THE PUBLIC SERVANT AND THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT

I am overcome more and more with your good nature in coming here. I learn a great deal more from you than you can possibly learn from me.

Today I come to speak on the text “The Public Servant and the Eighth Commandment” and like some other preachers I do not intend to keep purely to that text. I chose the two titles I speak upon today and tomorrow because I wish to lay especial stress upon the prime virtue of the public servant and therefore the prime crime of the unworthy public servant; and also upon the prime virtue and the corresponding prime crime of the man who writes about the public servant, the man of the newspaper press and magazines. With the latter I shall deal tomorrow. Today I wish to speak of the public servant. Because the first essential in a public man is honesty, I have chosen as my title the public servant and the eighth commandment; but I wish to speak of much more than the eighth commandment in connection with the public servant, and I wish to speak of the attitude of the public as well as of the attitude of its servant.

There used to be in the army an old proverb that there were no bad regiments, but plenty of bad colonels. So in private life I have grown to believe that if you always find bad servants in a household you want to look out for the mistress. I wonder if you grasp just what I mean by that? If you always find bad public servants, look out for the public! We here—you my hearers and I—live in a government where we are the people and in consequence where we are not to be excused if the government goes wrong. There are many countries where the government can be very wrong indeed and where nevertheless it can be said that the people are fundamentally right, for they don’t choose their public servants, they don’t choose their government. On the contrary we do choose our government, not temporarily but permanently, and in the long run our public servants must necessarily be what we choose to have them. They represent us; they must represent our self-restraint and sense of decency and common sense, or else, our folly, our wickedness, or at least our supine indifference in letting others do the work of government for us. Not only should we have the right type of public servants, but we should remember that the wrong type discredits not only the man himself but each of us whose servant he is. Sometimes I hear our countrymen inveigh against politicians; I hear our countrymen abroad saying, “Oh, you mustn’t judge us by our politicians.” I always want to interrupt and answer, “you must judge us by our politicians.” We pretend to be the masters—we, the people—and if we permit ourselves to be ill served, to be served by corrupt and incompetent and inefficient men, then on our own heads must the blame rest.

The other day I spoke to you of the prime need of having each man act the good citizen first in his own home, and I added that unless he did, he could not be a good citizen. But that is not enough. In addition the man must do his part, not merely in the election of candidates, but in creating the kind of atmosphere which will make the public man unwilling to do wrong, and especially unwilling to permit wrong in its grosser forms.

I began my education early, immediately after leaving college; for about that time I first began to spend a good deal of my time west of the Mississippi, and I also went into the New York legislature, a by no means wholly arcadian body. It is a little difficult to persuade me that politically we are growing worse. I do not think so. I think that politically we have grown a little better during the thirty years that I have watched politics close at hand. We have slipped back, now and then, we have had trouble of every kind—local disturbances—yet on the whole I believe we have grown better and not worse; but there is still ample room for improvement!

