Gloucester County Democrat., 1912-08-15
WHAT MACHINE POLITICS is.
(By woodrow Wilson. J


You know the objects OF machine
government. The objects of machine
government are to prevent anything
being done that will be dnimical to
certain interests and to get everything
done which is advantageous to GER
tain interests. BY certain interests
mean business interests, not political
interests. The machine is a partner
ship am illegitimate and abominable
partnership, between business and po
litics. Now the day when this thing
can exist is past The American peo-
pie know it, and the American people
are not going to permit 1t single
twelvemonth more.
You know there is only one thing
about us that is immortal in this
world, and that is our reputation. 1t
does not make any difference after
these exposures whether the men are
put behind prison walls or not. They
have forever violated their faith, and
that kind of treatment is being pre-
pared everywhere for that kind of
men. Everywhere there has been a
cleaning up, a cleaning of house, an
absolute reputation of all politics of
that sort from one end of the United
States to the other. | don't mean
everywhere, but, taking the country
by samples in other sections of it,
there has been a repudiation of it, and
don't you hear the thunder of the
wave that comes on? Do you suppose
this beach we stand on can remain
dry much longer? Do you suppose
that time is going to be stopped be-
cause some man lifts his hand and
protests and asks it to come no far
ther? If you want to escape being
engulfed you better retire from the
reach of the sea, and there is no
place to go, because the sea is human
opinion, the sea is the discovery of
seeing things and the overwhelming
power is the overwhelming conden-
nation that will fall upon such men
upon their discovery.
The tide is coming in. Let those
who don't know how to swim and
keep their heads above water look to
it,
Il know how it happens. These
things drift in great drifts, as they
do in politics; men do not see in
which way they are moving, and
everybody about them is doing the
same thing. Some people think that
everything is graft. Now, of course,
there isn't graft in everything; we
have not grown morally rotten; but
there is a subtle kind of growth in
great many things Whenever you
get somebody with influence to do
something that somebody else without
influence cannot do, that is graft
Il was sitting in the waiting room
of an eminent surgeon one afternoon
a few years ago, waiting for my turn
to consult him, and I waited there for
three mortal hours; and in the mean
time saw several very much more
fashionably dressed people than / was
take precedence over me, and / am
sure that they had no prior engage
ment with the doctor. Now, that was
graft. There is every kind of graft,
from the graft which is induced by
the handsome dress and the beauty
of distinguished-lo Hooking woman. to
the graft produced by the actual hand
ling of hard cash. All Influences that
ought not to exist, all inequalities pro-
duced by working some fellow, is
graft.
And so every time you wink at a
friend and say. That is all right; |
will fix it up for you; will see that
you get in'-you are beginning on the
road which ends at the place that |
have described, and | warn you-I
warn you to keep off, because the
American people have their eye on
you, and they are getting intolerant
i LI.s-
not carry it too far