POLITICS WITHOUT PATRONAGE

A Noble Achievement Brings New Problems of Discipline

ON the morning of Nov. 5, 1952, the Republican politicians came down out of the hills and gazed hungrily about them in the Valley of Plenty from which Ike Eisenhower had just driven the Democrats. After 20 years, the federal patronage belonged to the G.O.P. once again. Federal payrolls were larger than any Republican had ever presided over--2,500,000 people holding down civilian jobs in Washington, across the land, and all around the world. Instantly, district, county and state bosses turned expectantly toward those traditional dispensers of federal patronage, the national committeemen, the Congressmen and the Senators.

Because the Republicans had been waiting so long, the awakening was ruder than it otherwise might have been. The panorama of plenty turned out to be a mirage. Gradually, over the years, the relative scope of political patronage had been dwindling--a vast change in the shape of U.S. politics, which had been obscured during the Roosevelt-Truman period when the expansion of total federal jobs was so great that the patronage seekers were satisfied, even though they got a smaller share of the whole.

With Eisenhower's contraction of the Government, federal patronage has dwindled to a mere shadow. To date, the National Committee has placed only 2,500 of the faithful in good jobs (i.e., jobs paying $5,000 to $7,000, and requiring no technical or professional skill), a paltry percentage of the payroll and a figure which one single California-sized state would have sniffed at in the good old days.

The politico's discovery that the federal political system is running virtually without patronage is akin to discovering that the corner grocery is running without the profit motive. Since Andrew Jackson overturned John Quincy Adams in 1828, political machines have been held together by the wholesale promise of jobs.

In the good old days the payoff was easy. A Congressman could pick the postmasters in his district plus a couple of assistant U.S. attorneys, and some others. A Senator from New York could dictate the filling of about 20,000 federal jobs. "Today," says a U.S. Senator, "I can't keep one county happy. What little patronage there is solves nothing and is a cause of daily bickering and animosity." House Majority Leader Joe Martin had more jobs to dispense when he was minority leader under the Truman Administration than he has today as Republican top boss.

To make matters more difficult for the politicians, the Hatch Act of 1939 forbids federal appointees from politicking. "Patronage isn't much of a political weapon any more," said a Midwesterner. "When you do get a guy a job, he quickly tells you he's 'Hatched.' Sure he owes you his job--but he can't work for you. He wraps himself in the Hatch Act and says he's got to pretend not to know you any longer."

Most Washington politicos roundly blame the White House for their patronage troubles. Early last year many a Congressman and Senator picked up the morning paper to read that a Cabinet member had given a key job to someone from the Senator's home state without so much as checking with Capitol Hill or the National Committee. The White House budget balancers lopped 200,000 jobs from the federal payroll. Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams tried to keep patronage control in the White House, got things so clogged up that congressional leaders pounded angrily on the President's desk until the patronage job was transferred to Chairman Len Hall of the National Committee. But even after Hall set up a clearinghouse for appointments, things got little better.

Ninety-nine responsible citizens out of a hundred are glad that patronage has declined to the vanishing point. Yet, like all progress, this change has a price tag that is often overlooked. The absence of patronage creates tough new problems for the U.S. political system. Senators and Representatives are elected from geographical districts with different economic and other interests. The President, on the other hand, is the elected representative of the whole nation. As the two-party system evolved, patronage came to be the most powerful instrument at the President's command for keeping his party Congressmen in line.

Jackson was the first President to discover the real possibilities of patronage. He took office at a time when the editorial writers were rebelling against the entrenched career civil servants of John Quincy Adams' day, and demanding "rotation in office." Jackson's lieutenants were delighted to "rotate" (i.e., throw out) Adams' appointees, were careful to make new appointments in a way to bring order and discipline to their chaotic, growing party. Lincoln also played patronage for all it was worth, appointing postmasters and generals alike with an eye toward keeping the Northern Republican factions from flying apart. During the Civil War, Lincoln confessed that he felt as though he was letting offices in one end of his house while the other end was burning down.

The need for party discipline did not change, but the nature of federal jobs did. As Government expanded, the newly specialized departments began to demand a new type of specialized civil servant. The Indian agent, the tax collector, and even that venerable symbol of patronage, the postmaster, have all become specialists--and subject to civil-service examination. As the civil service expanded, party discipline dwindled.

What can a President do to keep discipline in the new era? What can Eisenhower use as a substitute for patronage which used to be both the carrot and the stick of party leadership? How can he fulfill his responsibility for party--and national --unity against the divisive tendencies of Congressmen and bureaucrats, who inevitably represent special-interest groups?

The best proof of party indiscipline is the case of Joe McCarthy. When McCarthy began needling the Eisenhower Administration, many an editorial writer urged the G.O.P. to bring him into line by cutting off his patronage. In the first place, there was very little to cut off. In the second, Joe had already adapted himself to a non-patronage basis of survival.

In theory, a non-patronage Senator or Congressman is free to vote according to his conscience. In practice, the death of patronage means that he digs up his own resources for survival. Whether his support comes from a state machine, from local businessmen, unions, or his television audience, it has the same denominator: he becomes the voice of special interests. He is less and less geared to the needs of national policy.

In Britain, patronage is a minor factor in party discipline. Yet discipline there is very strong. On vote after vote, every Laborite and Conservative M.P. sticks with his party. National party leaders keep tight control principally because they have a veto over the selection of candidates for the House of Commons by local constituencies; an independent M.P. knows that he risks having his constituency taken away from him by the national leaders, even though the party rank & file in his constituency like the way he votes. This procedure would not be tolerated in the U.S., where since 1900 there has been a strong tide against bossism. The direct primary and other reforms, wholesome on balance, have seriously weakened U.S. party structure and party responsibility.

Federal patronage as a force in politics is dead. No amount of whipping will hurt it and no amount of wailing can restore it. When this fact is established, politicos and reformers alike can go to work to find something to take its place.

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