This system has the effect of strengthening party discipline; under it every office holder is much more obligated to the party boss than to the public. True, he apparently owes his election to the people; but usually only apparently; since most of the votes he receives are strictly party votes, representing merely the will and the direction of the boss and the machine. But to the latter the candidate’s obligation is clear, direct and personal; to them he owes his nomination, or at least the suggestion of his name to the primaries which makes his election possible; and if defeated at the polls, his future is still in their friendly hands. The party leaders and managers being thus cared for, and their faithful service forever secured by the distribution among them of all the best public employments, guaranteed by the rotation system developed into a “steady job insurance” scheme, there remain the inferior county, city, town and village offices for apportionment among the smaller fry, and to these minor places a real rotation system is applied to a greater or less extent. It is often understood that a sheriff, alderman, tax collector, police magistrate, town solicitor or attorney, county clerk, town or village official, etc., must be satisfied with one or two terms and then give place to some other more hungry politician. This is the rotation system in practice. The demoralizing results of such a custom are easy to be seen among us and still more easily imagined. Many public office holders in view of the probable brevity of their tenure, try to hold on at the same time to both private business and public office, with the natural result that both are neglected. Elections are expensive. An official owing last election’s bills finds the next one approaching with marvellous rapidity. From rigid enforcement of laws enemies might result, from whom next year’s candidate need expect neither money nor support, but rather opposition; and after all, one year in office is a paltry reward for a faithful party man after many years of fruitless canvassing. And so comes lax administration, blinking of the eyes and scandal more or less smothered. And in this and other ways the character of the office holder is impaired. The lure of this kind of politics is as demoralizing as that of gambling. Thousands of individuals who uncorrupted by political life might have remained honest and industrious citizens, are spoiled for real steady work by their experience of easy living at the public cost, and become half knavish and altogether poor business men, and sometimes even debauched and intemperate. And if the office holder does his very best it usually happens that just when he has learned his duties and begins to perform them well, his term approaches its finish and a greedy greenhorn takes his place.