all
about them. His influence was entirely dependent upon personal
kindliness, loyalty, and good-comradeship. He was socially the playmate
and the equal of his followers, and the relations among them were
characterized by many admirable qualities. The group was within limits a
genuine example of social democracy, and was founded on mutual
understanding, good-will, and assistance. The leader used his official
and unofficial power to obtain jobs for his followers. He succored them
when in need; he sometimes protected them against the invidious activity
of the police or the prosecuting attorneys; he provided excursions and
picnics for them in hot weather; he tied them to himself by a thousand
bonds of interest and association; he organized them into a clan, who
supported him blindly at elections in return for a deal of personal
kindliness and a multitude of small services; he became their genuine
representative, whether official or not, because he represented their
most vital interests and satisfied their most pressing and intimate
needs.

The general method of political organization indicated above was
perfected in the two decades succeeding the Civil War. The American
democracy was divided politically into a multitude of small groups,
organized chiefly for the purpose of securing the local and individual
interests of these groups and their leaders, and supported by local and
personal feeling, political patronage, and petty "graft." These groups
were associated with both parties, and merely made the use of partisan
ties and cries to secure the cooeperation of more disinterested voters.
The result was that so far as American political representation was
merely local, it was generally corrupt, and it was always selfish. The
leader's power depended absolutely on an appeal to the individual,
neighborhood, and class interests of his followers. They were the
"people"; he was the popular tribune. He could not retain his power for
a month, in case he failed to subordinate every larger interest to the
flattery, cajolery, and nourishment of his local clan. Thus the local
representative system was poisoned at its source. The alderman, the
assemblyman, or the congressman, even if he were an honest man,
represented little more than the political powers controlling his
district; and to be disinterested in local politics was usually
equivalent to being indifferent.

Although these local clans were the basis of American political
orga