As a result of our wrong thinking and
supineness, we American citizens tend to breed a mass of men whose
interests in governmental matters are often adverse to ours, who are
thoroughly drilled, thoroughly organized, who make their livelihood
out of politics, and who frequently make their livelihood out of
bad politics. They know every little twist and turn, no matter how
intricate, in the politics of their several wards, and when election
day comes the ordinary citizen who has merely the interest that all good
men, all decent citizens, should have in political life, finds himself
as helpless before these men as if he were a solitary volunteer in the
presence of a band of drilled mercenaries on a field of battle. There
are a couple of hundred thousand Federal offices, not to speak of State
and municipal offices. The men who fill these offices, and the men who
wish to fill them, within and without the dominant party for the time
being, make a regular army, whose interest it is that the system
of bread-and-butter politics shall continue. Against their concrete
interest we have merely the generally unorganized sentiment of the
community in favor of putting things on a decent basis.
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