730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing power of the organization formed of officials. Take a pair of scales 

 with many shot in the one and a few in the other. Lift shot after 

 shot out of the loaded scale and put it into the unloaded scale. Pres- 

 ently you will produce a balance, and, if you go on, the position of the 

 scales will be reversed. Suppose the beam to be unequally divided, 

 and let the lightly loaded scale be at the end of a very long arm ; then 

 the transfer of each shot, producing a much greater effect, will far 

 sooner bring about a change of position. I use the figure to illustrate 

 what results from transferring one individual after another from the 

 regulated mass of the community to the regulating structures. The 

 transfer weakens the one and strengthens the other in a far greater 

 degree than is implied by the relative change of numbers. A com- 

 paratively small body of officials, coherent, having common interests, 

 and acting under central authority, has an immense advantage over an 

 incoherent public which has no settled policy, and can be brought to 

 act unitedly only under strong provocation. Hence an organization of 

 officials, once passing a certain stage of growth, becomes less and less 

 resistible ^ as we see in the bureaucracies of the Continent. 



Not only does the power of resistance of the regulated part de- 

 crease in a geometrical ratio as the regulating part increases, but the 

 private interests of many in the regulated part itself make the change 

 of ratio still more rapid. In every circle conversations show that now, 

 when the passing of competitive examinations renders them eligible 

 for the public service, youths are being educated in such ways that 

 they may pass them and get employment under Government. One 

 consequence is, that men who might otherwise reprobate some further 

 growth of officialism are led to look on it with tolerance, if not favor- 

 ably, as offering possible careers for those dependent on them and those 

 related to them. Any one who remembers the numbers of upper-class 

 and middle-class families anxious to place their children will see that 

 no small encouragement to the spread of legislative control is now 

 coming from those who, but for the personal interests thus arising, 

 would be hostile to it. 



This pressing desire for careers is enforced by the preference for 

 careers which are thought respectable. " Even if his salary is small, 

 his occupation will be that of a gentleman," thinks the father, who 

 wants to get a Government-clerkship for his son. And this relative 

 dignity of state-servants, as compared with those occupied in business, 

 increases as the administrative organization becomes a larger and more 

 powerful element in society, and tends more and more to fix the stand- 

 ard of honor. The prevalent ambition with a young Frenchman is to 

 get some small official post in his locality, to rise thence to a place in 

 the local center of government, and finally to reach some head office 

 in Paris. And in Russia, where that universality of state-regulation 

 which characterizes the militant type of society has been carried far- 

 thest, we see this ambition pushed to its extreme. Says Mr. Wallace, 



