Jeniffer electronic book

Each of
them was enabled by the character of our political traditions to obtain
an amount of power which the originators of those political ideas never
anticipated, and which, if not illegal, was entirely outside the law.
It so happened that the kind of power which each obtained was very
useful to the other. A corporation which derived its profits from public
franchises, or from a business transacted in many different states,
found the purchase of a local or state machine well within its means and
well according to its interests. The professional politicians who had
embarked in politics as a business and who were making what they could
out of it for themselves and their followers, could not resist this
unexpected and lucrative addition to their market. But it must be
remembered that the alliance was founded on interest rather than
association, on mutual agreement rather than on any effective
subordination one to another. A certain change in conditions might
easily make their separate interests diverge, and abstract all the
profits from their traffic.


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