One of the first things that struck me in the legislature was the amount of downright corruption that I saw and the utter cynicism with which many of the men who practiced the corruption spoke of it. The next thing that struck me, as I grew better acquainted with political conditions, was the difficulty in arousing the public to an attitude of hostility towards that corruption. This was largely because the public declined to be awakened unless they thought the corruption was directly exercised at their own expense; in other words, it availed little to go into a district and say “look at that man’s votes on such and such questions, they show that he isn’t a straight man,” unless the people of the district believed that their own interest was involved in one of the questions upon which the man had voted wrong. For instance, there were in the legislature at that time many country members who were scrupulous to do right, or at least to appear to do right, on the smallest questions affecting their own districts, but who would go very far wrong indeed when the question was one involving some interest in New York City; for they trusted to the fact that their people did not care how they voted on New York City matters as long as they kept straight on matters immediately affecting the constituents themselves. Naturally men who held such a standard were certain when they got into higher offices to be false to their trust. You cannot have unilateral honesty. The minute that a man is dishonest along certain lines, even though he pretends to be honest along other lines, you can be sure that it is only a pretense, it is only expediency; and you cannot trust to the mere sense of expediency to hold a man straight under heavy pressure. I very early made up my mind that it was a detriment to the public to have in public life any man whose attitude was merely that he would be as honest as the law made it necessary for him to be. The kind of honesty which essentially consists merely in too great acuteness to get into jail is a mighty poor type of honesty upon which to rely; because, up near the border line between what can and what can not be punished by law, there come many occasions when the man can defile the public service, can defy the public conscience, can in spirit be false to his oath, and yet technically keep his skirts clear. When I say that the prime need is that the public servant shall obey the eighth commandment I do not mean merely that he shall keep himself in such shape that a clever lawyer can get him off if he is charged with theft. I mean that he shall be honest intensively and extensively. I mean that he shall act with the same fine sense of honor toward the public and on behalf of the public that we expect to be shown by those neighbors with whom we are willing to trust not only our money, but our good names. If you intend to trust a neighbor, the kind of neighbor whom you certainly will not choose is the man of whom it can only be said that you are quite sure you won’t be able to get him in jail. The kind of mental acuteness that is shown merely by a thorough study of the best methods of escaping successful criminal procedure is not the kind of mental acuteness that you value in your friend, in the man with whom you have business relations; and it should be the last type of mental ability, the last type of moral attitude, which you tolerate in a public man.

Perhaps the most dangerous of all public servants, however, is the public servant who gets into office by persuading a section of the public that he will do something that is just a little bit crooked in their interest. I do not care in the least what section of the public is thus persuaded. I do not care whether it is the great corporation man who wishes to see a given individual made judge, or executive officer, or legislator, “because he is our man and he will look out for the rights of property,” or whether, on the other hand, it is the wage-worker, the laboring man, who supports some candidate because that candidate announces that he is “the friend of labor,” although the man to whom the appeal is made ought to understand also that the candidate is the foe of decency. Capitalist and wage-worker alike will do well to remember that their interests face to face with the public man are primarily as those affecting all good American citizens, and that whatever the temporary advantage may be, they irretrievably harm themselves and the children who are to come after them if they permit themselves to be drawn into any other attitude.

The capitalist who because he thinks it is the interest of his class to have in high office a corrupt man who will serve his class interest is laying up for himself and for his children a day of terrible retribution; for if that type of capitalist has his way long enough he will persuade the whole community that the interest of the community is bound up in overthrowing every man in public office who serves property, even though he serves it honestly. The corrupt capitalist may help himself for the moment, and he may be defended by others of his own class on grounds of expediency; but in the end he works fearful damage to his fellows. If a business man cannot run a given business except by bribing or by submitting to blackmail let him get out of it and into some other business. If he cannot run his business save on condition of doing things which can only be done in the darkness, then let him enter into some totally different field of activity. The test is easy. Let him ask whether he is afraid anything will be found out or not. If he is not, he is all right; if he is, he is all wrong. So much for the capitalist.

Let the wage-worker in his turn remember that the candidate for public office who appeals for his support upon the ground that he will condone lawless violence, that he will look the other way when violence is perpetrated, that he will recognize the rules of a labor organization of any kind as standing above the Constitution and the laws of his country, let the laboring man remember that if he supports such a candidate he in his turn is doing his best to bring about a condition of things where democracy would come to an end, where self-rule would come to an end. Let the capitalist remember that he had better be most shocked at the deeds of his own class, and not at the misdeeds of the men of another class. And let the laboring man remember in his turn that the foe against whom he should most carefully guard is the corrupt labor man, the labor candidate who preaches violence, envy, class hatred. That is the kind of man who most jeopards the welfare of the wageworker, just as the successful corruptionist, the capitalist who has reached a high position in the financial world by the practice of acts that will not bear the light of day, is really the worst foe of the very property classes that are sometimes so misguided as to rally to his defense when he is attacked.

