Britain, p. 34.) Mention should be made also of the method of nominating candidates both for the town council and parliament. No conventions and no primary elections are held, but anyone may be placed on the official ballot by filing a nomination paper signed by a proposer and seconder and eight other voters. This has the effect of keeping the national parties out of local politics, it is an effective safeguard against machine-rule and is the most important feature of the Australian ballot system.

The universal testimony is that corruption, bribery, favoritism, and graft are to-day non-existent in English municipalities. Evidence on this subject is not necessary, because the most severe critics of public-ownership admit that England is free from these abuses and allege that fact as the very reason why we cannot follow her example in the matter of public-ownership. The best talent in the cities is enlisted in the municipal service, public office carries with it great honor and the vast business of the cities is carried on by men from all grades of society and with economy, intelligence, honesty and a local pride in municipal achievements.

The causes of this condition of administrative efficiency are not difficult to discover. It will be observed that corruption flourished in the old days when the government governed least, when nearly everything was left to private initiative. There was a time when even war was a private business, when the collection of taxes was let out to farmersgeneral, when the administration of justice was a private franchise, and then privilege and despotism were supreme. The course of history from one point-ofview consists of the gradual enlargement of the functions of government and each step in this direction has enlarged the liberty and opportunity of the individual. In this modern era both the national and local governments perform a thousand new functions made necessary by our modern civilization, the individual has a

constant and intimate relation with the work of public officials and the situation itself demands strict responsibility, efficiency and honesty. The other great cause of the overthrow of corruption is the spirit of modern democracy, the idea that the government exists for the sake of the people and to secure to them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The spoils system is as out of harmony with the modern world as the ancient government of the people, by the privileged classes, for their private advantage which gave it birth.

That bribery and graft flourish in the United States is apparent although the worst abuses of Philadelphia, New York, Cincinnatti and St. Louis appear mild when compared with the practice that was formerly universal in England. No extended account of American political corruption is necessary for it is admitted by every one and the details are available in every magazine and newspaper. Not every charge of corrupt dealing of course is made in good faith and supported by facts. The sensational and reckless newspaper reporter is abroad; and moreover a favorite method, used by guilty men to distract attention from themselves and confuse the public mind, is to make false charges against the innocent. Every faithful officer should be protected by public opinion quite as zealously as the unfaithful should be exposed and held to account. Every case of wrong-doing must stand on its own evidence and further, the evil complained of is not so much a matter of personal wrong-doing as of maintaining a vicious system, by which disloyalty is made easy and profitable. But the fact that false charges are sometimes made is no reason why real wrong-doing should not be exposed. The fact that the real thief raises the false cry of "stop thief!" should not secure the guilty person from arrest and punishment. In each case due diligence and caution should be combined, that is all. Abundant and undeniable evidence does justify the

statement, not that our politicians and business men are all corrupt, but that political and business corruption are painfully and dangerously common and that the power of privilege in private hands has in large measure transformed our democracy, representative of the people, and rendered necessary what Mr. Steffens calls a new struggle to restore self-government.

In the early days of the Republic, the wealth of the country was small and fairly well distributed, the government was a small concern and the public employés were few. The principle of equal rights for all, special privileges to none, on which our nation was founded, for a time served to keep us in the main above the spoils system although Hamilton succeeded in planting the seeds of privilege and setting the example of legislation by and for the rich and favored classes of society, which seed has borne abundant fruit. Under Jackson the spoils system of appointing federal office-holders was established and the growing wealth of the country brought a steady increase of abuses, but corruption and the spoils system did not reach their full development until the period following the Civil War. That was a period of expansion and speculation and of rapid industrial development and it was the period also of Star Route scandals, of Whiskey Ring scandals, of imperial grants of land to railways, of the Tweed régime in New York, of the real beginning of our political machines in the various states and the foundation of our great private fortunes. At the same time when England was developing her system of administrative efficiency, overthrowing her age-old practice of bribery and corruption and bringing in the modern era of democracy, America was permitting her original democracy to be replaced by corruption and privilege. We have been so proud of our industrial achievements, that we have showered our captains of industry with franchises, powers and privileges and loaded them with wealth and failed to see that they

were working a revolution in our government. We have praised the business man and have blamed the politician. When brought face to face with corrupt conditions, we have deplored the apathy of the good citizens and have put the responsibility on the politician and his miserable allies the saloon keeper and gambler. To-day a great awakening to the true cause of our trouble is taking place. Our reporters and social investigators have laid bare the shame of the cities and placed the blame where it belongs and have shown that our real task is not to put out of business the vulgar law-breaker but to restore selfgovernment. In the city, in the state and in the nation the true source of political corruption is seen to be the big business man, the man of whom we have been so proud, the prominent and respected citizen. The great source of wealth is privilege and to obtain and protect privileges and franchises, the machine, the boss and the legislative agent are maintained and supported, alliances are made with vulgar thieves and gamblers, lobbies are kept about our legislative halls, governors and senators are made and unmade, the press is purchased and the church and college subsidized.

Mr. Lincoln Steffens says that when he began to write his articles on the Shame of the Cities he meant to show how the people were betrayed and deceived by the politician, but that in his first study of St. Louis the startling truth lay bare that corruption was not merely political, it was financial, commercial and social, its ramifications were complex and far-reaching. In St. Louis and Minneapolis and Philadelphia, wherever a reform movement has taken place the most significant fact was the high class of citizens who openly or secretly defended and supported the boodler, the briber and the blackmailer.

