the committee will disappear. The party may still maintain agents to look after registration and to guard party interests at primary elections. The functions of the campaign committee will remain. Yet even here the new method is likely to effect important changes. As the party platform passes from the convention to the candidate, so the party committee is likely to become more and more an agency of the candidate. A more important change to be effected by the primary election is found in the distinction which it enforces between State and federal politics. The earlier system of party conventions with its vast array of party machinery tended to obliterate the distinction between State and nation. The two governments which the constitution makes distinct were, in the hands of party committees, fused together in such a way as to render intelligent action on the part of the voter difficult or impossible. The new system enforces a separation and compels a distinction between State and federal politics.

The new method also furnishes the means for partially removing the one instance of capital maladjustment in our Federal Constitution. I refer to the provision for the election of United States senators, which has resulted in compelling the voter, in a single act, to attempt the impossible task of expressing an opinion on the policies of two governments which the Constitution makes distinct. When he votes for men to make laws for his State, it is a mere accident if these men represent his views in national politics. Through the device of a primary election it has been found possible virtually to relieve the State legislature of the responsibility of selecting United States senators. This makes it possible to develop and maintain distinct and independent policies in the States.

V. PARTY REFORM

400. Beginnings of the spoils system. The following letter, written to Jefferson by his postmaster-general, indicates the sentiment upon which was originally based removal from office for political reasons:

Premising that I am fully sensible of the agitations which will be produced by removals from office, that I have no connections for whom I wish office, and that I sincerely lament the existence of a. state of things which require acts calculated to affect individuals, and to give pain to the feelings of the executive-I proceed to state the reasons upon which I have founded my opinion.

First, The principle cannot be controverted, that it is just, fair, and honorable that the friends of the government should have at least as

great a proportion of the honors and offices of the Government as they are of the whole people. .

...

Secondly, The general depression of the Republicans in this State, who have suffered everything, combating a Phalanx vastly superior to what can be found in any other part of the union forms a strong reason. Nothing can be lost here, and something may be gained: How far this applies to other parts of the union is not for me to judge. A knowledge that we had the real confidence of the Executive I think would have a happy effect, for already it is used as an argument to affect our elections that the President used the Democrats to ride into office, that now seated there he has evinced his contempt for them, and will rely solely on the Federalists for support. . . .

Lastly, The sacred rule that no man shall be persecuted for his opinions decently and reasonably maintained will not apply to any of our official Characters. I believe without a single exception All, and I know most have been bitter persecutors.

401. Evils of the spoils system. The following extract is taken from an address delivered by Carl Schurz at the annual meeting of the National Civil Service Reform League:

Looking at the financial side of the matter alone it is certainly bad enough; it is indeed almost incomprehensible how the spoils system would be permitted through scores of years to vitiate our business methods in the conduct of the national revenue service, the postal service, the Indian service, the public-land service, involving us in indescribable administrative blunders, bringing about Indian wars, causing immense losses in the revenue, breeding extravagant and plundering practices in all Departments, costing our people in the course of time untold hundreds of millions of money, and making our Government one of the most wasteful in the world. All this, I say, is bad enough. It might be called discreditable enough to move any self-respecting people to shame. But the spoils system has inflicted upon the American people injuries far greater than these.

The spoils system, that practice which turns public offices, high and low, from public trusts into objects of prey and booty for the victorious party, may without extravagance of language be called one of the greatest criminals in our history, if not the greatest. In the whole catalogue of our ills there is none more dangerous to the vitality of our free institutions.

It tends to divert our whole political life from its true aims. It teaches men to seek something else in politics than the public good. It puts

mercenary selfishness as the motive power for political action in the place of public spirit, and organizes that selfishness into a dominant political force.

It attracts to active party politics the worst elements of our populalation, and with them crowds out the best. It transforms political parties from associations of patriotic citizens, formed to serve a public cause, into bands of mercenaries using a cause to serve them. It perverts party contests from contentions of opinion into scrambles for plunder. By stimulating the mercenary spirit it promotes the corrupt use of money in party contests and in elections.

It takes the leadership of political organizations out of the hands of men fit to be leaders of opinion and workers for high aims, and turns it over to the organizers and leaders of bands of political marauders. It creates the boss and the machine, putting the boss into the place of the statesman, and the despotism of the machine in the place of an organized public opinion.

It converts the public officeholder, who should be the servant of the people, into the servant of a party or of an influential politician, extorting from him time and work which should belong to the public, and money which he receives from the public for public service. It corrupts his sense of duty by making him understand that his obligation to his party or his political patron is equal if not superior to his obligation to the public interest, and that his continuance in office does not depend on his fidelity to duty. It debauches his honesty by seducing him to use the opportunities of his office to indemnify himself for the burdens forced upon him as a party slave. It undermines in all directions the discipline of the public service.

