In the professions and industries, in commercial houses, even on the farm, the second-rate man is not wanted; but political jobs, high and low, are everywhere open to him. Everything but the public service is standardized; politics alone puts a premium upon inferiority. The greatest emphasis is laid upon the word service in every field but government. The average American “wants what he wants when he wants it,” and is proud of his ability to get it. “If it isn’t right, we make it right,” is a popular business slogan. Hotels whose indifferent service wins the displeasure of the travelling public are execrated and blacklisted. On the other hand, I have listened for hours to the laudation of good hotels, of the efficiency of railroads, of automobile manufacturers who “give good service.” We have a pride in these things; we like to relate incidents of our successful “kick” when the berth that we had reserved by telegraph wasn’t forthcoming and how we “took it up” with the railroad authorities, and how quickly our wounded feelings were poulticed. “I guess that won’t happen again on _that_ road!” we chortle. Conversely we make our errands to a city hall or court-house as few as possible, knowing that the “service,” offered at the people’s expense is of a different order, and public officials may not be approached in that confident spirit with which we carry our needs or complaints to the heads of a private business. Or, if some favor is to be asked, we brag that we have seen “Jim” or “Bob” and that he “fixed” it for us. It happens not infrequently that we want something “fixed” from purely selfish motives--something that should not be “fixed”--and it gives us a pleasurable sense of our “influence” to know that, as we have always treated “Jim” or “Bob” all right, “Jim” or “Bob” cheerfully assists us. We chuckle over the ease with which he accomplished the fixing where it would have been impossible for us to effect it through a direct legitimate appeal. Thus in hundreds of ways a boss, great or small, is able to grant favors that cost him nothing, thereby blurring the vision of those he places under obligations to the means by which he gains his power. In municipal government the second and the third rate man, on down to a point where differentiations fade to the vanishing point, finds his greatest hope and security. As first-rate men are not available for the offices, they fall naturally to the inferior, the incompetent, or the corrupt. In few cities of a hundred thousand population is a man of trained ability and recognized fitness ever seriously considered for the mayoralty. Modern city government, with the broad powers conferred upon mayors, requires intelligence of the highest order. Usually without experience in large affairs, and crippled by a well-established tradition that he must reward party workers and personal friends, the incumbent surrounds himself with second and third rate men, for whose blunders the taxpayer meekly pays the bills.