Any one who is a little removed by time or by distance from New York knows that the city cannot have permanent good government until a clear majority of our 500,000 voters shall develop what the economists call an “effective desire” for it. It is not enough merely to want reform. The majority must know how to get it. For educational purposes, the intelligent discussion throughout the recent campaign is worth all the effort that it cost. The Low campaign was notable in another particular. The banking and the mercantile classes subscribed liberally to the citizens’ campaign fund. They are the men who have had the most accurate knowledge of the boss system, because they support it. At last they have dared to expose it. Indeed, there was a rent in Wall Street. The great capitalists and the promoters backed Tammany and Platt, as a matter of course; but many individuals of power and importance in the street came out strongly for Low. They acted at personal risk, with courage, out of conscience. The great pendulum of wealth has swung toward decency. It is very difficult to use this or any money in the cause of reform without doing more harm than good. But the money is not the main point; the personal influence of the men who give it operates more powerfully than the money. Hereafter reform will be respectable. The professional classes are pouring into it. The young men are re-entering politics. Its victory is absolutely certain, and will not be distant. * * * * * The effect of public-spirited activity on the character is very rapid. Here again we cannot separate the cause from the consequence; but it is certain that the moral tone of the community is changing very rapidly for the better, and that the thousands of men who are at this moment preparing to take part in the next citizens’ campaign, and who count public activity as one of the regular occupations of their lives, are affecting the social and commercial life of New York. The young men who are working to reform politics find in it not only the satisfaction of a religious instinct, but an excitement which business cannot provide.