What Are Republicans For?
I
NOT long ago it was the fashion to denounce the Congress of the United States as an outmoded vehicle. It would not go. It could only generate friction. Its wind resistance was the despair of highly trained engineers. Not least of the Roosevelt miracles, then, is the streamlined, high-speed Congressional model for 1933-34. If, on approaching the neighborhood of fall elections, its performance became somewhat uneven, none will deny that it has performed prodigies of swiftness.
There was, for example, a certain day in February when the House squandered no more than forty minutes in adding another billion dollars to federal relief appropriations. The administration needed the money, principally to support the CWA for another few weeks; Chairman Buchanan seems to have silenced the opposition with the single unanswerable question, ‘Who are we to tie the President’s hands in this work?’ Who indeed, the echoes answered, as party lines were obliterated in the rush to support the President.
There was a lone dissenter. Mr. Terrell of Texas had the temerity to object. He denounced the CWA as a ‘ never-ending drain on the resources of the government.’ He made a more serious charge. ‘I think it is going to start civil war and revolution when we do stop it,’he declared. ’I don’t need any office, and I am going to exercise my constitutional right and vote as I please. ... I would n’t sell my independence for any office I ever saw. The rest can vote like a herd of dumb, driven cattle if they want to, but no one is going to crack a whip behind me.’
This minor episode in the annals of Congress is cited not to present Mr. Terrell of Texas as the vanishing American. Nor is it intended to suggest that he was right and his 382 colleagues wrong. One may be quite convinced that government can meet the needs of the moment only by making unprecedented demands upon Congress and people, yet deplore as peculiarly untimely the virtual collapse of the opposition.
Mr. Terrell did not complain of loneliness, but his isolation is none the less the significant thing about this little drama. Time was when no American in political opposition need fear for want of company. Indeed, if your old-style individualist — like John Randolph of Roanoke — was ever found supporting the government, it was apt to be because opposition had become so popular as to be quite intolerable.
II
According to Homer (who is not to be trusted), Athene, goddess of wisdom, sprang full-panoplied from the forehead of Zeus. It is so in the authoritarian state; whether Communist or Fascist, the government is the sole fountainhead of wisdom. Criticism becomes superfluous, opposition frivolous and in practice dangerous.
The real difference between the authoritarian and the democratic state is that the latter denies this picturesque legend. According to democratic doctrine, wisdom is a kind of plant, to be nourished from many sources. It requires constant cultivation, careful pruning, and a good deal of sun and light; above all, it matures slowly. It tends, moreover, to exhaust the soil, which must repeatedly be fertilized if the plant is to be strong and hardy. Stifled by the hothouse, it flourishes and grows tough with exposure to the elements. Its fruit is an enlightened public opinion, democracy’s most valuable product and proper sovereign.
Public opinion is not to be confused with public sentiment, which is simply the way the people feel about their government. This feeling has always and everywhere to be reckoned with. Democracy insists, however, that just as the emotions need the protection of the intelligence, so public sentiment is all too likely to go astray unless guided and informed by public opinion. Without such protection it becomes a prey to propaganda, against whose wiles your authoritarian state deliberately strips it of all defense. With government the sole propagandist licensed to woo, public sentiment is thus left conveniently at its mercy. That is why we distrust Hitlerism on the one hand and Communism on the other.
But if we place our faith in the rule of public opinion, the collapse of the government’s opposition becomes a matter of national concern. To those of us who find it difficult to shed tears over the plight of the Republican Party, this is a hard saying. That does not invalidate it. You cannot have an effective public opinion without an effective opposition. Freedom of propaganda is no substitute. It merely offers a variety of more or less irresponsible suitors; it affords no assurance that the intentions of one will be any more honorable than the rest. Dazzled or bewildered, public sentiment is prone to succumb to those blandishments which are most plausible and alluring.
It is an axiom in law that no man has a right to an opinion until he has heard the evidence. This does not mean the evidence for the defense, or the evidence for the prosecution. Least of all does it mean the propaganda, pro or con, which may have appeared in the press; indeed, a juryman who has been prejudiced thereby may be challenged and ruled unfit to serve. Evidence means all relevant facts and admissible testimony from witnesses sworn to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’
It is only on such evidence that public opinion, properly so-called, can rest. It is a primary function of the opposition to see to it that all the evidence is heard. The administration, obviously, is an excellent agency for publicizing certain facts and certain testimony. It is up to the opposition to challenge inaccurate and irrelevant and inadmissible evidence. Just as obviously, there will be other facts and testimony which the administration is a poor agency for publicizing, but which nevertheless ought to be brought out, and that is the affirmative part of the opposition’s job. The administration, as an interested party, will do well if it tells the truth and nothing but the truth; it can hardly be expected to tell the whole truth. In complicated issues, it could not, unless it had a monopoly of wisdom; often it would not if it had.
