A vote-directing organization which is steadily successful in a given state or local government for eight years will reach a point where it actually places in practically all the state and local offices that are filled by election, and also in the House of Representatives, in Congress, and in the United States Senate, men who are loyal to the organization and its leaders before everything else. The leader of such an organization may even have obtained a controlling influence with the governor of the state and the president of the United States, so far as their power extends to local appointments and affairs. When this occurs, the leaders of the state and local vote-directing organization have become the real though extra-legal government. The real power of government, both state and local, and an important influence in the power of the federal government are in their hands. Local and state executive officers and local and state legislators will take orders from these leaders. Judges in a more subtle way will take account of their wishes. Thus we have, however imperceptibly, none the less effectively changed the character of our government. The very excess of our precautions to prevent the power of government from coming into the hands of the few has delivered the power of government into the hands of the few. So obviously and completely has the elaborate effort of our constitution-makers failed to keep governmental power out of the hands of the few that we might as well accept it as axiomatic that governmental authority in any highly organized society cannot be prevented from becoming concentrated in the hands of the few. Our form of government has indeed changed from the decentralized democracy of the frontier to the centralized politocracy of a highly organized civilization. We have turned our back upon the autocrat and the aristocrat only to find ourselves in the hands of the politocrat. Section 6 The Extra-legal Government Uses Its Power Selfishly to Maintain Itself and to Benefit Those Who Have Organized and Supported It Our extra-legal government is not one of altruists. It may be relied upon to act selfishly in two respects: First, it will use all of its influence and power to maintain itself. Then as its tenure of power becomes more secure it will use that power to reward the leaders who have organized and supported it.