THE BOA CONSTRICTOR OF POLITICS. 151 



THE BOA CONSTRICTOR OF POLITICS. 



BY REV. F. M. HOLLAND, ]!ARABOO. 



Recent elections show bow generally our i^olitics are believed to 

 be corrupt. But merely changing the party in power will not pur- 

 ity thera. Great as is the need of civil service refonn, we can no 

 more expect either party to be the lirst to refuse to tavor its fol- 

 lowers, than we can expect an army to spike its cannon before it 

 goes into battle. 



We m.'ij' blame the practice of passing b,y wisdom and purity to 

 nominate popular medioci-ity or unprincipled brilliancy, but it is 

 plain that the policy of nominating only the most popular candi- 

 date would have the same advantage over that of preferring men, 

 whose height of principle and intellect excited enmity, which the 

 Prussian licedle-gun had over the Austrian musket. And for any 

 party to dismiss an able and popular leader on account of private 

 immorality would, to borrow President Grant's comparison, be 

 like relieving a general under the fire ot the enemy. And so will 

 a part3^ that forbids any severe criticism on its leaders within the 

 ranks, meet one that permits it, just as an army meets a mob. Pop- 

 ular enthusiasm may give the mob the victory, but only excep- 

 tionally. On the whole, the more a party is like an army, the 

 stronger it will be, and therefore party success requires that the 

 management be centr.dized in a few men of experience, enough to 

 set up the platform, and candidates most likely to catch votes. 

 "The ring" has a terrible sound, but a party without a '"ring" 

 would be pretty apt to be beaten by any party with one. Indeed 

 a party without a '' ring " is like a barrel without a hoop. 



These facts are not pleasant ones, but we need to keep them in 

 mind in order to see that to pur'iy polities we must change our 

 system so deeply as to lessen the power of parties, and no longer 

 enable the one, which happens to gain even the smallest majority, 

 from sweeping all the presidential electors, members of congress, 

 state legislatures, judges, and county officers into its jaws and swal- 



