Ethics in Service
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William Howard Taft >> Ethics in Service
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Another great power of the President is his control of our foreign
relations. In domestic matters, the Federal government shares every
field, executive, judicial and legislative, with the states, but in
foreign affairs, the whole governmental control is with the President,
the Senate and Congress. The states have nothing to do with it. The
President initiates a treaty and the Senate confirms it. The Senate,
however, cannot initiate a treaty, the President alone can do that.
Congress' powers to declare war and regulate our foreign commerce are
its chief powers in respect to our foreign relations. So that, except in
ratifying treaties, in regulating commerce and in declaring war, the
President guides our whole foreign policy.
Through the State Department he conducts all negotiation and
correspondence with other governments and according to the Constitution
he receives ambassadors and foreign ministers. Now you might possibly
think that that meant only that he must have a flunky at the White House
to take their cards--but it means a good deal more. He appoints
ambassadors and ministers to other countries and instructs them. He
receives the diplomatic representatives from other countries and does
business with them. He construes treaties and asserts the rights of our
government and our citizens under them. He considers and decides the
rights of other governments and their subjects in a way which
practically binds our government and people. And in order to receive
ambassadors and ministers, he must determine whether they have been
properly accredited, so that they have the proper authority to act for
the country they claim to represent.
When there is a dispute as to what person is the chief executive of a
foreign country and therefore entitled to send an ambassador or
minister, the President must decide it. In other words, he alone can
exercise the power of recognition. How important a power this is, we may
know from our recent experiences with Mexico, for President Wilson, by
withholding recognition from General Huerta, was able to render his
longer tenure as chief executive impossible.
In our foreign relations it is often the President's duty to formulate
the national claim of sovereignty over territory whose ownership is in
dispute. This is a political question and his decision or claim in
regard to it is taken as final by the Supreme Court.
In the Fur-Seal Controversy, Mr. Blaine took the position that our
jurisdiction reached out over the Bering Sea. The question was contested
in the Supreme Court by the British and the Canadian governments. The
Supreme Court said: "We cannot determine this. It is a political
question and must, therefore, be decided by the President through his
Secretary of State." We then submitted the issue to an international
tribunal, and the decision was against us.
Another great power of the President is the power of pardons and
reprieves. This is not to be determined by rules of law nor indeed by
absolute rules of any kind and must, therefore, be wielded skilfully
lest it destroy the prestige and supremacy of law. Sometimes one is
deceived. I was. Two men were brought before me, both of whom were
represented as dying. When a convict is near his end, it has been the
custom to send him home to die. So, after having all the surgeons in the
War Department examine them to see that the statements made to me about
them were correct, I exercised the pardoning power in their favor. Well,
one of them kept his contract and died, but the other seems to be one of
the healthiest men in the community today.
The President is also the titular head of a party and ought to have a
large influence in legislation. He is made responsible to the country
for his party's majority in Congress, and does thereby have some voice
in legislation. Some Presidents have more control than others, but all
Presidents find as the patronage is distributed, and as the term goes
on, that the influence and power that they have over legislation rapidly
diminishes. In fact, when there are no more offices to distribute and
somebody else comes into view as the next President, the authority of
the incumbent becomes strictly limited to his constitutional functions.
All of this tends to show that a President who seeks legislative changes
and reforms should begin early.
The people think that the Presidency gives a man an opportunity to make
a lot of personal appointments. I can recall some of these personal
appointments, but I tell you they are very few. There are certain
political obligations involving the recognition of party leaders which
he has to take into consideration with reference to some appointments.
But when it comes to purely personal appointments, one can count them on
the fingers of one hand. It is well that it is so. A President with his
proper sense of duty finds many men in office whom he ought to let
continue and the question of friendship for others can play no part in
displacing them.
The social influence of the President in Washington is not much. I think
perhaps it might be useful if it were a little more, for the question of
precedence, which makes everybody outside of Washington laugh, sometimes
becomes a very serious matter. As the French ambassador once said, when
there are three hundred people, they cannot all go through the door at
one time. Somebody has to go first, therefore it is most important to
fix who that somebody shall be. But nobody in Washington has the
authority to say. If only the army and navy were concerned, the matter
would be easy enough, because they are controlled by the President and
he can issue orders that they must respect, but with civil officers he
has no such authority. Congress could, of course, provide rules of
social and official precedence, either by legislation or executive
order, as is done in all European countries. But here such a proposal
would be laughed out of Congressional halls, though it would be a wise
measure to prevent confusion, unnecessary friction and heartburning.
