The disgust is less than a European expects, for it is mingled with amusement.  The “boss” is a sort of joke, albeit an expensive joke.  “After all,” people say, “it is our own fault.  If we all went to the primaries, or if we all voted an independent ticket, we could make an end of the ‘boss.’” There is a sort of fatalism in their view of democracy. (Vol ii., p. 241.)

What is the meaning of all this wonderful party machinery?  It is this:  that organization without responsible leadership can only be founded on corruption.  In other words, the spoils system is the price which the United States pay for maintaining the Union under the present Constitution.  The fault lies ultimately, therefore, in the Constitution, which tends to repress responsible leadership.

Now, the mass of public opinion in America, as Mr. Bryce continually points out, is sound, and attempts have not been wanting to put an end to the system of rotation in public offices.  A sustained agitation for civil service reform was entered upon, and the system of competitive examination was applied to a large number of offices.  Now at last, the reformers thought, American politics would be purified.  But, no!  The corruption, simply took a new and more alarming turn.  Direct money contributions took the place of the spoils.  It became the practice to levy blackmail on corporations either to be let alone, or for the purpose of fleecing the public.  The monopolies granted to protected industries are the source of a large share of these “campaign funds.”  The Legislatures are crowded by professional lobbyists, and it is, in consequence, impossible to obtain justice against the corporations.  Surely no stronger proof can be needed that corruption is and must remain the basis of organization so long as there is no responsible leadership.

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the Americans are not alive to the failure of their representative institutions.  Since Mr. Bryce’s great work on “The American Commonwealth” was published two books by American authors have appeared which are very outspoken in condemnation.  These are “The Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy,” by Mr. E.L.  Godkin; and “The Lesson of Popular Government,” by Mr. Gamaliel Bradford.  The keynote of the first of these two books is to abolish corruption by destroying the power of the “machine” and the “boss,” and of the second to introduce responsible leadership.  Mr. Godkin traces the disappearance of distinguished men from public life to the control of all entrance to it by the “machine.”  The reform of primary elections, he holds, is then the first necessity, since “independent voting” has ceased to be a remedy.  But he fails to find a solution.  The conclusion he comes to is as follows:—­