Patronage does not really help a party.  It helps the bosses to get control of the machinery of the party—­as in 1912 was true of the Republican party—­but it does not help the party.  On the average, the most sweeping party victories in our history have been won when the patronage was against the victors.  All that the patronage does is to help the worst element in the party retain control of the party organization.  Two of the evil elements in our Government against which good citizens have to contend are, 1, the lack of continuous activity on the part of these good citizens themselves, and, 2, the ever-present activity of those who have only an evil self-interest in political life.  It is difficult to interest the average citizen in any particular movement to the degree of getting him to take an efficient part in it.  He wishes the movement well, but he will not, or often cannot, take the time and the trouble to serve it efficiently; and this whether he happens to be a mechanic or a banker, a telegraph operator or a storekeeper.  He has his own interests, his own business, and it is difficult for him to spare the time to go around to the primaries, to see to the organization, to see to getting out the vote—­in short, to attend to all the thousand details of political management.

On the other hand, the spoils system breeds a class of men whose financial interest it is to take this necessary time and trouble.  They are paid for so doing, and they are paid out of the public chest.  Under the spoils system a man is appointed to an ordinary clerical or ministerial position in the municipal, Federal, or State government, not primarily because he is expected to be a good servant, but because he has rendered help to some big boss or to the henchman of some big boss.  His stay in office depends not upon how he performs service, but upon how he retains his influence in the party.  This necessarily means that his attention to the interests of the public at large, even though real, is secondary to his devotion to his organization, or to the interest of the ward leader who put him in his place.  So he and his fellows attend to politics, not once a year, not two or three times a year, like the average citizen, but every day in the year.  It is the one thing that they talk of, for it is their bread and butter.  They plan about it and they scheme about it.  They do it because it is their business.  I do not blame them in the least.  I blame us, the people, for we ought to make it clear as a bell that the business of serving the people in one of the ordinary ministerial Government positions, which have nothing to do with deciding the policy of the Government, should have no necessary connection with the management of primaries, of caucuses, and of nominating conventions.  As a result of our wrong thinking and supineness, we American citizens tend to breed a mass of men whose interests in governmental matters are often adverse to ours, who are thoroughly drilled, thoroughly organized,