III
It is fair to say that the Roosevelt Administration does its part. Certainly the President launched his programme with courage and proceeded to defend it with effective simplicity. Certainly his party leadership was not long in doubt. But that is not enough. It is enough, perhaps, in a crisis, when the need is for quick and emergent action. At such a time, opposition does well to abdicate — temporarily. But that time has long since passed.
The administration met the crisis masterfully. It subsequently embarked upon a programme of sweeping reforms, some of them drastic, many of them likely to affect profoundly our relations with government and with each other, our characteristic institutions, our habits of thought and way of life. Many of these reforms are necessary, all may conceivably be desirable, but they are not to be purchased without a price. Though all the wares be sound, we shall do well to weigh that price. Above all, we ought to be certain that the goods are designed to meet our real and not our fancied needs, that no better design or quality is obtainable, and that they will wear well. We cannot afford to make such long-term commitments lightly, or accept uncritically even Mr. Roosevelt’s superlative salesmanship. He himself has issued a caveat. He pretends to no monopoly of wisdom; he does not, he says, expect to bat 1000.
Meantime, through no fault of the President’s, the American people is being let down by an opposition which does not do its part. You do not get your money’s worth when the game goes by default.
It is hardly too much to say that the gravest threat to the administration itself comes to-day neither from Tories nor from doubting Thomases, but from the collapse of the opposition. One can almost imagine Mr. Roosevelt paraphrasing Voltaire and declaring that if there were no opposition we should have to invent one. For political programmes must be dramatized, and no one is more keenly aware than Mr. Roosevelt that the show’s the thing. But any show that is not mere display implies a struggle or contest, a contest requires an opponent, and if no opponent will stand and fight, you may have to set up a dummy in order to knock him down. That is not much fun. In the absence of open, organized, and honorable opposition, one is quite likely to drop dark hints of secret sabotage and sinister conspiracy, which may or may not exist. I do not say that this is Mr. Roosevelt’s way. I do say that if he were to adopt it the opposition would be partly responsible.
There are other reasons why the Democrats might properly look askance at the sorry state of the G. O. P. An aphorism, well known to practical politicians, asserts that the party in power is never overthrown: it lapses into factions and defeats itself. No one who knows the first thing about American political parties, their sectional and other cleavages, will deny that this is an ever-present danger.
In the long run, nothing welds a party together like persistent and determined opposition. It compels a closing of ranks, stimulates discipline, and so strengthens the hand of leadership. It protects government against itself, by subjecting its measures and the arguments on which they rest to the acid test of criticism. It compels the government to take the long view, by challenging the ultimate benefits of current expedients. In short, it is an integral part of the machinery of government; it is government sifting and testing its own propositions. Effective opposition is consequently second only to an effective administration in serving the public interest, and the more enterprising the latter, the more important the former.
There will always be occasions when the people lose all faith in the administration and its programme. This happened as recently as 1932. At such times it becomes clear that the opposition is a kind of trustee for the people’s faith in democratic processes. So long as it can offer a programme and a leadership which inspire confidence, orderly government proceeds, and the balance wheel has worked. But if the opposition is discredited too, if the people trust neither its leaders nor its programme, what then? What except the bankruptcy of democratic processes? What except receivership for democracy? And who will the receiver be, if not the demagogue or the dictator — or both rolled into one?
IV
If opposition has important public functions, there is a bastard variety, using its name, which serves only to discredit it. Being fractious and unscrupulous, it knows no principle except to embarrass the government. Its only policy is to grasp whatever political advantage it can seize by hook or crook. To advance its fortunes, it relies conspicuously on a kind of infamous horseplay. Happily, fortunes are not always advanced thereby. Where the Republican ‘opposition’ has been active at all, it has been chiefly in the use of such tactics. If they have been profitable, even temporarily, the fact is by no means visible to the naked eye. As seen by that organ, the Republican record appears likely to embarrass not so much the President as the future of the party itself.
