In New York, the absurdly disjointed and hopelessly complex array of separate boards, functions, and administrative powers, first makes it impossible for the community to focalise responsibility anywhere in the formal mechanism of municipal government, and then makes it possible for an irresponsible self-centred political and mercenary society like Tammany to gain for itself the real control, and thus to assume a domination that ought to be centred in some body or functionary directly accountable to the people. Government by a secret society like Tammany is better than the chaos of a disjointed government for which there can be no possible location of central responsibility. It is not for me to dogmatise where experts, native to New York, hopelessly disagree. But viewed from the outside the secret of Tammany’s success seems to lie chiefly in the fact that Tammany has from the first been really a democratic organisation. No one was too poor, too wicked, or too ignorant to be treated by Tammany as a man and a brother if he would stand in with the machine and join the brotherhood. This secret of Tammany--the open secret--was explained to me in Chicago by a saloon-keeper of more than dubious morals who had been a Tammany captain in New York. I saw him the night after Dr. Parkhurst had scored his first great success over the politicians of New York. The ex-Tammany Captain shook his head when I asked him what he thought of Dr. Parkhurst’s campaign. He had no use for Dr. Parkhurst. For a time, he thought, he might advertise himself, which was no doubt his object, but after that everything would go on as before. The one permanent institution in New York was Tammany. I asked him to explain his secret. “Suppose,” said I, “that I am a newly arrived citizen in your precinct, and come to you and wish to join Tammany, what would be required of me?” “Sir,” said he, “before anything would be required of you we would find out all about you. I would size you up myself, and then after I had formed my own judgment I would send two or three trusty men to find out all about you. Find out, for instance, whether you really meant to work and serve Tammany, or whether you were only getting in to find out all about it. If the inquiries were satisfactory then you would be admitted to the ranks of Tammany, and you would stand in with the rest.” “What should I have to do?” “Your first duty,” said he, “would be to vote the Tammany ticket whenever an election was on, and then to hustle around and make every other person whom you could get hold of vote the same ticket.” “And what would I get for my trouble?” I asked.