tribute to the corrupt aldermen is on
the whole cheaper than to have taxes too high; that it is better to pay
exorbitant rates for franchises, than to be made unwilling partners in
transportation experiments. Such men come to regard political reformers
as a sort of monomaniac, who are not reasonable enough to see the
necessity of the present arrangement which has slowly been evolved and
developed, and upon which business is safely conducted. A reformer who
really knew the people and their great human needs, who believed that
it was the business of government to serve them, and who further
recognized the educative power of a sense of responsibility, would
possess a clew by which he might analyze the situation. He would find
out what needs, which the alderman supplies, are legitimate ones which
the city itself could undertake, in counter-distinction to those which
pander to the lower instincts of the constituency. A mother who eats her
Christmas turkey in a reverent spirit of thankfulness to the alderman
who gave it to her, might be gradually brought to a genuine sense of
appreciation and gratitude to the city which supplies her little
children with a Kindergarten, or, to the Board of Health which properly
placarded a case of scarlet-fever next door and spared her sleepless
nights and wearing anxiety, as well as the money paid with such
difficulty to the doctor and the druggist. The man who in his emotional
gratitude almost kneels before his political friend who gets his boy out
of jail, might be made to see the kindness and good sense of the city
authorities who provided the boy with a playground and reading room,
where he might spend his hours of idleness and restlessness, and through
which his temptations to petty crime might be averted. A man who is
grateful to the alderman who sees that his gambling and racing are not
interfered with, might learn to feel loyal and responsible to the city
which supplied him with a gymnasium and swimming tank where manly and
well-conducted sports are possible. The voter who is eager to serve the
alderman at all times, because the tenure of his job is dependent upon
aldermanic favor, might find great relief and pleasure in working for
the city in which his place was secured by a well-administered civil
service law.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|