Inherent in the Roosevelt recovery programme there is one weakness so conspicuous that the administration has sought rather to justify than to deny it. That is its cost. With the national debt climbing above its early post-war peak, with one extraordinary outlay leading to another, one might reasonably expect the opposition to take its stand in an impassioned defense of Treasury and taxpayer. From such a point of vantage, it could eventually launch a massed attack against governmental extravagance with the promise of considerable popular support. Republican spokesmen have fired a few stray shots in that direction, and Colonel Fletcher’s inaugural suggests that the artillery will be unlimbered as November approaches.
Quick to sense this weakness, the President took prompt measures to repair it as best he might. His best was heroic, the results electrifying. The celebrated Economy Act did more than bolster the government’s credit at a critical moment; it did more than dislodge seemingly impregnable abuses. It disarmed the opposition, destroyed much of its ammunition, and so effectively postponed any attack in force. Moreover, it set a rather obvious trap, into which the Republicans have obligingly fallen.
Perhaps they were betrayed by their own annoyance. It seems more probable that they were beguiled by the lure of quick profits. If they listened at all to the dictates of strategy, it was only to ignore them. If petty tactics violated these dictates, so much the worse for strategy. The course they pursued was at least touched with magnificence in its colossal disregard of consequence to party or nation.
Forgetting the indicated defense of Treasury and taxpayer, they grasped the first promising opportunity to attack the economy measures themselves. With a positive genius for seizing and waving the tattered shreds of discredited banners, they fought to restore the abuses and expenses which the President had cut down. Senator Reed (now brazenly denouncing the ‘orgy of spending’ and calling upon the President to ‘think of the country as a whole’) became the great and good friend of the veterans’ lobby. Magically, his associates rallied to his side. Intoxicated at finding an issue which could restore to their scattered forces a temporary unity, — which could even attract deserters from the President’s camp, — they swept on to a fatal victory. The President’s veto, promptly interposed, gave them one last chance of redemption. It was a real chance. It so happened that the vote of any one of the thirty-two Republican Senators present would have saved the day for economy and pension reform. The thirty-two Republican votes were cast solidly against economy and pension reform.
This stirring exhibition of party discipline in behalf of the ‘special interests’ gives to the American people one of its few opportunities for appraising the quality of the opposition’s leadership. It may be rewarded by a few cheap votes, but no inconsiderable number of the veterans themselves may be counted on to prefer Mr. Roosevelt’s courage. It is entitled to all the satisfaction it can derive from a minor victory which impairs the prestige of the President’s hitherto unbroken success. A more costly victory, however, would be hard to conceive. Strategic advantage was sacrificed, consistency was sacrificed, all claim to popular confidence was sacrificed. The party was left in a position which, for an opposition that means business, is clearly untenable; upon any attempt to resume its previous post of vantage the Democrats can direct a withering fire. Meantime, how is Colonel Fletcher to swing his anti-extravagance guns into action without raking his own troops?
It is not easy to take seriously the other activities of a party that seems bent on discrediting itself. On the AAA front, which is certainly not invulnerable, capricious nature has proved itself a valuable Republican ally. So has the belief, said to be sweeping portions of the West, that the drought was a divine visitation in punishment of agricultural birth-control. Of such natural or supernatural aid the party has made little constructive use. Certainly it has done nothing to redeem its own conspicuous failure to solve the farm problem; for the admittedly dubious experiments which have ensued it offers no convincing substitute.
Against the NRA, Mr. Borah and Mr. Nye have, to be sure, made vigorous sallies in behalf of the small business man. The majority of their associates, however, seem reluctant to embark upon so quixotic a crusade. Perhaps they are hampered by a pedestrian imagination. Perhaps they cannot quite visualize the G. O. P. genuinely aroused and reunited through contemplating the plight of small business. So far at least as his party associates are concerned, it looks as if Mr. Borah would have to fight another lonely battle.
In undertaking his task, it is to be hoped that the Senator will divest himself, so far as possible, of other cares and preoccupations. His occasionally expressed concern to know what the administration is doing to collect the war debts, for example, might properly be left to his veteran colleague from the Pacific, who has done such yeoman service in preventing their reduction or collection. The Senator could then devote his admittedly superior talents to devising the formula which small business undoubtedly needs if it is to be saved. Incidentally, he might find the nation readier than certain of his party associates to welcome such a formula.
v
But the really damaging sins, I have always felt, are the sins of omission. One can make allowances for blunders in action. If a party is willing, a little experience in the school of opposition can do wonders. And if the Republicans continue to demonstrate their want of experience, the American people will doubtless arrange to extend their education indefinitely.
