Machine Politics 119 



sense ; but it does not at all follow that this sense is 

 always the right one. On the contrary, the machine 

 is often a very powerful instrument for good ; and a 

 machine politician really desirous of doing honest 

 work on behalf of the community, is fifty times as 

 useful an ally as is the average philanthropic out- 

 sider. Indeed, it is of course true, that any political 

 organization (and absolutely no good work can be 

 done in politics without an organization) is a ma- 

 chine; and any man who perfects and uses this 

 organization is himself, to a certain extent, a ma- 

 chine politician. In the rough, however, the feeling 

 against machine politics and politicians is tolerably 

 well justified by the facts, although this statement 

 really reflects most severely upon the educated and 

 honest people who largely hold themselves aloof 

 from public life, and show a curious incapacity for 

 fulfilling their public duties. 



The organizations that are commonly and dis- 

 tinctively known as machines are those belonging 

 to the two great recognized parties, or to their 

 factional subdivisions ; and the reason why the word 

 machine has come to be used, to a certain extent, 

 as a term of opprobrium is to be found in the fact 

 that these organizations are now run by the leaders 

 very largely as business concerns to benefit them- 

 selves and their followers, with little regard to the 

 community at large. This is natural enough. The 

 men having control and doing all the work have 

 gradually come to have the same feeling about poli- 

 tics that other men have about the business of a 



