140 Machine Politics 



command the normal party support, yet very often 

 there is an infinitely keener rivalry among the smaller 

 politicians over candidates for local offices. I re- 

 member, in 1880, a very ardent Democratic ward 

 club, many of the members of which in the heat of 

 a contest for an Assemblyman coolly swapped off 

 quite a number of votes for President in considera- 

 tion of votes given to their candidate for the State 

 Legislature; and in 1885, in my own district, a local 

 Republican club that had a member running for 

 alderman, performed a precisely similar feat in re- 

 lation to their party's candidate for Governor. A 

 Tammany State Senator openly announced in a pub- 

 lic speech that it was of vastly more importance to 

 Tammany to have one of her own men Mayor of 

 New York than it was to have a Democratic Presi- 

 dent of the United States. Very many of the lead- 

 ers of the rival organizations, who lack the boldness 

 to make such a frankly cynical avowal of what their 

 party feeling really amounts to, yet in practice, both 

 as regards Mayor and as regards all other local offices 

 which are politically or pecuniarily of importance, 

 act exactly on the theory enunciated by the Tammany 

 statesman ; and, as a consequence, in every great elec- 

 tion not only is it necessary to have the mass of the 

 voters waked up to the importance of the principles 

 that are at stake, but, unfortunately, it is also nec- 

 essary to see that the powerful local leaders are con- 

 vinced that it will be to their own interest to be faith- 

 ful to the party ticket. Often there will be intense 

 rivalry between two associations or two minor 