The very men who make most fun of such matters and profess to despise
their consideration are in actual practice the most unreasonable as to
their own places at functions. The House of Representatives is supposed
to be the embodiment of democracy and contempt for social distinctions,
yet of all the people in the world who have made a fuss over the matter
of precedence, speakers of the House of Representatives have been the
most insistent on their proper place at official dinners. The speaker
says: "I represent the body of the people who come from the soil and the
people who make this country. Therefore, I decline to sit after the
presiding officer of the Senate." An ambassador says: "I am the personal
representative of my sovereign. If he were here in Washington, he would
sit next to the President." The Cabinet officer says: "The President is
the head. I am connected with him as Secretary of War, the Cabinet is a
small body and the Senate is a large body. Therefore, we are bigger men
than the Senate and we ought to have precedence." In fact, the head of a
scientific bureau came in to see me one day and said, "I think you ought
to put me after the Supreme Court." He even filed a brief with me on the
subject, to the effect that "I run an independent department. The judges
represent the judicial branch, and the President the executive branch,
and the heads of the two Houses, the legislative branch, while I
represent the scientific branch." Indeed, the matter of procedure is not
such a joke as it seems outside. It is not so important as to who comes
first as that their order of precedence should be once determined.
The President is made responsible for everything, especially for hard
times. Of course his supporters claim credit for good crops, so that
perhaps it is not so unfair to charge him with responsibility for bad
crops and for everything else that happens wrong during his term. Every
President strives to do the best he can for the country. It is a great
task, one of the heaviest in the world. A man does not really know,
until he gets out of the office, what the strain is. And, therefore,
knowing that he is struggling to do the best he can, while he may differ
with you, while he may do things that seem to you absurd, consider that
he is there, elected by the American people, as your representative, and
remember that while he is in office he is entitled to your respect. Now,
don't be flippant in regard to him. Don't think it shows you to be a big
man to criticise him or speak contemptuously of him. You may differ with
his policy, but always maintain a profound respect for a man who
represents the majesty and the sovereignty of the American people.
CHAPTER IV
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES
We are living at a time when political and social conditions are a bit
chaotic, and it is a little difficult to distinguish between the
symptoms that are ephemeral and those which are permanent. What we must
do is to try to make things better and to save from the past the things
which are good. It is often true that a movement that is excessive and
destructive in one way, ends by being the basis of great progress after
reaction from its excesses has left what is valuable in it.
Our American Revolution, which we are accustomed to regard as quite
important--and it was for us--did not really represent a great world
change such as was represented in the French Revolution. It grew out of
a very unwise, selfish colonial policy on the part of Great Britain. We
were right and wise in putting it through, and our ancestors
demonstrated great courage and great tenacity in fighting it. It
certainly gave us independence and an opportunity for expansion that we
should not otherwise have had. But the pap that we have been brought up
on with respect to the tremendous outrages which Great Britain
inflicted on us was sweetened a little bit. If you would see the other
side, read Trevelyan's "American Revolution." In this you will see that
while the right was certainly with us, we were not quite so much
outraged as it seemed in our earlier childhood studies. The American
Revolution did as much good for England as it did for us, because it
taught her proper colonial policy, and today the colonial policy of
Great Britain is one of the greatest instances of statesmanship in
history. In her dealing with Canada, with Australia and with the South
African Republic, she has given them such self-government that, far from
wishing to sever the bond with the mother country, they cherish it.
The French Revolution indicated a very much more important movement
among peoples. It developed awful excesses. The wild declarations and
extremes practiced by the Committee of Safety in the French Revolution
were revolting to any man affected by ordinary humane considerations and
had in fact a remarkable effect in strengthening conservatism in
England. Indeed, they caused the issue and the bitter personal quarrel
between the one-time warm associates, Burke and Fox. The natural result
of those excesses was to be expected. It took the shape of the man on
horseback. The imperial control of Napoleon led the French people into
a military waste of strength which has affected the French race even
down to the present time. Yet Napoleon, by building up his Code
Napoleon, and by spreading over Europe the idea that the people were the
basis of government, profoundly affected political conceptions and
conditions. There followed a reaction in the Holy Alliance, which was a
combination to maintain the Divine Right of Kings, and then the spirit
of the French Revolution reasserted itself in 1830. In fact from then on
until now the movement toward more and more popular government has gone
on continuously in France, Germany, Austria and elsewhere. It is
spreading today even more widely than it ever did before, and every
country, even Russia, has to count the cost with respect to the will of
the people.
When I went through Russia after the Russian-Japanese War, I met one of
the leading diplomats of that country who greeted me with, "Well, how do
you like it?" "How do I like what?" I asked. "How do you like helping
Japan to lick Russia?" Those were the homely expressions that he used.
