nefited were a small minority of the whole population whose interests
were far from being the public interest; but it was none the less
natural that the people, whoever they were, should want the government
to do more for them than to guarantee certain legal rights, and it was
inevitable that they should select leaders who could satisfy their
positive, if selfish, needs.

The consequence has been, however, a separation of actual political
power from official political responsibility. The public officers are
still technically responsible for the good government of the states,
even if, as individuals, they have not been granted the necessary
authority effectively to perform their task. But their actual power is
even smaller than their official authority. They are almost completely
controlled by the machine which secures their election or appointment.
The leader or leaders of that machine are the rulers of the community,
even though they occupy no offices and cannot be held in any way
publicly responsible. Here, again, as in the case of the
multi-millionaire, we have an example of a dangerous inequality in the
distribution of power, and one which tends to maintain and perpetuate
itself. The professional politician is frequently beaten and is being
vigorously fought; but he himself understands how necessary he is under
the existing local political organization, and how difficult it will be
to dislodge him. Beaten though he be again and again, he constantly
recovers his influence, because he is performing a necessary political
task and because he is genuinely representative of the needs of his
followers. Organizations such as Tammany in New York City are founded on
a deeply rooted political tradition, a group of popular ideas,
prejudices, and interests, and a species of genuine democratic
association which are a guarantee of a long and tenacious life. They
will survive much of the reforming machinery which is being created for
their extirpation.

IV

THE LABOR UNION AND THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION

One other decisive instance of this specialized organization of American
activity remains to be considered--that of the labor unions. The power
which the unions have obtained in certain industrial centers and the
tightness of their organization would have seemed anomalous to the good
Jacksonian Democrat. From his point of view the whole American democracy
was a kind of labor union whose political constitution provided for a
su