[bukWash] evolution AND DEGENERATION OF PARTY 11 



two living parties divided by a clearly defined set of principles, but the 

 organized bodies of two parties whose living spirit has passed away. One 

 of these bodies is in possession, the other not, and the struggle between 

 the parties may become a mere struggle for power, not for principle. 

 The moment this becomes the case the door is open for the entrance of 

 corruption on both sides of the house. Under these circumstances the 

 best men may be proof against the malign influences ; but no party that 

 the world has ever known has been so. So long as the party from honest 

 conviction was engaged in contending for its principles, this very con- 

 tention, a pure motive, exerted a conserving influence. It kept the 

 party pure. A man Who is working from honest convictions will 

 scarcely employ dishonest methods. But when his principles have 

 triumphed and when a generation succeeds to his place who have en- 

 tered the organization by inheritance and whose convictions have not 

 been called 'Out by clearly defined issues the salt which kept the mass 

 pure has lost its savour. In the struggle for place and power, men 

 enter the lists who are quite unscrupulous as to the means employed 

 for the attainment of their end, and the true, healthy political party 

 degenerates into a corrupt struggle for victory. 



It is no uncommon thing that in such oases the best men eschew 

 political life and thereby the evil is rapidly increased. If the evil 

 affected only one party the remedy would seem to be within easy 

 reach. Turn the corrupt party out and bring in a better. But the 

 form of political disease which we have been studying in almost every 

 case affects both political parties alike, and effective remedy must be 

 something far more radical than anything which can be hrought ahout 

 by the triumph of either party. 



Another remedy apparently easily at hand is that all good men 

 of all parties should forget the names, «associations and conflicts of 

 the past and unite for the purification of political life. One of the 

 most recent and apparently successful examples of this has been the 

 overthrow of Tammany in New York. But reasonable and direct as 

 such a course may appear it piresents several serious difficulties if not 

 radical defects. 



In the first place such a combination is not easily brought about. 

 It requires something like the presence of a moral plague to awaken 

 the body of even earnest and upright electors to action in such a case. 

 Each party is wide-awake to the defects of its opponents and ready 

 to denounce them most roundly. But that is a very different thing 

 from the breaking up of old party lines, and associations and the con- 

 struction of a new party for the purification of politics. 



Again, such a party once formed and installed in power by its 

 very suocess has removed its own raison d'être. The evil which called 



