THE MUNICIPAL LEAGUE OF PHILADELPHIA 357
pursuing such a course, it had to refuse a great deal of interested advice, which almost invariably resulted in the estrangement of those offering it. As each year had its quota of those so estranged, in time there came to be a considerable number who felt that the league had lost its usefulness, because it failed to fol- low their advice. The active managers, realizing this fact; realizing further that people are always attracted by new names, and that there was a sentiment in every community, as old as the times of Aristides, which grew tired of those who were persist- ently teaching a doctrine at variance with that held by a majority of the community, felt that the great principles of municipal gov- ernment and municipal policy for which the league had stood could best be served by the league's retirement and the formation of a new body.
Events have abundantly justified the wisdom and foresight of this action. The revolution of last spring, and the present wide- spread and hopeful revolt against the Philadelphia machine, were unquestionably made possible by the action. A new, vigorous group of men has been brought to the front and all that was worth while in the league has been preserved and continued, and its influence multiplied many fold; so that, in place of the compara- tively little band of devoted workers, we have the new men con- stituting the Committee of Seventy, and a considerable infusion of new men in the City Party, plus the old rank and file of the Muni- cipal League trained to march steadily on in the cause of better government and higher standards.
Thus the work inaugurated by the Municipal League is con- tinued and extended, and its influence and efficacy assured.
To sum up, the Municipal League was a persistent, and not an intermittent, factor in the fight for good government in Phila- delphia. As was said at its tenth anniversary, it recognized " that to accomplish permanent results it must adopt as its guiding policy ' all at it and always at it'."
The league represented an organized effort, not a spasmodic attempt, to change municipal conditions. With a nucleus of workers in every ward, and a good working association in 50 per cent, of them, they formed a wholesome offset to the strongly
