Even  Mr  Roosevelt,  the  strongest  man  in
America  of  the  past  decade,  failed  in  his
encounter  with  the  trusts.
The  great  railroad  corporations — who  are
also  great  landowners — are  practically  the
rulers  of  many  of  the  less  important  of  the
States,  and  are  able  to  control  the  actions  of
the  State  Legislatures.
The  City  of  New  York  for  as  long  a  period
as  most  people  care  to  remember  has  been
under  the  heels  of  a  corrupt  organisation
known  as  Tammany  Hall,  a  ring  which  has
controlled  the  entire  public  service  of  the  city
from  the  mayor  downwards,  and  levied  toll  on
rich  and  poor  alike,  and  although  from  time


THE  FAILURES  OF  AMERICA  273

to  time  efforts  have  been  made  to  shake  off
its  grip  —  efforts  which  have  occasionally
succeeded — it  has  always  returned  to  power
in  the  end  with  increased  strength  after  one
of  these  temporary  lapses  of  the  city  into
honest  government.  So  deeply  has  the
canker  of  corruption  eaten  into  the  life  of  the
race  that  these  things  have  come  to  be  re
garded  with  an  air  of  cynical  indifference,  nay
even  to  be  found  amusing  and  entertaining.
Some  Americans  actually  prefer  this  state
of  government;  a  set  of  rogues  they  contend
can  always  be  dismissed  if  they  dip  their
hands  too  flagrantly  into  the  public  purse,  but
honest  men  who  enter  the  public  service  with
no  thought  of  personal  gain,  but  only  for  the
welfare  of  their  fellow  citizens,  are  very  com
monly  well-meaning  but  unpractical  enthu
siasts  and  faddists,  and  these  are  not  so  easy
to  dislodge;  their  experiments  and  mistakes,
it  is  contended,  are  more  costly  than  the
depredations  of  capable  rogues.
