slators who believe in the same broad
policies to enact them into logical, comprehensive laws. It confuses the
public mind. It breeds suspicion and distrust. It enables such special
interests as seek unjust gain at the public expense to get what they
want. It creates and fosters the degrading boss system in American
politics through which these special interests work.

This boss system is unknown and impossible under any other free
government in the world. In its very nature it is hostile to general
welfare. Yet it has grown until it now is a controlling influence in
American public affairs. At the present moment notorious bosses are in
the saddle of both old parties in various important States which must be
carried to elect a President. This Black Horse Cavalry is the most
important force in the practical work of the Democratic and Republican
parties in the present campaign. Neither of the old parties' nominees
for President can escape obligation to these old-party bosses or shake
their practical hold on many and powerful members of the National
Legislature.

Under this boss system, no matter which party wins, the people seldom
win; but the bosses almost always win. And they never work for the
people. They do not even work for the party to which they belong. They
work only for those anti-public interests whose political employees they
are. It is these interests that are the real victors in the end.

These special interests which suck the people's substance are
bi-partisan. They use both parties. They are the invisible government
behind our visible government. Democratic and Republican bosses alike
are brother officers of this hidden power. No matter how fiercely they
pretend to fight one another before election, they work together after
election. And, acting so, this political conspiracy is able to delay,
mutilate or defeat sound and needed laws for the people's welfare and
the prosperity of honest business and even to enact bad laws, hurtful to
the people's welfare and oppressive to honest business.

It is this invisible government which is the real danger to American
institutions. Its crude work at Chicago in June, which the people were
able to see, was no more wicked than its skillful work everywhere and
always which the people are not able to see.

But an even more serious condition results from the unnatural alignment
of the old parties. To-day we Americans are politically shattered by
sectionalism. Through t