I have had opportunity of knowing something about the workings of but a few of our other State legislatures: from what I have seen and heard, I should say that we stand about on a par with those of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Illinois, above that of Louisiana, and below those of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Wyoming, as well as below the national legislature at Washington. But the moral status of a legislative body, especially in the West, often varies widely from year to year. FOOTNOTES: [6] The _Century_, January, 1885. [7] A few years later a member of the Italian Legation “scored” heavily on one of our least pleasant national peculiarities. An Italian had just been lynched in Colorado, and an Italian paper in New York bitterly denounced the Italian Minister for his supposed apathy in the matter. The member of the Legation in question answered that the accusations were most unjust, for the Minister had worked zealously until he found that the deceased “had taken out his naturalization papers, and was entitled to all the privileges of American citizenship.” [8] At present, twelve years later, I should say that there was rather less personal corruption in the Legislature; but also less independence and greater subservience to the machine, which is even less responsive to honest and enlightened public opinion. [Illustration] VI MACHINE POLITICS IN NEW YORK CITY[9] In New York city, as in most of our other great municipalities, the direction of political affairs has been for many years mainly in the hands of a class of men who make politics their regular business and means of livelihood. These men are able to keep their grip only by means of the singularly perfect way in which they have succeeded in organizing their respective parties and factions; and it is in consequence of the clock-work regularity and efficiency with which these several organizations play their parts, alike for good and for evil, that they have been nicknamed by outsiders “machines,” while the men who take part in and control, or, as they would themselves say, “run” them, now form a well-recognized and fairly well-defined class in the community, and are familiarly known as machine politicians. It may be of interest to sketch in outline some of the characteristics of these men and of their machines, the methods by which and the objects for which they work, and the reasons for their success in the political field.