One ought, in fairness, to admit that seasoned veterans of opposition would have found much that was discouraging in the outlook a year ago. Not only was the G.O. P. left stunned and lame by its dizzy fall from grace. It awoke to a world whose face was altered. As Mr. Berle has brilliantly pointed out, ancient shibboleths and sanctions had been swept away, familiar premises discredited, a whole system of ideas undermined. We wanted no mere restoration; we wanted at the least a drastic renovation, while many insisted that nothing short of drastic innovation would serve. It was uncertain how far the administration would be content with renovation, how far it was prepared to go with innovation. It was certain only that it was on its way. As specialists in the status quo, the Republicans would naturally find all this disconcerting. One does not blame their initial confusion. It is the persistence of their confusion, their want of generalship, their generally irresponsible attitude, that condemn them. Everyone who sulks in his tent is not an Achilles.
There could have been no objection to an honest policy of watchful waiting. Indeed, during the first few months of a new administration, such a course is normally indicated. The government has a fresh mandate; its programme must have its chance to unfold, and during that period a actively hostile opposition would be unsporting and unwise. This was preëminently true of the early months of the New Deal. But watchful waiting calls for the utmost alertness. Careful scrutiny is not synonymous with attack.
As the new programme unfolds, it gives rise to questions of public importance. Are its provisions reasonably consistent with each other? Are they well calculated to realize their announced purposes? What are their less obvious implications? And what is their price?
An opposition which gives to such questions no intelligible answers, or only a confused babel of partisan answers, is little more than a public charge. This is a general truth; it is peculiarly pertinent to-day. If ever government needs to sift and test its propositions, it is when they involve, or purport to involve, innovations. It is not that innovations need to be feared as such, though the best seldom suffer from a little critical examination. More important is the need to satisfy oneself that proposed innovations are really new, and not some forgotten expedient long since tried and found wanting. Such ‘innovations’ may in fact be only reactionary.
VI
Take the Roosevelt monetary policy. Dollar devaluation was doubtless wise and necessary. If its advantages can be exaggerated, so can its dangers. Even in supporting it, however, it is well to be aware of its implications. For example, it establishes a precedent for currency manipulation which may in the future be invoked not only when it is economically, but also when it is politically, desirable. It gives fresh political importance to an issue which, during much of our history, has racked the government, split parties wide open, and arrayed section against section.
Perhaps this was unavoidable. Perhaps the price had to be paid in order to avert more certain and immediate catastrophe. It is a singular fact, however, that the only memorable protest, the really arresting challenge, came not from a Republican, but from the President’s friend and admirer, the senior Senator from Virginia.
But if the so-called Inflation Act, as an emergency measure, deserved special treatment, the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 scarcely falls within that category. On its face, this measure provided, as it should, that the profits of devaluation should go to the Treasury. It proceeded not only to withdraw gold coin from circulation, but to vest in the government title to all gold, including that held by the Federal Reserve System as public trustee. Finally, with the proceeds of devaluation, it set up a Stabilization Fund of two billion dollars, under virtually exclusive Treasury control. All this is sweeping enough, but what of the less obvious implications? Let us examine only one.
The powers conferred upon the Secretary with respect to use of the Stabilization Fund place in his hands, quite incidentally, a power to influence credit which substantially parallels that of the Federal Reserve, and so potentially cancels the latter’s. However wisely this power may be used, however the inherent contradiction may yield to coöperation, no Act which creates it can escape the charge of being essentially reactionary. While prior to 1933 no one man in American history has ever possessed such a concentration of powers over credit, other Secretaries of the Treasury have attempted (before Congress established the Reserve System) to regulate its volume and distribution through manipulation of the public funds. In the absence of other constituted authority, there was something to be said for such a policy.
The result, however, has generally been a storm of protest. On October 4, 1906, for example, the Nation warned that Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasury, in pursuing this course, might arbitrarily ‘throw deposits into the banks at a time when they would merely encourage a dangerous stock speculation; he might refuse to release funds when disaster to the money market would be the consequence.’ It charged that his attempts at equitable distribution were proving to be a boon to speculators. A fortnight later the same journal found this gentleman’s proposal that he be clothed with authority to shift at will the requirements for banking reserves explainable only ‘on the supposition that the Secretary has confused himself with Providence.’ Even if these criticisms were warranted, the panic of 1907 can be adequately explained on other grounds.
