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 358 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

intrenched and highly organized machine. With no spoils to offer to those who maintained the ward organizations, it was able to keep those whom it once enlisted, and gradually to increase their number. Its organized political work illustrated the grow- ing force of the cohesive power of enlightened public interest.

The league was a representative, not a self-constituted, body ; it stood for constructive work, it never stood for mere destructive criticism. While often required to speak sharply concerning municipal abuses, it never contented itself with mere criticism, but invariably sought to suggest and apply an adequate remedy. Thus it became a positive factor for the regeneration of Phila- delphia and her politics. The full measure of its usefulness can- not yet be determined; but the fact remains that for thirteen years it maintained high standards of public service, insisting upon them under all circumstances, and so familiarized the people of the city with the ideal of good government that now, when they are thoroughly aroused to their personal responsibility in the matter, they have but to apply the principles which had been laid down and advocated by the league under circumstances not always fraught with the greatest encouragement.