into retreat just as soon as exposed.  The danger not only has a salutary aspect, but it seems a small price to pay for the chance, thereby afforded, for really efficient and responsible government.  The chief executive, when supported by public opinion, would become a veritable “Boss”; and he would inevitably be the sworn enemy of unofficial “Bosses” who now dominate local politics.  He would have the power to purify American local politics, and this power he would be obliged to use.  The logic of his whole position would convert him into an enemy of the machine, in so far as the machine was using any governmental function for private, special, or partisan purposes.  The real “Boss” would destroy the sham “Bosses”; and no other means, as yet suggested, will, I believe, be sufficient to accomplish such a result.

After the creation of such a system of local government the power of the professional politician would not last a year longer than the people wanted it to last.  The governor would control the distribution of all those fruits of the administrative and legislative system upon which the machine has lived.  There could be no trafficking in offices, in public contracts, or in legislation; and the man who wished to serve the state unofficially would have to do so from disinterested motives.  Moreover, the professional politician could not only be destroyed, but he would not be needed.  At present he is needed, because of the prodigious amount of business entailed by the multiplicity of elective officials.  Somebody must take charge of this political detail; and it has, as we have already remarked, drifted into the hands of specialists.  These specialists cannot be expected to serve for nothing.  Their effort to convert their work into a means of support is the source of the greater part of the petty American political corruption; and such corruption will persist as long as any real need exists for the men who live upon it.  The simplest way to dispense with the professional politician is to dispense with the service he performs.  Reduce the number of elective officials.  Under the proposed method of organization the number of elections and the number of men to be elected would be comparatively few.  The voter would cast his ballot only for his local selectmen or commissioners, a governor, one or more legislative councilmen, the justices of the state court of appeals, and his Federal congressman and executive.  The professional politician would be left without a profession.  He would have to pass on his power to men who would be officially designated to rule the people for a limited period, and who could not escape full responsibility for their public performances.