offices are instituted and charged with certain functions and endowed with certain powers to be administered solely for the service and benefit of the people, and for no other purpose. These are the vital requirements of democratic government. In the same measure as these requirements fail to be fulfilled—as any element of sovereignty passes away from the people, or as the making of the laws and the conduct of public affairs cease to be controlled by the people’s will, or as the administration of the public offices is diverted from the purposes for which they have been instituted—that is to say, as the offices are used to serve ends other than the public benefit, or are entrusted to persons not apt to give to the people the best attainable service—in that measure democratic government fails.
It is said that democratic government is practically government through political parties. This can be true only in a limited sense. If political parties are what they ought to be—organizations of citizens caused by different currents of opinion as to principles of government or certain questions of public policy, and set on foot and put to the work of persuasion for the purpose of making this or that set of opinions prevail in the conduct of public affairs—they serve a legitimate end. But whenever they seek to divert the public offices, instituted solely for the service and benefit of the people, from their true purpose in order to use them for their own service and benefit, to this extent turning the govern-
