444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



endanger his supremacy. By a single coup oV'etat he swept out the 

 whole Central Committee the moment they began to show a disposition 

 to have some voice in the management of the party, alleging, as was 

 naturally the fact, that they were candidates for office. No one was 

 allowed to enter who had talent or influence enough to become a rival ; 

 no one was allowed to speak who would not constantly belaud " our 

 noble leader " ; and the men whom he selected as his lieutenants and 

 allowed to come to the front were, without exception, not only men 

 who accepted of these conditions, but men who for some reason or 

 other stood in such relation to the controlling element of the party 

 that he could at any time he chose turn on them and fire them out.* 

 By this denunciation of politicians, by thus striking down every head 

 that raised itself in his organization, he not only appealed to prejudice 

 and jealousies, but to the personal interest and ambition of the club 

 membership. The political hewers of wood and drawers of water, who 

 made up the clubs, flattered themselves with the idea that they were 

 the men of whom sheriffs, and supervisors, and school-directors, and 

 Senators, and Assembly-men were to be made, and they brought to the 

 new party and to the support of Kearney all the enthusiasm which 

 such a hope called forth. 



It may seem strange that a party thus constituted and led should 

 poll such a heavy vote. But in our large cities, and progressively in 

 the country as a whole, the active managing portion of a party bears 

 a very small proportion to the vote which it polls. In New York or 

 Philadelphia, as in San Francisco, but a handful of men make the 

 tickets between which, on election-day, the majority of voters must 

 choose. So in this case the heavy vote came from people who never 

 joined the clubs or visited the sand-lot from people who were so 

 utterly disgusted with the workings and corruptions of old parties as 

 to welcome " anything for a change." 



And this feeling was greatly intensified by a train of occurrences 

 which called attention to the prevailing corruption. Kearney's tirades 

 against daylight robbers and official thieves had a basis of fact. To 

 say nothing of bank-failures and stock-swindles, it came to light that 

 brokers were engaged in selling positions on the police ; that the ques- 

 tions upon which the teachers in the public schools are appointed and 

 promoted were regular articles of merchandise ; and that, running 

 through successive administrations, the most enormous stealing had 

 been going on in street improvements. Three important municipal 

 officials committed suicide, one after another, and, behind all that came 



* To illustrate what I mean, the man whom Kearney made vice-president, and who 

 assumed his place during his absence, was an unnaturalized Englishman, who had been 

 a sort of anti-Catholic missionary, and who could for this and other reasons get no lasting 

 hold upon the Irish, of whom the active party was largely composed, and whom, when 

 Kearney finally chose to, he flung aside without the slightest trouble. This was not an 

 exception, but the rule. 



