“But,” you shout, “this is not politics. You can never hold men together without bonds.” The fact is otherwise. There is some force at work in this town which, year after year, brings forward groups of men who proclaim a new dispensation. They are, in so far as they have any cohesion, held together without bonds now. All formal bonds will chain them to the past. For electrical force you must adopt electrical machinery; for moral force, moral bonds. All this political system is the harness for the wrong passion. Every scrap of it imprisons your power. The average American citizen is slow to see that you can exercise political influence without the current machinery. This is a part of The Machine in his brain. He cannot see the operation of law by which virtue always tells. But his ignorance does not affect the operation of that law, even upon himself. This elaborate analysis of just how the force of feeling in yourself can best be used politically, is, after all, only an instance of a general law. The shortest path between two points always turns out to be a straight line. People who believe in the complexity of life, and have theories about crooked lines, want something else beside moral influence. They want influence through office, or influence toward special ends, or influence with particular persons. “Can’t you see you are destroying your influence?” they cry, while every stroke is telling. “A thinks you are a lunatic.” Praise God. “B has withdrawn his subscription.” I had not hoped for this so soon. “But he has joined Platt.” You misstate the case. He was always with Platt, but now he has revealed it. These refractory molecules are breaking up. See the lines of force begin to show a clean cleavage. Ten thousand intelligences now see the man for what he is.