They will also, by exacting little work for good pay, make the offices as attractive, and by granting favorable terms to the contractors, the contracts as profitable as possible. The more favors they have at their disposal for distribution among faithful adherents, the larger a following they can organize and hold at their command; the more strongly they will be fortified in their seats of power; and the easier it will be to them, after a reverse, to keep their organization in fighting trim and to restore their power upon the same basis. In fact, the very existence of a large patronage to be distributed by way of favor will always be a temptation to abuse it for selfish purposes. This temptation will be the more seductive, the stronger the mercenary element is among the people; and this element is naturally strongest in the large cities.
The mercenary element can as such be enlisted for political work only when there are means for gratifying it. In the same measure as the means of that gratification cease to be available, the mercenary element will cease to be a potent factor in politics. Strip Tammany Hall permanently of the means of feeding its adherents out of the public purse, and Tammany Hall, such as it is at present, will no longer be a power. To this end it is not sufficient merely to defeat the Tammany candidates at the polls, for so long as the plunder exists, the organization will stick together in the hope of recovering that plunder at the next election. It is, therefore, necessary so to limit the quantity of patronage subject to distribution by way of favor, that Tammany Hall, after a defeat, has not only nothing, or only very little, to give for the time being, but that it has nothing, or only very little, to promise in case of a return to power. Then its mercenary forces will gradually scatter and its power will crumble away. The same applies to similar organizations of the mercenary element in other places.
