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By David Dayton McKean
The central principle of his thinking is that what benefits
the political organization is desirable and therefore right;
what damages it is undesirable and therefore wrong. The
end of maintaining the organization justifies any necessary
means. `Politics,' he told George Creel, `is a business. That's
what the reformers don't get. They think it's a sort of revival meeting, with nothing to do but nominate some bird
who's never seen a polling place, make a lot of speeches
about clean government, and then sit back and wait for
voters to hit the sawdust trail. It's a laugh. You got to have
organization, and not just for a few weeks before election,
but all the year round. Understand?' (Collier's Magazine, October 10, 1936, p. 13.)
A political organization such as that in Jersey City is not
so much the servant of the people as their master, no matter
how much dust officials may keep in the air about the public
benefits provided by the administration. In every possible
way, from the buying off of group leaders with jobs to the
manipulation of elections, the politicians in control indicate
that they do not intend either to allow opposition to form or
to become effective. The interest of the organization comes
before the public interest, whether in loading a payroll with
useless jobs against the interest of the taxpayers or in controlling
courts against the interest of litigants. The people
have tolerated these oppressions so long and so complacently that the politicians have, underneath the talk about
service, a certain contempt for the electorate which is not the
less real because it is seldom expressed. Mayor Hague showed
a hint of it when he said to Creel: `According to reformers,
the average American can hardly wait for election day so
he can exercise the sovereign right that the forefathers bought
with their blood. That's another laugh. A full fifty per cent
of the voters have got to be coaxed or dragged to the polls.'
The supine public, in other words, does not deserve more than
it gets.
The organization, putting its own interest foremost, cannot afford to be tied down to any permanent platform or set
of public policies. It proposes to last longer than any policy;
it will favor a sales tax, then oppose it, then favor it, and
finally oppose it. Mayor Hague in his speeches is always
very vague about what he proposes to do if re-elected – although
he will of course be re-elected regardless of what he
says or does not say. He prefers, rather, to dwell upon those
parts of his record that have been proved to be popular or to
use some such generalization as he did in 1937, `You know
Mayor Hague has served his city conscientiously and honestly.'
The truth is that he does not know specifically what
he will do, but he will select whatever course of action promises to benefit him and his organization.
The nature of political leadership, as he conceives it,
leaves little room for the formation of policy anywhere except
at the top of the organization; while the party workers keep
the citizens in line by all the variety of means at the dis-
posal of a well-built machine, the leader decides what is good
for the people. `I think the duty of a mayor,' Frank Hague
told Dean Frazer in the C.I.O. trial, `is to, from his own observation,
ascertain for himself just what's beneficial to the
people of the community in which he presides over.' He may
listen to advice or not, but he decides; on another occasion,
pointing his long forefinger at his chest, he said: `I decide.
I do. Me.'
The I-am-the-law statement was widely quoted because
it fitted precisely into place in the scheme of his leadership
in his organization. He insisted that it was torn out of its
context to be used against him; indeed, he said, `I was
misquoted so frequently that I thought it would be better
for me to remain silent and perform my duties as I seen it.'
But in his testimony in the C.I.O. trial he gave away all
pretense that the famous statement was not as broad as the
editors had made it:
This Web version, edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
Q. So that, Mayor, actually, in the daily functioning of the
government of Jersey City, your statement made under the
circumstances we discussed earlier, `I am the law,' is to all
practical intents and purposes true, isn't it?
A. Yes.' (Transcript, p 1250)
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