In truth, not a single American city,
great or small, has entirely escaped, for a greater or lesser
period, the sway of a coterie of politicians. It has not always
been a corrupt sway; but it has rarely, if ever, given efficient
administration.
Happily there are not wanting signs that the general conditions
which have fostered the Ring are disappearing. The period of
reform set in about 1890, when people began to be interested in
the study of municipal government. It was not long afterwards
that the first authoritative books on the subject appeared. Then
colleges began to give courses in municipal government; editors
began to realize the public's concern in local questions and to
discuss neighborhood politics as well as national politics. By
1900 a new era broke--the era of the Grand Jury. Nothing so
hopeful in local politics had occurred in our history as the
disclosures which followed. They provoked the residuum of
conscience in the citizenry and the determination that honesty
should rule in public business and politics as well as in private
transactions. The Grand Jury inquisitions, however, demonstrated
clearly that the criminal law was no remedy for municipal
misrule. The great majority of floaters and illegal voters who
were indicted never faced a trial jury. The results of the
prosecutions for bribery and grosser political crimes were
scarcely more encouraging. It is true that one Abe Ruef in a
California penitentiary is worth untold sermons, editorials, and
platform admonitions, and serves as a potent warning to all
public malefactors.
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