It is certain, however, that dissatisfaction with such arrangements was a powerful factor in the agitation for reform which culminated under Wilson, with the support of Bryan, in the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. The essence of this Act was the establishment of a monetary authority whose central board is appointed neither by the Treasury nor by the banks, but by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Since appointments run for ten years, this central board is protected against arbitrary executive interference; since there is a vacancy every second year, its membership tends to reflect the deeper shifts in public opinion. Substantially insulated from ‘politics,’ it is subject only, as it should be, to the legislative control of Congress.
Now if the control of credit is to be disinterested, if it is to be exercised with an eye single to the public interest, this principle is of the utmost importance. All human agencies make mistakes, but a political agency, however good its intentions, is not the agency for doing such a job. Against violent political pressure, the Treasury’s defenses are inherently weak. Restriction of credit is often imperative and never popular. Against the inevitable repercussions of such a policy, the Federal Reserve provides government with a useful cushion. Without it, it may be doubted whether an administration could survive a deliberate policy of credit restriction. But survival is virtually the first law of government. It follows, therefore, that, faced with the urgent need to restrict, your purely political machinery for controlling credit simply breaks down. Nor could the Secretary be expected to operate such a mechanism without being primarily concerned with the needs of the Treasury. It is his job, particularly when faced with the necessity for heavy public financing, to maintain the market for government bonds. But if the sale of government bonds on a large scale becomes necessary to prevent credit from getting out of hand, what is he to do? Clearly it is unwise and unfair to impale any man upon the horns of such a dilemma.
If any such dangers are implicit in the Gold Reserve Act, it is of some importance that the public should know about them. An opposition unable to eliminate them should at least see to it that they are clearly understood. As a matter of fact they were pointed out last January, but not by the Republican Party. Certain individual Republicans did evince a rather vague concern about the bill, but it is primarily to Mr. Glass and a small group of Democrats that it owes such safeguards and limitations as it finally contained.
The President, one ought to add, was quick to disclaim any intention to cripple the Federal Reserve or to make of the Treasury a central banking institution. An alert opposition might well have welcomed this statement, while regretting that the provisions of the bill should not be more consistent with it. It might have suggested that such inadvertent inconsistency did little credit to the administration’s draftsmanship, and offered to repair it. As it is, the inconsistency is perhaps less a reflection upon the administration than upon a Congressional opposition which failed to observe it.
VII
Fundamental to democracy is the proposition that government must not only guard but be guarded against overreaching. As the powers and activities of government multiply, the exercise of that vigilance which is the price of liberty becomes a full-time job. The New Model Congress is a marvel for speed, but what about the controls?
A free press can and does do much, but the press speaks with many voices. Organized groups have their use, but they are generally subject to the not unwarranted suspicion of having an axe to grind. They represent the laborer or the manufacturer, the merchant or the farmer, the veteran or the taxpayer, the inflationist or the property owner. They are organized to demand government grants or promote a propaganda or defend a vested interest. To entrust the controls to them would be to turn over to the ‘special interests’ an important function of government.
Party responsibility is still an essential ingredient in the democratic state. It fashions a reasonably coherent programme out of conflicting demands. It is the people’s insurance policy in an uncertain and predatory world. And in curbing excess of zeal, in elucidating the facts, in bringing constructive criticism to a focus, and in developing alternative programmes, there is no substitute for an enlightened and well-organized party of opposition. That is why there is no room for it in the authoritarian state.
An enlightened and well-organized party implies responsible leadership. Lacking it, no majority party can safely assume power or long retain it. Lacking it, no minority party can effectively restrain power or earn the right to hold it. Why, then, should we expect it only of the administration?
The government, to be sure, has the most conspicuous opportunity. It tends to hold the centre of the stage, but if it monopolizes it, the opposition has only itself to blame. Like the government, it has important public functions to perform. Like the government, it is responsible to the people for their performance. Like the government, it will do its job with conspicuous success only as it develops a party leadership strong enough to be effective, wise enough to be restrained, and intelligent enough to command respect. For such leadership there is always room near the centre of the stage.
Here at their very doorstep is the formula of salvation for which the Republicans have lately been scanning the heavens and the earth. By embracing it, the party would save itself and something far more important. It would establish a salutary precedent for all parties in opposition. It might, in time, even cease to be one.