No account of manhood suffrage would be complete without proper mention of the politicians and their work, for they are the essential product of the system, its distinctive feature and its condemnation. It is they who manage the controllable vote created by manhood suffrage and without which they themselves would cease to exist; and it is they who nurse that vote, feed it and train and fashion it to their malign uses as an instrument of perfect control of American political life. The politicians are absolutely indispensable to the working of the present political system in the United States. They handle the voters like cattle intended for the stock market; like the animals the voters go willingly or half willingly to the places prepared for them, in pursuance of plans in which they take no part, which they do not understand. The voters are bargained for and delivered in batches just as the animals are, and the managers and their subordinates in charge are the political masters of the country. These managers from the very first have been a sordid lot. De Tocqueville, writing about 1835, when the manhood suffrage régime was only ten years old said of them, “I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and I have found true patriotism among the people, but never among the leaders of the people.” (_Democracy in America_, Vol. I.) The present-day professional politicians may be as lacking in patriotism as the political leaders of De Tocqueville’s time, but taken all together they are and have always been a picturesque company, who have been frequently described by able writers, from some of whom extracts will here be given for the delectation and information of the reader.