It falsifies our constitutional system. It leads to the usurpation, in a large measure, of the executive power of appointment by members of the legislative branch, substituting their irresponsible views of personal or party interest for the judgment as to the public good and the sense of responsibility of the executive. It subjects those who exercise the appointing power, from the President of the United States down, to the intrusion of hordes of office hunters and their patrons, who rob them of the time and strength they should devote to the public interest. It has already killed two of our presidents, one, the first Harrison, by worry, and the other, Garfield, by murder; and more recently it has killed a mayor in Chicago and a judge in Tennessee.

It degrades our Senators and Representatives in Congress to the contemptible position of office brokers, and even of mere agents of office brokers, making the business of dickering about spoils as weighty to them as their duties as legislators. It introduces the patronage as an agency of corrupt influence between the executive and the legislature. It serves

to obscure the criminal character of bribery by treating bribery with offices as a legitimate practice. It thus reconciles the popular mind to practices essentially corrupt, and thereby debauches the popular sense of right and wrong in politics.

It keeps in high political places, to the exclusion of better men, persons whose only ability consists in holding a personal following by adroit manipulation of the patronage. It has thus sadly lowered the standard of statesmanship in public position, compared with the high order of ability displayed in all other walks of life.

It does more than anything else to turn our large municipalities into sinks of corruption, to render Tammany Halls possible, and to make of the police force here and there a protector of crime and a terror to those whose safety it is to guard. It exposes us, by the scandalous spectacle of its periodical spoils carnivals, to the ridicule and contempt of civilized mankind, promoting among our own people the growth of serious doubts as to the practicability of democratic institutions on a great scale; and in an endless variety of ways it introduces into our political life more elements of demoralization, debasement, and decadence than any other agency of evil I know of, aye, perhaps more than all other agencies of evil combined.

402. The machine and the boss. The process by which the machine and the boss are developed is well described in the following:

The corrupt political machine of to-day, controlled by a boss, is contrary to the American system of government, and were it not a terrible reality its creation would be deemed an impossibility. It is, in its present state of perfection, rule of the people by the individual for the boss, his relatives, and friends. It is the most complete political despotism ever known, and yet the political machine on which the boss rises as dictator and despot is based on the fundamental principle of democracy that system of government wherein all men are supposed to be equal and every voter a sovereign. It is the multiplicity of voting sovereigns that makes the machine a necessity for concerted political action; and when sovereignty has been centralized by organization, the great majority of our constitutional rulers go about their private affairs, careless of their rights and powers until their personal or property interests are affected by the ukase of a party boss. For a century the division of the voters into political parties has been a part of our system of being governed by the man who runs the machine of the party in office. This division has been carried up or down, according to the

point of view, from national politics to the election of township constables. When the sovereigns are divided on party lines the work of partisan organization is made easy, and the majority need not think or act for themselves; they can leave all such details to the committees. The building of the political machine begins whenever a question of policy seems to demand united party action. The frame is laid in the party caucus or mass meeting, where every voter may be heard. There the necessity for organization is made apparent, and a committee is created. That is the work of the voters of a party in a particular locality, and the first committee is the creation of a majority. So far the plan of procedure is perfect. It is essentially democratic-majority rule. But the committee is too large, and a subcommittee is detailed to carry on the work of the organization. From a subcommittee the task passes to individuals one, two, or three and behold, in a day a political machine stands complete, awaiting the guiding hand of a boss!

The committee of the township, county, town, or city mass meetings develops into a small machine, which for a time does its work so well that the people are pleased. When the time comes for holding another mass meeting the voters do not turn out. They are busy with their own affairs, and their confidence in the committee is unshaken. Then the machine grows stronger, and the leader of the first meeting is the boss of the second, dictating nominations and dividing patronage. The smaller committees are represented in the State or city organization, and along the same lines a larger machine is built. It is merely the local and political interests and ambitions merged into one harmonious whole the machine finished and ready for business. . . .

When civic pride and public spirit are withdrawn from the party organization, the modern political machine remains. It stands before the public disguised as a committee; but every member is there for business, and his first thought is to get all he can out of the party before he is succeeded by some one more unscrupulous. In the scramble for spoils that follows the boss is developed. He is a man with enough force of character to bend the other members of the organization to his will and make the machine a weapon of offense and defense. Once a boss is firmly established in his place his first thought is to take care of the machine, to keep it in good working order, for without it he cannot longer retain power.

403. The nature of the American boss. The characteristics of the typical boss and his attitude toward politics are thus described by Bryce: 1

1 By permission of The Macmillan Company.