Editorial: Nepotism in high places
Putting one’s kinfolk on the public payroll is a common practice among politicians.
It has been indulged since the Roman Empire and probably will go on until Doomsday.
Oh, it goes on in private business, too. And likewise rankles the other payrollers, especially if the favored son or brother or uncle happens to be averse to work and gets special breaks over the heads of the common slaves.
But the politicians seem to have an extra weakness for the practice. Every so often a political adversary or the newspapers will list the nepotic beneficiaries and their benefactors – and it creates a great one-day sensation. But the practice keeps going.
Some of the politicians do it to get their poor relatives off their back, some to keep peace in the family and some just because they can’t resist looking out for their kinfolk. Occasionally, of course, there is real merit in those appointments.
Senator Truman, the vice-presidential nominee, explains that his wife is on the Congressional payroll at $4,500 a year because “she is my chief adviser,” who also takes care of his personal mail and helps him with his speeches. It can be said in rebuttal, of course, that she needn’t be on the payroll to do all those things.
In any case, nepotism is one of those phenomena of political life which never fail to stir up interest but don’t amount to much, either.
The public seems to regard it as a sort of snide practice. For this reason, the politicians generally agree it is not smart politics – but even the smartest fall for it.