To which I replied, "We did not help Japan to lick Russia." "But," he
said, "you did in effect. Your people and your press sympathized and
they expressed the kindly sympathy that counts for so much at such a
time." "The government cannot control our people," I responded. "They
think for themselves and express themselves as they see fit. We cannot
control the press in our country, but we have observed all the laws of
neutrality with respect to the war, and if some of the people expressed
themselves in favor of Japan, it was only because they were in favor of
the under dog in the fight." "Why did you give up?" I inquired further;
"You were getting stronger and stronger." "Yes," he said, "we had to
fight at the end of a 5,000-mile, single-track railway, but handicapped
as we were, we got our forces out there ready to fight and we could have
gone in and beaten the Japanese." "Why didn't you?" I asked. "Why did
you make peace?" "The trouble is," he explained, "we were living on a
volcano at home. Our people were opposed to the war, and we did not go
on, lest the throne would be a forfeit." This is only an indication that
even in the country that is supposed to represent the most absolute of
empires, the people are manifesting a control. The Douma was given too
much power at first, so that universal suffrage was necessarily a
failure in the condition of the people at that time. But the Douma now
is gradually acquiring useful power and in the course of the next
twenty-five or fifty years Russia will probably have a popular
constitutional government. We have had democracy in this country for
one hundred and twenty-five years, or indeed for two hundred and
twenty-five years. It is now proposed to have more democracy to supply
the present defects of our existing democracy. This is one phase of the
present situation that I wish to discuss. Another is the spread of the
fraternal spirit, the desire of one to help another, the actual
improvement and increase in the brotherhood of man which we are seeing
in society, and a third is trades-unionism, its essence and what is to
be hoped for or feared from it.
If you will read a book like Chamberlain on "The Foundations of the
Nineteenth Century," especially the preface, which is written by a man
who uses a better style than Chamberlain, you will find that he attempts
to summarize the progress of the previous eighteen centuries as a
predicate for the strides of human civilization in the nineteenth. As he
minimizes the effect of one century and then another, you note how few
centuries, in his judgment, play any part in the onward march, and you
are discouraged as to what one man can do to help along any movement
that shall really be world-wide or permanent.
The effect is much the same upon your personal hope of accomplishing
some good in the world as when a professor of astronomy takes you over
to the observatory, lets you look through the telescope, tells you that
light takes something like eight minutes to come the 95,000,000 miles
from the sun to the earth, and then says that the sun after all is a
pretty poor thing considered in connection with what other suns there
are. When you find furthermore that some stars are so far distant that
the light you are now receiving on your retina started from them
centuries ago, you say to yourself: "Well, what's the use? If we are
such atoms and so unimportant in the general result, what's the use?"
Still if you study Chamberlain's history of the eighteen centuries you
will find that, after all, the men who were real factors in the world
civilization were the geniuses who were able to interpret and enforce
what was inchoate in the minds of all but had no definite expression and
led to no useful action. Each atom counts something, two make a molecule
and the world is made up of them--at least it was in my college days.
Therefore, what we are here for is to make the best possible effort to
help along the general weal, and it is no excuse, because we cannot play
a large part, that we should play no part at all and should feel no
sense of responsibility for what we can do.
What then of conditions of civilization in our country in the last
half-century? The Civil War grew out of a great moral and social issue.
It was a moral issue on the part of the North and a social issue on the
part of the South. Material considerations were subordinated. After the
war we had a pretty hard time in getting over its immediate effects. The
panic of 1873, which prostrated all business, was the result of the
excesses of the war, the overissue of legal tender and the feverish,
unhealthy expansion that followed. In 1878, we resumed specie payments.
I presume no country in the world ever showed such an enormous expansion
and such material growth as ours between 1878 and 1907. It was shown in
the useful inventions. Steam had been invented before, but it was
increased in its uses, and electricity was made the tool of man. Now it
is easy to follow that kind of material expansion. We can count the
growth in wealth and trace the effect of it on the people, for they all
got into the chase for the dollar.
In the West, the pioneer spirit was so strong that they were glad to
have anything in the way of development at any cost. Counties would
issue railroad bonds to build railroads and would give the bonds to the
railroads. They would give franchises of all sorts and do everything
that they thought would help open the country. There was a most
substantial increase in the average income, and the average comfort,
especially in the bodily comfort, of everyone. Have you ever thought
that today the humblest workman has more bodily comfort in many ways
than Queen Elizabeth or even George III? We had learned the advantage of
combination in machinery and we adopted it in business.
This brought about great combinations of plant and capital which reduced
the cost of producing commodities necessary to man to a price never
conceived of before. I do not wish to depreciate the value or importance
of improvement in material comfort. When you hear a man denounce it, you
may know that either he is not a clear, calm thinker, or else he is a
demagogue. Material growth and material comfort are essential for the
development of mental and spiritual activities. The result of this
combination and material expansion, however, was to create great
corporations which began to get control of things. The same spirit of
combination entered into politics and we had machines and bosses which
lent their hand to, and furnished a complacent instrument for,
corporations. Time was when they ordered delegates in a convention with
the same degree of certainty that the order would be supplied, as they
did steel rails or any other commodity. That time has passed and why?
