-Benjamin Franklin to the Constitutional Convention
The art of politics is as confused and unorganized as a plate of hash and as endless as a string of ciphers. Despite the numerous digressions many things pertinent to the art, as distinguished from the issues, have necessarily been ignored. Some of them are much too involved for available space and quite unnecessary to a basic book, as you will learn about them as you come across diem, with litde loss to you, if your grounding is firm.
We must pass by such matters as the workings of state and national conventions, the work of state legislatures - "cinch" bills, "must" bills, the effect the Speaker can have on producing a "do pass" committee vote, the rules committee, stopping the clock-and the inner workings of congress - seniority, cloture, the functions of floor leaders and whips, senatorial courtesy. Lobbying and lobbyists, proper and improper sources of campaign funds, blocs, the preferential ballot, the publication of political newspapers, the Hatch Act, the organization of national committees and national campaigns, the political inter-relations of city, state, and county-all of these matters will face you with fresh political problems, but your answers will depend much more on how you look at issues; the techniques will turn out to be familiar to you. Only the names will be changed.
Nevertheless, whenever a large family makes a journey, no matter how many neat pieces of luggage they may own, there are always left-over items for which there is no assigned space but which must not be left behind. These are wrapped in brown paper and carried under the arm. This chapter is such a bundle.
The Personal Expenses of Volunteer Politics: Let's be specific. You can be quite active without spending a dime, but there are expenses which make your work much easier and more enjoyable. Here is minimum budget for comfort and freedom from embarrassment:
One extra meal out per week....................... $1.00
Pass-the-hat collections and dues, per wk.... .50
Transportation, per week............................. .40
Additional postage, political, per week......... .25
Weekly total................................................... $2.15
This budget permits much higher expenses during the most active weeks of campaigns because there will be many off-season weeks when the additional expense of being a politician is limited to a few postal cards and a phone call.
The budget ignores the fact that you aren't spending money on movies, bridge at a tenth, nor on other recreations or hobbies when busy with politics. Politics on the above budget is cheaper than most recreations, i.e., entering politics can save you money instead of costing you money, even though you pay your own way.
Political contributions and trips to conventions can run to any figure you care to spend. So also can any hobby. You will need the moral courage to say firmly, "I'm sorry but I don't have die money," when you can't afford it. You will be respected for it and it will cost you no political influence in die long run.
Coping with Communists: Communists are not very numerous but they get around; you will run into them everywhere. There is a popular belief that Communist infiltration is found only in the left wing of the Democratic Party; I have not found it so. A Communist cell can pop up wherever more than four people assemble. I have spotted them in organizations so reactionary that their presence, if known, would have caused deaths from apoplexy.
Communists are most easily understood if you think of them as a fanatical, evangelical religious sea. I speak here of American Communists; I have no knowledge of Russian Communists, having never met one to my knowledge and having never been to Russia.
From the standpoint of religion the peculiarities of communists form a recognizable pattern. They have an outrageously unscientific "bible" which they point to as being the last word in science. It appears in "authorized" and "forbidden" translations. They have a god - the idea of the "proletariat" - a major prophet, a minor prophet, and an apostate saint. They are absolutist in viewpoint and brook no argument Anything is moral to them which serves to propagate the faith, no matter how offensive to the unbeliever. Theirs is a "higher" morality; what we have is a "decadent, bourgeois" morality. They are indefatigably zealous. They are usually sincerely and altruistically devoted to their cause. You will find other such characteristics.
Their favorite technique is to bore from within. The operators are usually clandestine Communists, hiding behind some other party label-this is not offensive to their own strict moral code. They will make use of democratic parliamentary procedure and the democratic concept of free speech to ends destructive ofboth. Their notion of free speech is one in which you hire the hall and they do all the talking, on a subject of their choice. It is stricdy a one-way proposition - try it in their hall sometime!
A common technique is to operate in a cell of three -one to make a motion, one to second it, and the third to harangue. They generally spread around the hall to do this and may not even appear to be acquainted.
A chairman confronted with this triple play can find himself in a pickle. The subject picked by the cell is always one which can be made popular with the particular crowd and which is not overtly connected with Communism. A group of three can often stampede a crowd into some action disastrous to the objectives of the crowd but suited in some devious fashion to Communist purposes.
An able chairman can prevent this by means described earlier in this book if he spots the Communist cell.
Fortunately this can often be done in plenty of time. American Communists are hardly ever very intelligent although many display some aspects ofbriltiance. They tend to behave in regular patterns which they have been taught and by which they can be spotted, but they can most easily be spotted by their addiction to catch words and phrases.
These shibboleths change from season to season, but, if you are in politics, you will hear them, come to recognize them, and listen for them.
A few years back the word "activize" was such a touchstone. "People's" this and "People's" that has enjoyed a long popularity, as has "United Front." There is no way to tell you what these words will be at some time in the future. Listen for them and check the Daily Worker now and then to see what they are up to.
Some of them reveal themselves by calling themselves "Communist-sympathizers." This sort of person explains that he is not a Communist himself, but sympathetic to their social ideals. Consider, citizen - have you ever heard of a Democrat-sympathizer, or a Republican-sympathizer? There ain't no such animal.
Communists are merely irritating nuisances rather than dangerous. Only the timid and the mendacious profess to fear a communist revolution in this country. Anyone acquainted with the mares and the culture of this country can see that ninety-nine Americans out of a hundred, at the very least, don't want any part of Communism. It does not fit in with our individual ambitions.
Of what use, then, are the American Communists?
They serve one function extremely useful to you and to the country, so useful that, if there were no Communists, we would almost be forced to create some. They are a reliable litmus paper for detecting real sources of clanger to the Republic.
Communism is so repugnant to almost all Americans, when they are getting along even tolerably well, that one may predict with certainty that any social field or group in which the Communists make real strides in gaining members or acceptance of their doctrines, any such spot is in such bad shape from real and not imaginary social ills that the rest of us should take emergency, drastic action to investigate and correct the trouble.