The results of this control of the nominating machinery are wholly bad. From the nature of the case, it fills the public offices with unfit men, since no man of character will consent to enter public life under such conditions. In the great majority of instances the men selected by the boss for legislative candidates are persons who have either failed in life, or never tried to succeed. Either they have never followed a regular calling, or have tried one calling after another without success. Some of them are in debt, many of them would like to be, and all of them find themselves getting a living more easily than ever before. They feel deeply grateful to the man who has lifted them into this happy condition, and are naturally desirous of prolonging it. They know that their fitness for public office had nothing whatever to do with their selection; and they know that a demonstration of fitness would be fatal to their continuance in office. They, therefore, follow the orders of their political creator blindly and even joyfully, and in complete disregard of the people, who really had nothing to do with their promotion to office, and will have no deciding voice in their continuance in it. Their only guide to conduct is, "What does the old man want? This is not a fictitious phrase, but one that is heard daily at Albany during a session of the legislature. Platt is universally spoken of among his followers as the "old man"; and the fate of every party measure is decided by the knowledge of what he wants done with it.

Of course the more absolute the boss's control of the legislature, the greater his capacity for collecting contributions from the corporations. The natural instinct of legislators who have never possessed any property is to get at people who possess a good deal and make them give up some of it. Left to themselves, a boss-nominated body of lawmakers would give themselves up mainly to "strike" legislation. The worse they are, the larger the basis upon which the boss can rest his demand for "contributions," because of the difficulty he will have in restraining so hungry and reckless a body. All this works together for good to the boss and his followers. The more he gets, the larger are their individual shares. If a

corporation be backward about giving, a bill threatening its business by cutting down its profits has only to appear in the legislature to bring it to terms. When it is considered that there are in the city of New York more than two thousand corporations, all subject to legislative interference, and with an aggregate capital of nearly two billions of dollars, it is easy to see how a boss can raise a campaign fund of sufficient size to pay the expenses of a very large number of candidates. He need not and does not stop with legislative candidates, but extends aid to all candidates for State offices and for Congress; demanding and obtaining from each the same understanding as to conduct in office that he obtains from legislative nominees. His control of the nominating machinery makes him absolute master of State conventions; and no man can become a nominee for governor or other State office except with his consent. Mr. Platt's power is more absolute than that of any other boss, because of the vastly greater invested wealth upon which he is able to make his levies. New York is the centre of the corporate wealth of the land; and, as a field for a despot of his type, it has no equal. Other bosses do the best they can with the resources at their command; for all of them have large cities within their domains, and all work by similar methods, laying the foundations of their power in the primaries and nominating conventions.

The bosses have, in fact, taken the control of the nominating machinery of politics away from the people. We had a striking illustration of this on a large scale in 1896. Mr. Hanna, in behalf of Mr. McKinley, went into the primaries of one State after another, and secured from them delegates to the National Republican Convention who, when chosen, were pledged to vote for Mr. McKinley as the nominee for the presidency. There was little concealment about this proceeding. As fast as delegates were obtained in this manner the result was announced in the press. Weeks in advance of the meeting of the Convention, Mr. Hanna's assistants published lists of delegates showing a majority of the Convention in favor of Mr. McKinley. This pre-convention campaign had been conducted on the presumption that the tariff was to be the leading issue of the forth

coming presidential campaign; and Mr. McKinley's nomination was prearranged on that basis. By the time the Convention had assembled, the tariff had been completely overshadowed by the currency issue, which had assumed momentous importance; but, although Mr. McKinley's record upon this question was far from satisfactory, and a large proportion of his party desired the nomination of some man whose candidacy would give stronger assurance of currency reform after election, it was found impossible to break the ranks of his pledged delegates. His nomination had been settled in the primaries in much the same way as the State bosses secure their members of the legislature. Debts were incurred, which were paid off in various ways after Mr. McKinley became President. Appointments to office were made which were explicable only on this basis; and in many instances there was little attempt to conceal the nature of the transaction. But the greatest debt of all was paid in a new tariff bill which had no other excuse for existence. The country had been carried for McKinley through a national alarm about its honor and credit, which had brought to his support, on the common platform of sound money, men of all political beliefs. He was elected on the issue of sound money and currency reform, not on that of a high tariff. Yet, as soon as he entered upon his duties, he called Congress together in extra session, and sent to it a message which called for the enactment of a new tariff, and made no mention of currency reform. The tariff bill, which had already been prepared, was not a measure for raising revenue, but for increasing the burdens of taxation in the interest of protected manufacturers. Like the McKinley tariff of 1890, it had to be enacted to pay campaign debts,-in this instance, debts which had been incurred in depriving the people of their control of the nominating system.

It comes to the same thing in national and State applications of this new system of government; namely, that the people must pay the price of its operation. They pay in the misuse of their public offices, in the increased burdens which come from unwise and extravagant legislation, and from unjust and unnecessary taxation. They will pay later, also, in the conse

quences which will flow from the exercise of the functions of government by men who obtain and maintain their power by means of money collected from great corporations. Not only have the people lost control of the nominating machinery, but they are no longer represented by their legislators. Most of these sit and act in the halls of legislation not as the servants of the people, but as the servants of the boss, who in turn serves the corporations. In what boss-controlled legislature of to-day can a hearing be secured for a grievance, no matter how just, against a corporation that has made a "contribution"? Could there be a more dangerous proceeding than this a surer way in which to stimulate socialistic and populistic hatred of corporations, trusts, and all forms of aggregated wealth? In making the boss a despot, by supplying him with the force upon which his power rests, are not his contributors sowing the wind for a whirlwind the devastating possibilities of which no man can foresee?

J. B. BISHOP.

[We will not here discuss the inadequacy of the remedies proposed by Mr. Bishop. What those remedies should be it is the main object of this work to point out.]

APPENDIX B. CHAPTER XXVI., VOL. II., P. 195

In the following tables has been used a book of a uniform standard in paging:1

Pennsylvania

Missouri

CONSTITUTION OF

PAGES

1 Poore's "Charters and Constitutions,” quoted by Oberholzer, op. cit.,

These are only a few of such comparisons which could be given, but are enough to indicate the tendency here referred to. The constitutions of all the new States are of great length, making pamphlets which cover from fifty to seventy-five pages. (The pages containing considerably less matter, however, than those taken as the standard in the tables above.)

The constitution of Mississippi framed in 1890 and that of Kentucky framed in 1891 are of about the same length, dealing with the subjects treated in like fullness and detail.

APPENDIX C. CHAPTER XXVI., P. 199

HOW THE REFERENDUM PRINCIPLE WORKS IN MARY

LAND

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING POST:

SIR: Apropos of the Evening Post's comments on the vote in New Jersey this week on constitutional amendments, it occurs to me to mention the vote on constitutional amendments here in Maryland in November, 1891. An examination of that vote in detail results in a complete reductio ad absurdum of the referendum as a method of getting at the real wishes of the people as a whole. Of the six amendments voted upon, the two important ones were those to allow the taxation of mortgage debts, and to change a declaration of the bill of rights