when they voted for Tammany? What is representative
government, anyhow? Is it all a fake that this is a government of
the people, by the people and for the people? If it isn't a fake, then
why isn't the people's voice obeyed and Tammany men put in all
the offices?

When the people elected Tammany, they knew just what they were
doin'. We didn't put up any false pretenses. We didn't go in for
humbug civil service and all that rot. We stood as we have always
stood, for reward-in' the men that won the victory. They call that
the spoils system. All right; Tammany is for the spoils system, and
when we go in we fire every anti-Tammany man from office that
can be fired under the law. It's an elastic sort of law and you can
bet it will be stretched to the limit Of course the Republican State
Civil Service Board will stand in the way of our local Civil Service
Commission all it can; but say! --suppose we carry the State
sometime, won't we fire the upstate Board all right? Or we'll make
it work in harmony with the local board, and that means that
Tammany will get everything in sight. I know that the civil service
humbug is stuck into the constitution, too, but, as Tim Campbell
said: What's the constitution among friends?"

Say, the people's voice is smothered by the cursed civil service
law; it is the root of all evil in our government. You hear of this
thing or that thing goin' wrong in the nation, the State or the city.
Look down beneath the surface and you can trace everything
wrong to civil service. I have studied the subject and I know. The
civil service humbug is underminin' our institutions and if a halt
ain't called soon this great republic will tumble down like a Park
Avenue house when they were buildin' the subway, and on its ruins