great economic idea, but
which party should administer during the next four years the great
patronage of the Federal Government. In the contest of November last
the people for the first time in twenty years had a living issue
presented, but so unused were they to the discussion of economic
principles that it may be questioned whether the verdict just
delivered with so much apparent emphasis was really the expression of
a well-ascertained public opinion. It is worthy of note, too, that
believers in the spoils system of politics are already taunting the
vanquished with the folly of presenting a political idea to the
American people, and prophesying a more rigid exclusion of principles
from politics in all time to come.

Such difficulties have beset us throughout all our history. Let men
wince as they would under galling injustice and false economics, they
could not work their will upon the body whose duty it is to express in
legislation the political desires of the people. A mocking fate seemed
to balk the accomplishment of our most earnest purposes, and men whose
interests were adverse to the public good constantly took it upon
themselves to declare that the people had not spoken upon whatever
vital question was uppermost, or that their words had meant something
other than they seemed to mean. The result of all this was what we
see. A self-governing people must have some sort of political
activity, and since it was early discovered that the discussion of
principles was little better than a vain occupation, the pursuit of
place soon became almost the sole object of political organization. If
it was almost impossible to carry a question from the stage of popular
discussion to that of legislative enactment, it was a very simple
matter to elect presidents and congressmen who should see to a proper
distribution of places. Since men could not accomplish the rational
object of political endeavor, they strove for what was easily
attainable. If they could not make the laws they could at least fill
the offices. Then came the easy descent to Avernus. Politics having
become a mere struggle for place, public affairs were left more and
more in the hands of men who found such work congenial, and the mass
of the people, to whom the hope of office is but a shadowy illusion,
became less and less interested in a struggle that held for most
voters neither the promise of gain nor the incentive of high purpose.
The spoils system having thus