I shall tell you one story: In the old days I used to have a cow ranch in the short grass country. At that time there were no fences within a thousand miles of it. If a calf was passed by on the roundup so that next year when it was a yearling and was not following any cow it was unbranded, it was called a maverick. It was range custom or range law that if a maverick were found on any range the man finding it would put on the brand of that range. One day I had hired a new cow-puncher, and when he and I were riding we struck a maverick. It was on a neighbor’s range, the Thistle Range. The puncher roped and threw the maverick; we built a little fire of sage-brush, and took out the cinch iron and heated it to run on the brand. When he started to run on the brand I said to him “the Thistle brand”; he answered, “that’s all right, boss, I know my business.” In a minute I said “hold on, you’re putting on my brand”; to which he answered “Yes, I always put on the boss’s brand.” I said “Oh, well, you go back to the house and get your time.” He rose, saying “What’s that for, I was putting on your brand”; and I closed the conversation with the remark “Yes, my friend, and if you will steal for me you will steal from me.” That applies in lots of occupations besides those of the cow punchers. Nowhere does it apply more clearly than in public life.

One of the pains of our development as a people has been the tendency to deify what is called “smartness,” meaning by smartness adroitness and skill unaccompanied by any scruple in connection with the observance of a moral law. We have all of us heard—I have heard it in the West as well as in the East—some man alluded to as an awful scoundrel, and another person replying “Oh yes, perhaps he ain’t quite straight, but I tell you, that fellow is smart!” You must yourselves have heard at times this kind of statement made about some scoundrel whom you could not understand decent men supporting; and the statement is acted upon by many little men, and by many big men, both in business life and in political life. Well, we shall never reach the proper standard in public service or in private conduct until we have a public opinion so aroused, so resolute, so intelligent, that it shall be understood that we are more bitter against the scoundrel that succeeds than against the scoundrel that fails.

The other day I noticed a brief statement made by a certain Senator, which, as far as I have seen, has not been commented on at all, but which struck me as highly significant. The Senator in question had been defending Mr. Lorimer, and in alluding to some of the men who had testified that they had been bribed to vote for the Illinois Senator, he quite casually remarked that in his experience a knave was always a fool. His idea was that no very high grade intelligence was ever found in a knave. The Senator was entirely wrong. The knave that fails is usually a fool, but the knave that succeeds may be a very intelligent man, and his intelligence when unaccompanied by any trace of moral instinct, merely makes him infinitely the most dangerous man that this community can bring forth; and the Senator in the remark he made came dangerously near assuming the very dangerous position that a knave who is sufficiently able is therefore relieved from the odium of knavery.

We ought to admire intelligence and ability; but only when the intelligence and ability are controlled and guided by the will to do right. Intelligence and ability divorced from the moral instinct merely make the man an infinitely dangerous wild beast whom it is our business to hunt out of the political life, and, so far as we can, out of the business life, of the community.

It has been finely said that the supreme task of humanity is to subordinate the whole fabric of civilization to the service of the soul. This does not mean that we are to neglect the things of the body. It means that we are to treat the welfare of the body as necessary, as a good in itself; but still more as a good because upon that welfare we can build the higher welfare of the soul. There is a soul in the community, a soul in the nation, just exactly as there is a soul in the individual; and exactly as the individual hopelessly mars himself if he lets his conscience be dulled by the constant repetition of unworthy acts, so the nation will hopelessly blunt the popular conscience if it permits its public men continually to do acts which the nation in its heart of hearts knows are acts that cast discredit upon our whole public life.

