Henry Adams on Government Ethics
Henry Adams' 1880 novel <i>Democracy</i> is a must-read for those
interested in government ethics. It's also a first-rate novel, full
of wit, excellent writing, and a good portrayal of post-Civil War
Washington. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2815" target="”_blank”">It's
available free from Project Gutenberg</a>, in six e-book formats.<br>
<br>
The climax of the novel is an exchange between the Secretary of the
Treasury (Ratcliffe, formerly a senator) and the novel's protagonist
(Madeleine), a wealthy widow fascinated with politics. The exchange
is all about government ethics. Here are a few wonderful quotations
from the novel, including from the climax:<br>
<br>
[D]emocracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by
the people, for the benefit of Senators...<br>
<br>
Ratcliffe: [N]o representative government can long be much
better or much worse than the society it represents. Purify society
and you purify the government. But try to purify the government
artificially and you only aggravate failure.<br>
<br>
Madeleine on Ratcliffe: The audacity of the man would have
seemed sublime if she had felt sure that he knew the difference
between good and evil, between a lie and the truth; but the more she
saw of him, the surer she was that his courage was mere moral
paralysis, and that he talked about virtue and vice as a man who is
colour-blind talks about red and green; he did not see them as she
saw them; if left to choose for himself he would have nothing to
guide him. Was it politics that had caused this atrophy of the moral
senses by disuse?<br>
<br>
Ratcliffe: If virtue won't answer our purpose, we must use
vice, or our opponents will put us out of office, and this was as
true in Washington's day as it is now, and always will be.<br>
<br>
Mrs. Baker, a lobbyist: "Well! we got our bills through ...
Some of them liked suppers and cards and theatres and all sorts of
things. Some of them could be led, and some had to be driven like
Paddy's pig who thought he was going the other way. Some of them had
wives who could talk to them, and some — hadn't," said Mrs. Baker,
with a queer intonation in her abrupt ending.<br>
<br>
Madeleine: the thought of … the endless succession of moral
somersaults she would've had to turn, chilled her with mortal
terror.<br>
<br>
Ratcliffe: It is the act of my public life which I most regret
— not the doing, but the necessity of doing.<br>
<br>
Madeleine: Where did the public good enter at all into this
maze of personal intrigue, this wilderness of stunted natures where
no straight road was to be found, but only the tortuous and aimless
tracks of beasts and things that crawl?<br>
<br>
Ratcliffe: I might say: Perish the government, perish the
Union, perish this people, rather than that I should soil my hands!
Or I might say, as I did, and as I would say again: Be my fate what
it may, this glorious Union, the last hope of suffering humanity,
shall be preserved.<br>
<br>
Madeleine (powerful thought about government, but not about government ethics): Had
she not penetrated the deepest recesses of politics, and learned how
easily the mere possession of power could convert the shadow of a
hobby-horse existing only in the brain of a foolish country farmer,
into a lurid nightmare that convulsed the sleep of nations?<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
203-859-1959