means at bottom no more
than moral and political purification. It may, indeed, bring with it the
necessity of a certain amount of reorganization; but such reorganization
will aim merely at the improvement of the existing political and
economic machinery. Present and future reformers must cleanse, oil, and
patch a piece of economic and political machinery, which in all
essentials is adequate to its purpose. The millionaire and the trust
have appropriated too many of the economic opportunities formerly
enjoyed by the people. The corrupt politician has usurped too much of
the power which should be exercised by the people. Reform must restore
to the people the opportunities and power of which they have been
deprived.

An agitation of this kind, deriving as it does its principles and
purposes from the very source of American democracy, would seem to
deserve the support of all good Americans: and such support was in the
beginning expected. Reformers have always tended to believe that their
agitation ought to be and essentially was non-partisan. They considered
it inconceivable either that patriotic American citizens should hesitate
about restoring the purity and vigor of American institutions, or such
an object should not appeal to every disinterested man, irrespective of
party. It was a fight between the law and its violators, between the
Faithful and the Heretic, between the Good and the Wicked. In such a
fight there was, of course, only one aide to take. It was not to be
doubted that the honest men, who constitute, of course, an enormous
majority of the "plain people," would rally to the banners of reform.
The rascals would be turned out; the people would regain their economic
opportunities and political rights; and the American democracy would
pursue undefiled its triumphant career of legalized prosperity.

These hopes have never been realized. Reform has rarely been
non-partisan--except in the minds of its more innocent advocates. Now
and then an agitation for municipal reform in a particular city will
suffer a spasm of non-partisanship; but the reformers soon develop such
lively differences among themselves, that they separate into special
groups or else resume their regular party ties. Their common conception
of reform as fundamentally a moral awakening, which seeks to restore the
American, political and economic system to its early purity and vigor,
does not help them to unity of action or to unity in the framing of