It is interesting to note the dealings of the political managers with this rotation doctrine, which as already stated is impossible of practical enforcement except in a very limited way. They have no idea of permitting this or any other theory to operate to their personal disadvantage. The leaders must in any case be constantly fed at the public crib; they must in any event be well provided for or the whole system would collapse. In order therefore to keep up the illusion of rotation for all, and a show of fairness, the managers are constantly shifted about from one office to another. In this way there is in fact a continuing series of changes among the office holders; and as a rule no sooner does an incumbent become familiar with his duties than he is displaced; but if he be a faithful party man he is at once put on the list for something else. In fact, all of the class of regular politicians are practically in office for life; the only effect of our frequent elections being that they are constantly shifted from one office to another. If any one will take the trouble to compare the list of office-holders from year to year, he will see that most of the names appear in successive administrations; but that they are moved from place to place with the change in the political fortunes of the different parties. When a candidate is defeated at an election, he is usually, if a good politician, soon afterwards appointed to another office; if necessary, a new office is created for him. If defeated at a city election, he may be appointed to a federal office; if his party loses the federal election, he soon turns up in a state or city office, and so on; and so we have in the career of a politician a sort of ambulatory office incumbency. He may be in turn tax collector, district attorney, secretary or commissioner of this or that, judge or justice, state senator, county clerk, foreign consul and so on. If high up in the party, he will appear in the president’s cabinet, or as a foreign minister or as member of some high salaried commission. Being a politician he is supposed to be eligible for anything and everything, and when at last he dies endowed with honors and with usually a fair amount of cash after a life which has certainly been spent in the service of his country, his newspaper obituary will point out to an edified world how men of humble origin prosper in this free land.