Because the danger of plutocracy forced itself on the people. Leaders
took it up and showed it to them; and in the last ten years we have had
a great movement to eliminate corporate and money control in politics.
Great statutes have been passed--the anti-trust law, the interstate
commerce law, the statutes against the use of contributions from
corporations in politics, the statutes requiring the showing of the
electoral expenses, have all been brought about in response to a popular
demand.
The people failed to scrutinize before, but now that they are aroused
and have taken matters in their own hands, they have brought about
reform. The fact that he is supported by bosses is now generally enough
to defeat a man, and the charge that he has a machine with him is enough
to interfere with his electoral success. Organization is necessary for
political success; even reformers find that out after they get into
politics, but today there is an unreasonable prejudice against it. The
great and good effect of the reform, however, is that corporations are
no longer in politics. Of course corruption is not all gone, but it is
largely stayed, and there is no longer any chance that corporations can
control as they did.
But the leviathan of the people cannot be aroused in this way and his
movement stopped at the median line. We must expect unwise excess.
Sincere reformers have reasoned that because we had the representative
form of government during this corrupt period, it is the representative
form of government which is responsible. Because we had courts during
the corrupt period, the courts are responsible for the corruption.
Therefore we must change the representative system by injecting more
democracy into it and we must change the courts by injecting more
democracy into them and require the people at an election to decide
cases instead of judges on the Bench. These are the excesses to which we
trend.
We are a pretty great people. We admit it. We have great confidence in
what we can do, and when we are set, neither an economic law drawn from
political science nor experience seems a very formidable objection. We
are a successful people in machinery, and so we take our analogy for
political reforms from machinery. We found that by uniting various
mechanical elements we could make machines which would do as much as one
hundred or one thousand men in the same time. So we think that if we are
only acute enough to devise a governmental machine which will work
without effort on the part of the people, we can sit at home while
elections run themselves so well that only what the good people desire
in political action will necessarily result. We want the equivalent of
what, in the slang of practical mechanics, we call a fool-proof machine,
because anybody can run it and no fool can interfere with its normal
operation. So these political reformers are hunting a
corrupt-politician-proof machine for government. It does not and cannot
exist. No government can exist which does not depend upon the activity,
the honesty and the intelligence of those who form it. The initiative,
the referendum and the recall have been urged and in many states
adopted, as a machine which no boss or corrupt politician can prevent
from producing honest, effective political results. They are expected to
reform everything and those who doubt their wisdom are, for the time
being, in the minds of many enthusiasts, public enemies.
The representative system, on the contrary, recognizes that government,
in the actual execution of governmental measures, and in the actual
detailed preparation of governmental measures, is an expert matter. To
attempt to devise and adopt detailed legislative measures to accomplish
the general purpose of the people through a mass vote at a popular
election is just as absurd as it would be for all those present at a
town meeting to say, "We will all of us now go out and build a bridge,
or we will use a theodolite." Thus to say that by injecting more
democracy you can cure the defects of our present democracy is to
express one of those epigrams that, like many of its kind, is either not
true at all or is only partly true and is even more deceptive than if
it were wholly untrue.
Take the power of appointment in executive work. You elect officers,
choosing men of character, intelligence, and experience for a few great
offices, and then what do you do under the Federal Constitution? You
turn over to the President the appointment of great officers because he
needs intelligence, knowledge and skill to make their selections.
Consider the system of general direct primaries in the selection of
judges. There is a ticket at the primaries on which something like
twenty or thirty lawyers run for the Supreme Bench. Some of them go
around and tell the electors how they will decide on questions after
they get in. The qualifications of most of them as lawyers and as men
are not known to the people. Some of them are prominent because they
have been in the headlines of newspapers as figuring in sensational
cases. Others have political prominence but no public experience to test
their judicial capacity. Do you think this method of selection by the
people would lead to the choice of a learned, skilled lawyer with that
experience, courage and fine judicial quality that are to make him a
great judge? Of course it would not. It has been my duty to select more
judges in a term of four years than any other President, and I have had
to look into and compare the results of selection of judicial
candidates by popular general primary and by convention, so that I know
what I am talking about when I say that the primary system has greatly
injured the average capacity of our elective judiciary.
Why should we not use common sense in matters of government just as we
use common sense in our own business? Why should we be afraid to tell
the people that they are not fitted to select high judicial officers?
They are not. You know you are not. You could not tell me who would be
good judges for Connecticut, or for any state in the Union where you
happen to live unless you went about and investigated the matter. If you
are put in a position of responsibility, you have sense enough to know
where to find out the facts and then to make the selection, but the
people lack that opportunity. So how is the question to be solved? By
electing a Chief Executive and charging him with the responsibility of
selecting competent men to act as judges. That is what is meant by the
short ballot.
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