“It must not be supposed that the members of Rings, or the great Boss himself are wicked men. They are the offspring of a system. Their morality is that of their surroundings. They see a door open to wealth and power, and they walk in. The obligations of patriotism or duty to the public are not disregarded by them, for these obligations have never been present to their minds. A State boss is usually a native American and a person of some education, who avoids the grosser forms of corruption, though he has to wink at them when practised by his friends. He may be a man of personal integrity. A city boss is often of foreign birth and humble origin; he has grown up in an atmosphere of oaths and cocktails; ideas of honour and purity are as strange to him as ideas about the nature of the currency and the incidence of taxation; politics is merely a means for getting and distributing places.” (Bryce, _American Commonwealth_, Vol. II, p. 110.) Under the supervision of the political boss blackmail is levied for party purposes from gambling houses, saloons and houses of ill repute. He is not primarily concerned with political opinions. He controls his best men by their interests. It is his business to carry the elections and thus get power and places for self and followers. He is able to dismiss almost any politician from office and to close his political career. He and not the people is the real master of the inferior office-holders. “At all hazards he must prevent the incoming of an honest administration that will apply the public offices for public uses.” For this purpose the bosses of opposite parties unite when necessary. Woodburn mentions an instance of this in Philadelphia in 1901, and adds referring to the boss: “Those who support him have their reward--the laborer gets his job, the placeman office; the policeman his promotion or his “divvy”; the contractor a chance at the public works; the banker the use of the public money; the gambler and the criminal immunity from prosecution; the honest merchant certain sidewalk privileges; the rich corporations lowered assessments and immunity from equitable taxation. All buy these special favors by support of the Boss’s power and policy, and all enjoy the blessings of the Boss’s government, high taxation, maladministration, stolen franchises, robbery of the public treasury, and criminal disorder in the community.” (_Political Parties and Party Platforms_, p. 364.)