One of the incidents of manhood suffrage is the practice of rotation in office, which may be called a by-product of manhood suffrage and represents a doctrine which is only applicable to machine politics. It is sometimes supposed to mean that a public office is a desirable job at which every man should have his turn; but this arrangement is impossible, since there are not nearly offices enough for that purpose even with replacements once a year, which is the limit of frequency thus far proposed for office shifts; and although the politicians are assiduous in making new laws and creating new officials to enforce these laws; who are to be found registering, recording, inspecting and reporting in every possible direction; though they discourage diligence in office and encourage short hours and idleness in office holders, so as to still leave a show of employment for others; yet with all they can do, there will still be one hundred candidates for each place, and ninety-nine of them disappointed. In practice therefore the bestowal of good offices under the rotation system is necessarily limited; its benefits are usually confined to the machine politicians and to a certain number of favored candidates for machine favor; and the vision of a future turn at the public provender is for most party followers altogether illusory. The doctrine of rotation in office has acquired a certain favor in political circles, because it serves as an excuse for replacing competent and experienced officials by new and incompetent ones, for enforcing the “spoils” system, and aids in keeping in hand the controllable vote.