for longer or shorter periods, has been dominated by oligarchies.

Around Philadelphia, American sentiment has woven the memories of
great events. It still remains, of all our large cities, the most
"American." It has fewer aliens than any other, a larger
percentage of home owners, a larger number of small tradespeople
and skilled artisans--the sort of population which democracy
exalts, and who in turn are presumed to be the bulwark of
democracy. These good citizens, busied with the anxieties and
excitements of their private concerns, discovered, in the decade
following the Civil War, that their city had slipped unawares
into the control of a compact oligarchy, the notorious Gas Ring.
The city government at this time was composed of thirty-two
independent boards and departments, responsible to the council,
but responsible to the council in name only and through the
medium of a council committee. The coordinating force, the
political gravitation which impelled all these diverse boards and
council committees to act in unison, was the Gas Department. This
department was controlled by a few designing and capable
individuals under the captaincy of James McManes. They had
reduced to political servitude all the employees of the
department, numbering about two thousand. Then they had extended
their sway over other city departments, especially the police
department. Through the connivance of the police and control over
the registration of voters, they soon dominated the primaries and
the nominating conventions. They carried the banner of the
Republican party, the dominant party in Philadelphia and in the
State, under which they more easily controlled elections, for the
people voted "regular." Then every one of the city's servants was
made to pay to the Gas Ring money as well as obeisance.