After a long course of mental stimulation along these lines, we are quite prepared to hear him remark that after all what really counts for government is MEN--an observation which is supposed to silence all contradiction. Your “average” friend, if he has more than an average political energy, then goes out and helps to see that the “right sort” of man is elected coroner. There is undoubtedly more than an element of truth and wisdom in all these sentiments. The industrial world is coming more and more to believe that the great essential in coöperative effort of any sort is not plan of organization, not methods, but personnel--men. And even government presents instances of men who have “made good” conspicuously against a form of organization which favored insubordination, against the interference of invisible powers, against the hundred and one cunningly devised handicaps to good administration. We might with good grace take kindly to a system that brought distinguished, capable, honest, well-qualified men for the public service. If we could get good men and good administration as the normal output of the existing systems of county government, there would be satisfaction all around. But does the typical American government work that way? We shall examine in this chapter the relationships between the system, the men and the product. To get the right angle on the subject, we should put ourselves in the position of, let us say, the sheriff of Pike County. He is a likable, popular fellow--that is how he happens to be sheriff. His likability, his popularity, have made him a particularly valuable adjunct of the Pike County Republican (or Democratic) organization. In the election campaign he has proven himself a vote-getter, he has given the organization a respectable tone. And now that he is in office his congenital good nature has not been changed. His popularity has been due to his unfailing loyalty to his friends and supporters. These good people swarm about him on the first day of his term and he has it not in his heart to refuse the only favor within his power to grant.