THE MONEY BEHIND THE GUN
IN “The Flower of Old Japan,” a poem “for children between six and sixty,” Mr. Alfred Noyes represents his child seekers for the mirror of wisdom as encountering, among other personified phenomena of the adult intelligence, a curiously-inclined people known as the Ghastroi, of whom he says:
“Their dens are always ankle-deepWith twisted knives, and in their sleepThey often cut themselves; they sayThat if you wish to live in peaceThe surest way is not to ceaseCollecting knives; and never a dayCan pass, unless they buy a few;And as their enemies buy them too,They all avert the impending fray,And starve their children and their wivesTo buy the necessary knives.”
“Their dens are always ankle-deepWith twisted knives, and in their sleepThey often cut themselves; they sayThat if you wish to live in peaceThe surest way is not to ceaseCollecting knives; and never a dayCan pass, unless they buy a few;And as their enemies buy them too,They all avert the impending fray,And starve their children and their wivesTo buy the necessary knives.”
“Their dens are always ankle-deepWith twisted knives, and in their sleepThey often cut themselves; they sayThat if you wish to live in peaceThe surest way is not to ceaseCollecting knives; and never a dayCan pass, unless they buy a few;And as their enemies buy them too,They all avert the impending fray,And starve their children and their wivesTo buy the necessary knives.”
“Their dens are always ankle-deep
With twisted knives, and in their sleep
They often cut themselves; they say
That if you wish to live in peace
The surest way is not to cease
Collecting knives; and never a day
Can pass, unless they buy a few;
And as their enemies buy them too,
They all avert the impending fray,
And starve their children and their wives
To buy the necessary knives.”
The children are quite at a loss to know what to make of such a strange way of life.
Many children of a larger growth have wondered at the phenomenon of the actual world of which Mr. Noyes’s fancy is an allegory. But in the cultivation of the fear of war it has been left for the present year to reveal an aspect of sordidness the like of which has never before been known.
The world was startled, and all Germans were overwhelmed with mortification and shame, when in April the facts were made known concerning the way in which a market for military supplies had been created at Berlin. One great manufacturer of guns had been guilty of giving bribes within the very walls of the War Office. Another large company dealing in arms and ammunition had sent money to France in order to hire writers of anti-German articles, so that warlike feeling might appear to be stirred up, and the German Government be induced to place large orders for rifles and cartridges. All this went far beyond the ordinary manipulation of a “war scare.” With that we are familiar. It has frequently been seen in the United States. More than twenty years ago, when there was foolish talk about a war with Chile, a New Jersey steel-maker was heard to say, after the flurry was over, “Well, anyhow, it was a good enough war to secure me an order for $600,000 worth of ship’s plates.”
Such tactics by armor-makers and powder-manufacturers have often been exposed, but they fall short of the fiendishness of these German plottings. It is bad enough to work up an artificial excitement in your own land, to form leagues for a bigger army and navy, to point to various alleged foreign “perils,” to ply committees of Congress with fantastic military arguments, and to do it all, and finance it all, solely in order to get some fat government contracts. But to do what the German firm did is to pass beyond the mischievous and dishonorable into the diabolical. Deliberately and by means of money sent abroad to seek to rouse a hostile spirit and provoke a war for the purpose of making the weapon business good—this is to be willing to coin money out of the misery of two nations. It is to take the position that the blood of the killed and wounded and the tears of widows and orphans may be ignored if only they are “good for trade.” We have heard much of the mad competition in armament being a reduction of militarism to the absurd. These German revelations are a veritablereductio ad horribilem—all the more shocking because the German Emperor is to-day one of the greatest forces for peace.
Yet, when all is said, is not this thing, which the moral sense of civilized men pronounces shocking, only a development, one may say a logical development, of practices which have long been known and tolerated? There would seem to be only a difference in degree of turpitude between bribing one’s way to an order for cannon and paying out money, directly or indirectly, to secure general legislation which means money in a private citizen’s purse. This latter process has been not merely winked at in this country; it has been thought the regular and reputable thing to do. It has almost been honored. At least those who have profited by it have been honored. For years it was the vicious custom of corporations to group under “legal expenses” sums paid out to influence the legislature or Congress. Of one man prominent in his party, long in public life, and influential there, it was said that his motto, in politics as in business, was, “If you want anything, go and buy it.”
Such things were once far too common. They are frowned upon now, and we may believe that they are passing. It is necessary only to refer to what was done year after year in the matter of the protective tariff. The relation between campaign contributions and desired rates in the tariff bill was so close that it was hardly an exaggeration to say that the manufacturer put his coin in the party-treasury slot and drew out the customs duty he wanted. It seems certain that this habit of the “good old times” is disappearing before the spirit of the better new time. Yet evil is persistent. It is protean and recurrent. With all the gains that have been made, it is still true that the pecuniary view of legislation is too often met with. We laugh at “going in for the old flag and an appropriation,” but there are ways of corruption subtler than the blatant patriotic. In connection with too many bills and projects of law the questions are yet asked, “What is there in it for me?” “Who is putting up the money for this?”
Cases of outright legislative bribery are rare. In the few that do come to light or are suspected, proof of guilt is exceedingly difficult—how difficult, recent events at Albany have shown. But it is not the coarse methods of the purchaser or huckster in legislation that we need to guard against so much as the more insidious forms of swaying public legislation to private advantage. Too often, in connection with projects of law, a distinct “interest” appears. And frequently it is a moneyed interest. Movements that are artfully given the appearance of being spontaneous or voluntary are discovered to be secretly financed for secret purposes. The press is sometimes approached as well as legislatures and Congress. Sinister ends are craftily disguised. The very elect are occasionally deceived.
What is the remedy? It must be mainly moral. Against these anti-social practices the full power of social condemnation must be massed. The senses of men need to be sharpened until they can deny the truth of the cynical saying, “Gold does not smell.” Some gold does. And as against a private “interest” in legislation, there must be asserted, as the one standard, a broad State or National interest. Lacking that, no bill should be exempt from the severest scrutiny to expose a possibly selfish backing. That general principle established, and the further truth being insisted upon that no man shall be permitted before a legislative or congressional committee to be a judge in his own cause, the motive and the mischief of money-prompted legislation would be greatly diminished.