It is an old and a trite saying that our actions have more effect upon our principles than our principles upon our actions. I remember some time ago out on the range listening to a fine old fellow speaking to his nephew who was a fine young man, but nervous in his strange surroundings, and entirely unaccustomed to horses. The young fellow had asked his uncle how he could grow fearless in handling horses, because, he said, he was sure that if he only could get so that he would not be afraid of them he could handle them all right. The old uncle responded, “Now, I’ll tell you, you go ahead and handle them as if you were not afraid of them and gradually you will stop being afraid of them.” In other words, the boy could not afford to wait until he stopped being afraid of the horse before he rode it. He had to ride until he stopped being afraid of it. He had to get the habit of not being afraid of it, and when once he had acquired the habit of riding as if he were not afraid, all cause for worry disappeared and gradually all fear itself disappeared. It is just the same way in public life. If you habitually suffer your public representatives to be dishonest you will gradually lose all power of insisting upon honesty. If you let them continually do little acts that are not quite straight you will gradually induce in their minds the mental attitude which will make it hopeless to get from them anything that is not crooked. If in this state, in California, or in New York, you for a generation permit big corporations to purchase favors to which they are not entitled you will breed up a race of public men and business men who accept that condition of things as normal. And then, my friends, when you finally wake up I wish you would remember that great though their blame may be your blame is even greater for having permitted such a condition of things to arise.

When the awakening comes, you will undoubtedly have to change the machinery of the law in order to meet the conditions that have become so bad, but do not forget that no nation was ever yet saved by governmental machinery alone. You must have the right kind of law; but the best law that the wit of man can devise will amount to nothing if you have not the right kind of spirit in the man behind the law. And again, friends, when you finally revolt, as revolt you will and must against being ruled by corporations, and when you assume the power over them, then is the time to remember that it is your duty to be honest to them just as much as to exact honesty from them; and that if you are guilty of the folly and iniquity of doing wrong at their expense, you have not made a step in advance, even though you have stopped them from doing wrong at your expense. You must demand honesty or you are not men; and you must do honesty or you are not decent men.

Sometimes I have been asked as to why I draw the distinction in need of governmental action between the big business corporation and the smaller corporation. I think it is perfectly clear. Each one of us deals in his domestic relations with a number of different men, the grocer, the dry goods merchant, the carpenter, the butcher, the baker, and a number of others. Now, we do not need any governmental help in dealing with those men, because they are about our size. If the grocer doesn’t give you the proper kind of goods you will change the grocer, and if you don’t pay the grocer he will change you. But if the grocer becomes—I use the technical terminology—a captain of industry and accumulates a great fortune and joins with other men of the same type in a great business—a great railroad, a great oil or coal company, I don’t care what it is—then they create a mighty artificial entity called a corporation, and no one of us individually can deal satisfactorily with that corporation because we are dealing with an entity that is not our size. You can change the grocer if he serves you ill; but if you live along the line of the only railway in the country and wish to ship goods you must ship them on the railway’s terms or not ship them at all. That is the only alternative. If you are dealing with a big corporation that controls all the products of an industry or if you are working for that corporation, you must accept what it gives or accept nothing. The situation is reversed from what it was previously. Therefore it becomes necessary to replace our individual strength by the strength of all of us collectively, so that we may have to represent us an artificial entity as big as the corporation. If the corporation works only inside a state, why then this entity must be the state government; if it works in a number of different states, then we invoke the only man big enough to deal with it—Uncle Sam.

And now how shall Uncle Sam deal with it? Well, fundamentally just exactly as we deal with the grocer and the grocer with us. If we do not pay the grocer enough to give him a profit he will either have to abandon serving us or he will have to get out of business. He cannot run his business unless we pay him enough for him to make money. It is just the same with a big corporation. If we insist upon making stipulations on behalf of the Government, on behalf of the people, such that the corporation cannot carry them out and give any money to those who have built it up, why either that corporation will quit business or at least no other corporation will go into business. On the other hand, if each householder here always pays all his bills without looking into them it does not show that he has a nice disposition, it shows that he is a fool. In the same way I want Uncle Sam to do scrupulous justice to the corporation, but I want him to say in return, now I want you to behave yourself, I have no doubt that you would like to behave yourself; but whether you would or would not, I will see that you do behave yourself.

