New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-05-24

wanted. He seeks power and takes appropriate
means to secure it. Smash his machine and he
will build another adapted tic conditions.
He is broker because respectable heads of
corporations want to buy law, a spoilsmOnser
because a large body of citizens want office. and
there are offices to be distributed a mere
change in the forms of political activity will
compsh nothing The cure must go deeper.
1t is through his failure to give due weight to
tie influences that are working the cure that
Mr. Ostrogorski draws too dark a picture. The
merit system is making progress. Independent
voting increases. The evils of blind parJisanship
are more and more realized The advance IS
slow, but there is advance. Moreover the au-
thor is inclined to accept at their face value
denunciatiOns which the exaggerations of
political controversy or fppant cynicism. Each
year he hears that legislature was the worst
had and concludes that they ali
so bad that the distant seems good by
comparison. AS a matter of fact, the corrup-
ton of legislatures is much overdrawn. There
are some corrupt men in every body, but there
are more stupid and Opinionated men, and the
bulk of the lawmaking in the United States is
we'll meant if not wise. In the same fashion MI
Ostrogorsk infers that early in the last century
politics had ceased to be respectable because
the phrases "as low politician and 1T is a
disgrace longer to hold office are found in old
newspaper files BY the same token he should
conclude that Washington and Adams were
tyrants trying to enslave the people, and that
jefferson was anarchist trying to destroy
the government. He generally discounts the
loose language of controversy in those times
but seems to take it at its face value Wheh
he deals with more recent period. He accepts
the prejudices Of a comparatively small band OF
professional independents when he judges the
men and measures OF the last twenty years ana
loses his perspective He can find no statesmen
in the Senate, and thinks that only weak ana
mediocre men can secure high executive office IN
the State or nation. Acceptance of the same pref
udice a generation ago would have led to the
same Judgment on the Lincolns. Stewards ana
Chases whose fame is now secure. 1t is alSo
curious to find him taking seriously as indlca-
tive of a movement letter to newspaper
by a somewhat erratic lawyer proposing the
abolition of district attorneys, and drawing Iii1
leesOn that on account of corrupt prosecution
there is a tendency to return to the primitive
English system of law enforcement solely OF
private initiative.
Mr. Ostrogorski's indictment of parties IS really
an Indictment of the people. AS Secretary STAN
ton once wrote to Bishop Whipple: Congress
never redresses a wrong until the people Oh th@
United States demand it," and no Congress with
anv form of party machinery will ever be any
better in that respect. 1t is Impossible to accept
the recommendations Of this student OF our IN
stitutions as offering solution of our problems
but we may be most grateful for his study. II IS
one of the most notable books which has beea
written about the workings of democratic IN
stitutions 1t goes behind the forms and In
spite of its occasional exaggerations ana 1ault'
deductions, it gets at the reality OF THINGS anu
shows clearly the vicious tendencies when must
be guarded against if democracy IS 70 " 4
permanent success