they are united for their common purposes, and they are ideally non-partisan. The commonest arrangement is for them to unite themselves in each locality with whatever party has there a majority on national issues, because only a party in power can give them what they want. It thus comes about that in most communities the party in power is more likely to be corrupt than the party of the minority, for, as an acute observer has said, you cannot expect right conduct from a party as long as it contains within itself enough criminal votes to defeat it.
The remedy for such a state of things is very simple, though no one acquainted with the facts will venture to think it very easy of application. It is this: There must be in each locality a body of conscientious voters slightly more numerous than the criminals and semi-criminals, and just as active politically, just as non-partizan in local affairs, and (here is usually the rub) just as coherent. Much good breath and good energy has been wasted in denouncing "machine politics." Machine politics are inevitable as the good government clubs and civic federations of the last few years well know. It was shortly before the advent of such sensible and efficient organizations as these that a politician said to me, "The trouble with the good people of this town—the trouble with the good people is that they are such blamed fools." What he meant was that the good people of the place demanded of him an impossible thing, namely that he should do right, while yet they left him without uefense against the powers of darkness. An old-fashioned citizens' movement was like "the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is not," while as for the political activity of the criminal classes it will last as long as crime, and "it slumbers not nor sleeps."
Our whole business in this discussion is to note how essential to the right treatment of criminals is the reform of our local governments. The movement for the reform of politics is under way, and it must succeed or all our attempts to reform criminals will be like opposing the ocean's tide with a mop.
Thus far we have spoken only of the influence for evil which corrupt politics exerts on the possibly criminal elements of our
