EPILOGUE--THE MACHINE AND ITS WHEELS.
The political incidents of this story, taken from actual life, reflect
the evils of our national system. The great political machine has many
cranks, and the scheming of office-seekers, the manipulations of the
caucus and convention, and the tactics resorted to on election day by
wire-pullers and leaders are not exaggerations.
Every public man will recognize Senator Hamblin, Ex-Assemblyman Daley,
Hon. Walter Mannis, Cyrus Hart Miller, Paddy Sullivan, Editor Rawlings,
and "honest" farmer Johnson, as wheels belonging to the great machine.
Senator Hamblin, ambitious, rich, bold, possessing natural gifts of
oratory, is a wheel with almost absolute power. The rising generation,
looking upon such men with admiration, strive to emulate their example.
Cyrus Hart Miller, bold, unscrupulous, and aggressive, is another
wheel--one that moves "the boys" at caucus and on election day.
Paddy Sullivan presides over the "gin palace," and men gathering at
the bar worship spirits in decanter and keg, while imbibing political
opinions.
In American politics the power of such wheels is very great, and no
machine is complete without them.
While it requires many wheels to work the machine, some are large, some
small, but all are dangerous. Men becoming infatuated with politics,
the desire to hold office leads them from paths of rectitude. They lose
their hold on legitimate business, and grasping for the bubble fame, go
headlong to destruction. One man may succeed in reaching the summit of
his ambition, but it is by climbing over the ruins of the nine hundred
and ninety-nine fallen on the highway.
The fight for spoils develops bad passions, creates schisms in parties.
Faction fights in both political organizations are so full of bitterness
and so empty of principle that they disgust the honest voters; yet
the latter with their preponderant majority seem to be powerless to
overthrow the politicians. One large wheel seems to have power to turn
scores of little wheels in the great machine.
The dangers of the system have lately been exemplified in a tragedy that
plunged the nation into sorrow; but while we mourn the death of a chief
magistrate the politicians still continue to propel the machine. It is
not to be supposed that all men engaged in political work or inspired
by political ambition are bad men. On the contrary, there are thousands
who are honest and honorable; politics is not only the privilege but the
duty of every American citizen, and every inducement should be held out
to the youth of the generations of to-day to go into politics with all
the strength of their manhood. But the difficulty--as every intelligent
man knows--is that caucuses and conventions and election work are left
almost entirely to those who seek not patriotism but pelf; and the aim
of this story is to show the natural tendency and actual results of
the system as it exists to-day--to try and make it so plain that men
may realize its vileness, and so to add another ounce to the weight of
infamy that "the Machine" has to carry, hoping that the accumulation may
at last beat it down. No partisan end is in view; it will puzzle the
most expert politician to say which of the two great political parties
in our land is aimed at--or rather, which is _not_ aimed at. We all
live in glass houses and cannot afford to throw stones at each other.
On the other hand--to change the figure--it is sometimes wholesome to
"see oursels as ithers see us"--or would see us if they could get a fair
inside view. It's not a pretty picture; more's the pity. Let us try to
better the original.
While the author has endeavored to briefly sketch the workings of the
system, he leaves to others the task of correcting the evils resulting
from "_The Machine and its Wheels_."
Transcriber's Note: Although most printer's errors have been
retained, some have been silently corrected. Spelling and
punctuation, capitalization, accents hyphens and formatting
markup have been normalized and include the following:
Line 4572: wassilent is now was silent
Line 5171: dress-makers is now dressmakers
Line 7145: "Were I to [inserted missing "]
Line 7392: your rightful name?" [changed ' to "]