, the chief motive for an alert and unflagging interest in
political questions is lacking. If the majority can not make an
effective use of the party system for the attainment of political ends,
they can not be expected to maintain an active interest in party
affairs.

But although our constitutional arrangements are such as to deprive the
people of effective control over the party, it has offices at its
disposal and sufficient power to grant or revoke legislative favors to
make control of its organization a matter of supreme importance to
office seekers and various corporate interests. Thus while the system
discourages an unselfish and public-spirited interest in party politics,
it does appeal directly to those interests which wish to use the party
for purely selfish ends. Hence the ascendency of the professional
politician who, claiming to represent the masses, really owes his
preferment to those who subsidize the party machine.

The misrepresentative character of the American political party seems to
be generally recognized by those who have investigated the subject. It
is only when we look for an explanation of this fact that there is much
difference of opinion. The chief difficulty encountered by those who
have given attention to this problem has been the point of view from
which they have approached it. The unwarranted assumption almost
universally made that the principle of majority rule is fundamental in
our scheme of government has been a serious obstacle to any adequate
investigation of the question. Blind to the most patent defects of the
Constitution, they have ignored entirely its influence upon the
development and character of the political party. Taking it for granted
that our general scheme of government was especially designed to
facilitate the rule of the majority, they have found it difficult to
account for the failure of the majority to control the party machine.
Why is it that under a system which recognizes the right and makes it
the duty of the majority to control the policy of the government, that
control has in practice passed into the hands of a small minority who
exercise it often in utter disregard of and even in direct opposition to
the wishes and interests of the majority? On the assumption that we have
a Constitution favorable in the highest degree to democracy, how are we
to explain the absence of popular control over the party itself?
Ignoring the obstacles which the Constitution has pl