one party has been long in control, is familiar with these recurrent manifestations.  There is a long period of systematic reduplication of the offices, multiplying generosity to the faithful, and enormous geometrical progression of the public payroll.  Some mishap, one day, focuses attention upon the princely totalities of the law-making spenders, and a howl goes up from the “sovereigns,” who, as has been wisely observed, never have any power until they are mad.  The party managers, always respectful to an angry electorate, thereupon announce that, owing to the wonderful period of progress and expansion brought about by their management, the State can afford to slow up for a brief period, hold down expenses and enjoy its (party-made) prosperity.  This strikes the “keynote” for the next legislature, which pulls a long face, makes a tremendous noise about “economy,” and possibly refrains from increasing expenses, or even shades them down about a dollar and a half.  Flushed with their victory, the innocent sovereigns return, Cincinnatus-wise, to their plows, and the next session of the legislature, relieved of that suspicionful scrutiny so galling to men of spirit, proceeds to cut the purse-strings loose with a whoop.

Such a brief spasm had now seized the State.  Expenses had doubled and redoubled with a velocity which caused even hardened prodigals to view with alarm.  The number of commissions, boards, assistant inspectors, and third deputy clerks was enormous, far larger than anybody realized.  If you could have taken a biological cross-section through the seat of State Government, you would doubtless have discovered a most amazing number of unobtrusive gentlemen with queer little titles and odd little duties, sitting silent and sleek under their cover; their hungry little mouths affixed last year to the public breast, or two years ago, or twenty, and ready to open in fearful wailing if anybody sought to pluck them off.  In an aggregate way, attention had been called to them during the gubernatorial campaign of the summer.  Attacks from the rival stump had, of course, been successfully “answered” by the loyal leaders and party press.  But the bare statement of the annual expenditures, as compared with the annual expenditures of ten years ago, necessarily stood, and in cold type it looked bad.  Therefore the legislature met now for an “economy session.”  The public was given to understand that every penny would have to give a strict account of itself before it would receive a pass from the treasury, and that public institutions, asking for increased support, could consider themselves lucky if they did not find their appropriations scaled down by a fourth or so.