Machine Politics 137 



is thus, however much to be regretted it may be, a 

 constant tendency toward the concentration of po- 

 litical power in the hands of those men who by 

 taste and education are fitted to enjoy the social 

 side of the various political organizations. 



THE LIQUOR-SELLER IN POLITICS 



IT is this that gives the liquor-sellers their enor- 

 mous influence in politics. Preparatory to the gen- 

 eral election of 1884, there were held in the various 

 districts of New York ten hundred and seven pri- 

 maries and political conventions of all parties, and 

 of these no less than six hundred and thirty-three 

 took place in liquor-saloons, a showing that leaves 

 small ground for wonder at the low average grade 

 of the nominees. The reason for such a condition of 

 things is perfectly evident; it is because the liquor- 

 saloons are places of social resort for the same men 

 who turn the local political organizations into social 

 clubs. Bartenders form perhaps the nearest ap- 

 proach to a leisure class that we have at present on 

 this side of the water. Naturally they are on semi- 

 intimate terms with all who frequent their houses. 

 There is no place where more gossip is talked than 

 in bar-rooms, and much of this gossip is about poli- 

 tics, that is, the politics of the ward, not of the 

 nation. The tariff and the silver question may be 

 alluded to and civil-service reform may be inci- 

 dentally damned, but the real interest comes in dis- 

 cussing the doings of the men with whom they are 

 personally acquainted: why Billy So-and-so, the al- 



