A Case of Corruption
is small enough for one man to intimidate. In a real sense, there cannot be an absolute monarch of a nation; political power must have a base broad enough to support the pinnacle, and rulership which seems to be identified with one man's will is in fact exercised by an oligarchy or a bureaucracy. Political power must have allies, men who support it because it is to their interest to support it. William of Normandy consolidated his conquest of England by dividing its land among his favorites, so that they could live well on the produce of vassals and serfs. For a similar economic reason the politicians of the nineteenth century bequeathed an empire to the railroad barons of America; in both cases the beneficiaries of political power were won over to its support.
It is this need of a broad base that accounts for the predatory practices of political institutions. The crown rests uneasily on the royal brow until it is held firmly in position by the loyalty of subjects who partake or hope to partake of the substantial privileges at his disposal; and an elected official likewise needs the votes or campaign contributions of constituents who expect to profit by his elevation to power. What manner of fare can he possibly spread before them? Only what he can extract from the larder of production. He has nothing else.
The advent of popular suffrage did not change the nature of political power nor affect its practices. The doctrine on which suffrage rests is that sovereignty—which is protocol for power—resides in the voters, as a permanent possession, and that they merely loan it for a time to their selected rulers. Upon analysis the doctrine boils down to the idea that each voter holds in his hands on election day a small piece of the power that once centered in a king. But, even as the king thought of power in terms of his prerogatives and perquisites, so the voter, in casting his ballot, is influenced by his material
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