I have known Congressmen, when they
were boning up on a subject, to study as they had not studied since
they passed their final examinations, many large cups of black coffee,
wet towels and all. They had to dig for information, sweat over
arranging and verifying facts, which, in any consciously organized
government, should have been easily available in a form suitable for
decision. And even when they really knew a subject, their anxieties
had only begun. For back home the editors, the board of trade, the
central federated union, and the women's clubs had spared themselves
these labors, and were prepared to view the Congressman's performance
through local spectacles.
6
What patronage did to attach political chieftains to the national
government, the infinite variety of local subsidies and privileges do
for self-centered communities. Patronage and pork amalgamate and
stabilize thousands of special opinions, local discontents, private
ambitions. There are but two other alternatives. One is government by
terror and obedience, the other is government based on such a highly
developed system of information, analysis, and self-consciousness that
"the knowledge of national circumstances and reasons of state" is
evident to all men. The autocratic system is in decay, the voluntary
system is in its very earliest development; and so, in calculating the
prospects of association among large groups of people, a League of
Nations, industrial government, or a federal union of states, the
degree to which the material for a common consciousness exists,
determines how far cooperation will depend upon force, or upon the
milder alternative to force, which is patronage and privilege.
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