There are two kinds of graft in our cities and each is supported by the other. One kind may be called police graft, and this leads one down among

the

dregs of society, it is vulgar and shocking, and, without support from the men higher up, it could not long stand against public opinion. Reform of this kind of graft is called achieving good government. The other kind of graft is financial, it leads one up to our leading business men, our respectable bankers, lawyers and corporation officials, the pillars of society and the church, and from them to their employés their friends and associates, all who are connected with them or dependent upon them for employment, for business or for assistance in favorite philanthropies. Reform of this kind of graft is called restoring self-government.

The chief source of corruption then is business graft, the tremendous stake of the promoter and the financier in obtaining private privileges from the government. Obviously the method of reform is to destroy the source of corruption, the private-ownership of monopolies and franchise privileges. Regulation has been tried, and of course the fullest possible relief from regulation must be insisted on until a more complete justice is possible, but regulation leaves at work the source of the trouble. The private monopolist still has the same interest and a stronger interest the more strict the control, in preserving his franchises, in combating the public and in entering and corrupting politics to control governmental agencies. The same objection applies to public-ownership with private operation under leases. The "interests" have the same inducement to obtain favorable leases and to escape the fulfilment of onerous conditions as they have to obtain favorable franchises.

The fear of increasing the number of public employés, of corrupting our politics and strengthening the spoils system need alarm no one. It is true there is a possibility that the civil service may be filled by favor and not by merit and efficiency, and that extravagance and incompetence may mark public administration and that one source of corrup

tion, the salaries of public officials, would still remain. Public-ownership is no panacea for all the ills of government. It is not a trick device which can be adopted and which will run itself and will exclude the possibility of further trouble. Each generation will continue to face its own problems. Nevertheless, public-ownership would do one thing among others. It would eliminate the chief source of corruption and would open the way for the correction of the spoils system, for the suppression of police graft, for the development of municipal experts. It would certainly not introduce the public utilities into politics. They are unfortunately already there. It would not increase corruption and the spoils system for two reasons: first, because our most influential and capable citizens would no longer have this tremendous stake in corrupt and disloyal public servants, the antagonism between the private welfare of the most influential class in the community and the public welfare would no longer exist; and second, because public-ownership would bring with it and make easy the means of correcting its own particular possibilities of evil. Public opinion would have a free chance to compel not merely common honesty but efficiency and skill. The increased stake of the people in governmental action, the intimate dependence of each citizen on the public utilities taken over, the direct connections between each man's pocketbook and the conduct of public officials and the honest pride that the people take in their own property and the development of their own business, will result in a civil service based on the merit system. No one proposes publicownership to be run without restraint or accounting by an irresponsible political machine. Even that, as shown by actual experience in the St. Louis and Philadelphia water-works and in many other cases results in a vast saving to the people as compared with private-ownership. But the reform suggested is public-ownership accompanied by the merit system,

by the most approved methods of accounting, and a full responsibility to the people; and the assertion is made, based on abundant experience, that publicownership naturally brings with it a progressive development of these safeguards. Our legal notions of property rights produce this result. We always admit that the private-owner of a public utility who has his money invested in it is rightfully entitled to all the profit and private advantage he can secure so long as he keeps within the letter of his legal rights. On the other hand, when the public utility becomes the property of the people, the people are rightfully entitled to all the profit and the full benefit of their own property and they cannot be deprived of it without an actual and positive malfeasance in office. Those who oppose public-ownership say reform the civil service and banish corruption, if you can, first, and then consider public-ownership. This means that we are to preserve the chief cause of corruption until we have banished its natural fruits. It is like the mother's advice to her son to learn to swim before going into the water. The truth is that the same public opinion, the same awakened civic conscience, which will rebel against the evils of private monopoly and demand public-ownership, will also demand efficient and honest service from public servants. The necessary conclusion from a study of corruption both in England and the United States is that expanded government functions and the principle of government responsibility develop to gether. In this country as in England the spoils system of making federal appointments became intolerable as the importance and complexity of government business increased and the civil service was accordingly reformed. The condition of the service is not perfect but public opinion requires and produces continual improvement and to-day more than half of the 300,000 federal employés are in the classified service, many cities have adopted a similar system

and the spoils system is everywhere in disfavor and is slowly but steadily yielding to an enlightened public conscience. The significant thing in our politics is not the point to which democracy has arrived but the direction in which it is marching; not the democracy of to-day but the democracy of to-morrow.

This sketch of political corruption in England does not imply by any means that England is free from privilege and all forms of graft. Ça ira-it will gothat is all. She still has her house of lords, her land and great industrial wealth is still owned by a small and powerul class, the private beneficiaries of franchises and tax exemptions and land monopoly still absorb the fruits of her industry in undue measure, but the way is open for the future and the future belongs to the people. England has reformed her civil service, she has secured honest elections, she has administered her various municipal enterprises with economy and skill and strict integrity, to the great and manifest advantage of her people. A very little historical information is sufficient to show that this is true not because the English are more moral than we, certainly not because she was unfamiliar with corruption, nor because a monarchical and aristocratic form of government does not breed selfishness and the abuse of power. The exact opposite is the obvious and undeniable fact. Privilege, monopoly and the spoils system are the inherited remnant of a despotism that must wholly yield to the triumphant advance of democracy. The example of England in the expansion of governmental functions, so far from being inapplicable to political conditions in the United States points the path along which lie, not only the economic and social advantages of publicownership, but also the restoration of self-government and the overthrow of political corruption.

CLARENCE ARTHUR ROYSE.
Terre Haute, Indiana.