The Danger Threatening Representative Government
by Bob LaFollette
on every list, considered one of the greatest speeches of all time
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| Bob Lafollette |
The basic principal of this government is the will of the people. A system was devised by its
founders which seemed to insure the means of ascertaining that will and of enacting it into legislation
and supporting it through the administration of the law. This was to be accomplished by electing men
to make, and men to execute the laws, who, would represent in the laws so made and executed the will
of the people. This was the establishment of a representative government, where every man had equal
voice, equal rights, and equal responsibilities.
Have we such a government today? Or is this country fast coming to be dominated by forces that
threaten the true principle of representative government?
I have no desire to stir your passions or invoke an unfair judgement. But we owe it to the living as
well as the dead to make honest answers to these questions.
Every thinking man must have been impressed with the unsettled restless condition of the public mind
so marked for the last few years . . . What is it that is swelling the ranks of the dissatisfied? Is it a
growing conviction in state after state, that we are fast being dominated by forces that thwart the will
of the people and menace representative government?
Since the birth of the Republic, indeed almost within the last generation, a new and powerful factor has
taken its place in our business, financial and political world and is there exercising a tremendous
influence.
The existence of the corporation, as we have it with us today, was never dreamed of by the fathers . . .
The corporation of today has invaded every department of business, and it's powerful but invisible
hand is felt in almost all activities of life . . . The effect of this change upon the American people is
radical and rapid.
The individual is fast disappearing as a business factor and in his stead is this new device, the modern
corporation . . . The influence of this change upon character cannot be overestimated. The business
man at one time gave his individuality, stamped his mental and moral characteristics upon the business
he conducted . . .
Today the business once transacted by individuals in every community is in the control of
corporations, and many of the men who once conducted an independent business are gathered into the
organization, and all personal identity, and all individualities lost . . .
I am well aware that the combining of capital admits of operations upon a vast scale, and may cheapen
production in the long run, but we pay too dearly even for cheap things, and we cannot afford to
exchange our independence for anything on earth . . .
Corporations exacting large sums from the people of this state in profits, upon business transacted
within its limits, either wholly escape taxation, or pay insignificantly in comparison with the average
citizen in Wisconsin. . ..2
possible, the corporations throw almost the whole burden up on the land, upon the little homes, and the
personal property of the farms. This is a most serious matter, especially in the pinching times the
people have suffered for the last few years . . .
God, how patient are Thy poor! These corporations and masters of manipulation in finance heaping up
great fortunes by a system of legalized extortion, and then exacting from the contributors, -- to whom a
little means so much, -- a double share to guard the treasure!
. . . So multifarious have become corporate affairs, so many concessions and privileges have been
accorded them by legislation, -- so many more are sought by further legislation, -- that their specially
retained representatives are either elected to office, directly in their interests, or maintained in a
perpetual lobby to serve them. Hence it is that the corporation does not limit its operations to the
legitimate conduct of its business. Human nature everywhere is selfish, and with the vast power which
consolidated capital can wield, with the impossibility of fixing any personal or moral responsibility for
corporate acts, its commands are heard and obeyed in the capitals of the state and nation.
But in a government where the people are sovereign why are these things tolerated? Why are there no
remedies promptly applied and the evils eradicated?
It is because today there is a force operating in this country more powerful than the sovereign in
matters pertaining to the official conduct.
The official obeys whom he serves. Nominated independently of the people, elected because there is
no choice between candidates so nominated, the official feels responsibility to his master alone, and his
master is the political machine of his party. The people whom he serves in theory, he may safely
disobey; having the support of his political organization, he is sure of his renomination and knows he
will be carried through the election, because his opponent will offer nothing better to the long suffering
voter. . . .
Fellow citizens, I could have chosen a topic that would have given me much greater pleasure to discuss
with you here today. But as we love our state and our country we cannot ignore the events that mark
these days.
Recall if you can a session of a legislature in any state in the Union last winter which wholly escaped
charges of scandalous corruption. It will not do to say that such charges have always been made,
because it would not be true. Such charges twenty-five years ago accompanied by legislative
investigation retired the man to private life . . . Not so today. So greatly has the standard of official
morality deteriorated that such charges have ceased to impress the public mind.
Between the people and the representatives there has been built up a political machine which is master
of both. It is the outgrowth of the caucus and convention system. . .
In the years of business prosperity which the country experienced with the development of the great
Upper Mississippi Valley, men in every pursuit of life were engrossed with their individual affairs and
left caucuses and conventions wholly to the politician. When finally the pressure of hard times and the
multiplying abuses in official life turned their thoughts toward needed reforms in legislation, they
awoke to find themselves the mere subjects of this new master, the political machine, which had come
to be enthroned in American politics. They found it running their caucuses, naming their delegates,.3
conducting their conventions, nominating party candidates, making the party platform, controlling
legislatures and state administration, and fooling a majority of the people year after year with plausible
explanations through the columns of its own press.
Experience has proved it almost an idle folly to attend a caucus with the hope of defeating the machine
until today; -- after a century of statesmanship and struggle and sacrifice, after all the triumphs
achieved under the stars and stripes, -- thousands upon thousands of good citizens in every state, stand
aloof from the caucus and convention with the settled belief that representative government is an
unqualified failure.
Think of it! The citizen recognized the supremacy of the machine and abandoning the contest, the
official recognizing the supremacy of the machine obeying its orders. What then have we left? It is
the very life of a republic that the laws shall be made and administered by those constitutionally
chosen to represent the majority. Government by the political machine is without exception the rule of
the minority. . .
When legislatures will boldly repudiate their constituents and violate the pledges of their platforms,
then indeed have the servants become the masters, and the people ceased to be sovereign; -- gone the
government of equal rights and equal responsibilities, lost the jewel of constitutional liberty.
Do not look to such lawmakers to restrain corporations within proper limits. Do not look to such
lawmakers to equalize the burden of taxation. Do not look to such lawmakers to lift politics out of the
ways of darkness.
No, begin at the foundation, make one supreme effort, --even under the present bad system, --to secure
a better set of lawmakers. Rally to the caucuses and conventions, each with the party in which he
believes, Secure one victory, if possible, over the machine, elect men who will pass a primary election
law which will enable the voter to sell the candidate of his choice without the intervention of caucuses
or convention of the domination of the machine. Do this and your officers will respond to public
opinion. Do this and the reforms you seek will be within easy reach . . .
Oh, men! Think of the heroes who died to make this country free; think of their sons who died to keep
it undivided upon the map of the world' Shall we, their children, basely surrender our birthright and
say: "Representative government is a failure? No, never, until Bunker Hill and Little Round Top, sink
into the very earth."
Let us here, today, under this flag we all love, hallowed by the memory of all that has been sacrificed
for it and for us, dedicate ourselves to winning back the independence of this country, to emancipating
this generation and throwing off from the neck of the freemen of America, the yoke of the political
machine.
-Robert M. Lafollette