Page:The Spoils System (spoilssystemaddr00carl).pdf/37

, for it is the very hotbed of multiplied falsehood.

If, to make democratic government truly a government for the people, it is essentially required that public offices should not be diverted from the public purpose for which they are intended, then the manipulation of the patronage by members of Congress insidiously undermines democratic government, for of all the perversions known the most colossal in dimensions and the most demoralizing in effect is that which turns the legislator into an office-broker and a spoils-monger.

If it is true, which nobody will deny, that as our Government grows greater in the magnitude and variety of its functions, it requires, in the legislative no less than in the executive sphere, greater ability, knowledge, application and moral courage to deal with the vast and complex problems confronting it, then there can be no bitterer satire upon the growth of the Republic than the legislator to whom that growth is of especial importance on account of the increasing number of postoffices and revenue places he has to look out for; and no sadder spectacle than the legislator who, although possessing the ability as well as the ambition to serve the Republic according to the needs of the time, permits himself to be dragged away from his real duty, and to be crippled in power and wrecked in morals by the tyranny of so vicious an abuse.

I risk nothing in saying that there are very few