Both carried on for
a few years a vigorous crusade, and both were absorbed by the
older parties as the currency question assumed concrete form and
became a commanding political issue. Since 1872, the
Prohibitionists have named national tickets. Their question,
which was always dodged by the dominant parties, is now rapidly
nearing a solution.
The one apparently unreconcilable element in our political life
is the socialistic or labor party. Never of great importance in
any national election, the various labor parties have been of
considerable influence in local politics. Because of its
magnitude, the labor vote has always been courted by Democrats
and Republicans with equal ardor but with varying success.
CHAPTER II. THE RISE OF THE MACHINE
Ideas or principles alone, however eloquently and insistently
proclaimed, will not make a party. There must be organization.
Thus we have two distinct practical phases of American party
politics: one regards the party as an agency of the electorate, a
necessary organ of democracy; the other, the party as an
organization, an army determined to achieve certain conquests.
Every party has, therefore, two aspects, each attracting a
different kind of person: one kind allured by the principles
espoused; the other, by the opportunities of place and personal
gain in the organization. The one kind typifies the body of
voters; the other the dominant minority of the party.
When one speaks, then, of a party in America, he embraces in that
term: first, the tenets or platform for which the party assumes
to stand (i.
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