120 Machine Politics 



merchant or manufacturer; it was too much to ex- 

 pect that if left entirely to themselves they would 

 continue disinterestedly to work for the benefit of 

 others. Many a machine politician who is to-day 

 a most unwholesome influence in our politics is in 

 private life quite as respectable as any one else; only 

 he has forgotten that his business affects the State 

 at large, and, regarding it as merely his own private 

 concern, he has carried into it the same selfish spirit 

 that actuates in business matters the majority of 

 the average, mercantile community. A merchant or 

 manufacturer works his business, as a rule, purely 

 for his own benefit, without any regard whatever 

 for the community at large. The merchant uses all 

 his influence for a low tariff, and the manufacturer 

 is even more strenuously in favor of protection, not 

 at all from any theory of abstract right, but be- 

 cause of self-interest. Each views such a political 

 question as the tariff, not from the standpoint of 

 how it will affect the nation as a whole, but merely 

 from that of how it will affect him personally. If 

 a community were in favor of protection, but never- 

 theless permitted all the governmental machinery to 

 fall into the hands of importing merchants, it would 

 be small cause for wonder if the latter shaped the 

 laws to suit themselves, and the chief blame, after 

 all, would rest with the supine and lethargic ma- 

 jority which failed to have enough energy to take 

 charge of their own affairs. Our machine politicians 

 in actual life act in just the same way; their actions 

 are very often dictated by selfish motives, with but 