In the century which is now well open we shall have to use the legislative power of the state to make conditions better and more even as between man and man. Our aim must be to control the big corporation so that while it earns an ample reward upon its investment it gives to the public in return an ample service for the reward it receives. More and more we must shape conditions so that each man shall have a fair chance in life; that so far as we can bring it about—I do not mean to say that we can bring it about absolutely but insofar as we can approximately bring it about—each man shall start in life on a measurable equality of opportunity with other men, unhelped by privilege himself, unhindered by privilege in others. Now understand me: I do not mean for a moment that we should try to bring about the impossible and undesirable condition, of giving to all men equality of reward. As long as human nature is what it is there will be inequality of service, and where there is inequality of service there ought to be inequality of reward. That is justice. Equal reward for unequal service is injustice. All I am trying to help bring about is such a condition of affairs that there shall be measurable approximation to a higher reward than at present for the right kind of service, and a less reward than at present for some forms of activity that do not represent real service at all. There must be an opportunity for each man to show the stuff that is in him. But in the last analysis he must help himself. Every one of us stumbles at times. There is not a man here who does not at times stumble; and when that is the case shame on his brother who will not stretch out a helping hand to him. Help him up; but when he has been helped up then it is his duty and business to walk for himself. Help him up; but if he lies down, you cannot carry him. You will not do any good to him and you will interfere with your own usefulness to yourself and to others.

Our whole governmental policy should be shaped to secure a more even justice as between man and man, and better conditions such as will permit each man to do the best there is in him. In other words, our governmental ideal is to secure as far as possible the even distribution of justice—using the word justice in its largest and finest sense. You cannot secure justice if you haven’t just and upright public servants. You cannot secure great reforms if the fountain head from which the reforms are to come is corrupt. Our democracy in this our country now approximates the hundred million limit of population; our great democracy has great and complex needs; we need to have wise men, far-sighted men in public office, so that they may study those needs, and, so far as may be, meet them. But no wisdom in a public servant will avail if the public servant is not honest; and he will not be honest unless the public both demands and practices honesty.

I plead for honesty in the public servant, and I plead for it strongly. We need ability and intelligence to help us solve the problems with which as a nation we are face to face. We cannot solve them without ability, without intelligence. But what we need most of all is honesty, honesty in our people and honesty in our representatives. And woe to us as a nation if we do not have the honesty, the uprightness, the desire to treat each man with wise and generous and considerate justice.

Last year I was in the Old World, and wherever I went I encountered two phases of feeling that seemed contradictory. In the first place, wherever I went I found the man who felt that he had been unjustly treated in life looking eagerly toward this country as a country where the ideal of justice between man and man had been at least partially realized. And everywhere I went I found also, oh, my friends, a very different feeling, a feeling of doubt and mistrust among our friends and admirers because of what they had heard of our lack of integrity and honesty in public and in business affairs. I wish that our people could realize that every time word is sent abroad of political or business corruption or mob violence in this country, it saddens the heart of all believers in popular government, everywhere; and it is a subject for sneering mirth to every reactionary, to every man who disbelieves that the people can control themselves and do justice both to themselves and to others. I do not suppose that if we come short in our duty, if we are uninfluenced by the appeal made to us for our own sakes and for the sake of our children, we can be moved by an appeal made for other people. Yet I believe that every man who has the inestimable privilege of living here in our free land should feel in his soul, deep in the marrow of his being, that not only are we bound to act justly and honorably and honestly as a nation for our own sakes, not only are we bound so to act for the sake of the children who are to come after us, but that we are also bound thus to act because all over the world the peoples are looking eagerly at this great experiment in popular government; and shame to us, woe to us, if our conduct dims the golden hope of the nations of mankind.