POLITICAL PROBLEM STATED

Mr. Lincoln Steffens, a well-known magazine editor, delivered the first of a series of lectures on "The Social Problem and its Remedies," which will be given by different lecturers during the winter. His subject was "The Problem in Politics," which he treated from the standpoint of a practical reformer.

"Politics is a problem and it is one problem. It is the same in Boston as in San Francisco, the same in Missouri as in Oregon, the same in the United States as in France. I was police reporter at headquarters in New York where it was my duty to expose scandal. Scandal being exposed, the city was aroused to investigation. Theodore Roosevelt was appointed police commissioner. He tried to compel the police to enforce all laws equally. Trouble arose at once. Leading citizens of New York came with protests and the reform movement was checked.

"A few years later I became interested in the situation in St. Louis, where Mr. Folk was investigating the corruption in the board of aldermen. The aldermen confessed who had bribed them and it was found that they made up the ablest, most courageous, and most enterprising citizens of the city, as had been the case in New York. They were after franchises and grants,--in other words, privileges. Then I went up to Minneapolis and found the condition of corruption the same. Here they had gone still further and criminals were invited to come to the city to do their work so that the officials of the city might share in the spoils. Much the same conditions were found in Pittsburg, Philadelphia and Chicago. Opposition was the same in all cases. Opposition came from the slums. It came from the top of the city. It also came from the state government, back of the city. All reforms were practically stopped by this opposition. Then, I mean about ten years ago, we were all talking about municipal reform. We thought the state governments and the national governments were all right. I dropped the cities and took up the state. I went back to St. Louis because Folk could not get his reforms through. I found that the supreme court of Missouri was as corrupt as the board of aldermen in St. Louis. If the city is corrupt the states are corrupt. Bribery soon ceases on the scale up. Bribery is only the first rough means by which a government, that is supposed to represent the whole people, is made to represent part of the people. Most of our corruption is honest. Our young men are brought up to believe that the upper class should rule. Folk found that the state was as corrupt as the city, and was corrupt in the same way.

"Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Ohio,--they were all alike. There was a reform movement in Wisconsin in which LaFollette, its leader, was opposed both by the city and by the United States government. Against him in the control of his party was the federal machine made by appointments of the United States.

"I went from the state to the national government. In the House of Representatives the rings control legislation. Cannon was the boss corresponding to Boss Butler in St. Louis. Aldrich and his ring, to which New England contributes generously, control the Senate.

"Back of all this was corruption in business. Business was corrupting politics and not politics business. I found more grafting in business than I ever found in any city. About this time came the disclosures of grafting in the insurance companies. The policy holders in the companies are the citizens, who are supposed to elect officers and directors. Investigation showed that the directors were organized in combines which elected committees, and these committees interlocked, thus making a ring around the officers. When the ward heelers obtained policies from the people, they got proxies which went back to the officers of the company. The officers nominated directors who would stand in with them, and thus control was assured.

"This same organization of graft is found in the labor unions. Labor bosses found out that they could make money by selling out their influence to business men. The business men had these labor bosses cause strikes that were injurious to competitors. Methods are the same in business, labor, and politics.

"How are you going to tackle this question? You say what we want in the first place is good government. That is not what we want. England has good government, but she has class government. Parliament is corrupt just like Congress. We are now passing through the same stages of government that England has passed through. Our democracy is being transformed into an aristocracy. What we want is representative government, government that represents the common interests of the people. That won't be good government for a good many generations. We want more than goodness in representatives. We want loyalty. The problem is a social one. It is also an economic one. What organization of society is there that can solve this problem? It is that to which everybody belongs. It is the government, which should represent men, women and children. The economic problem underlies the social problem and the solution of the economic problem is to be found in the solution of this political problem which I have been discussing."