"Robert A. Heinlein - Take back your Government" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

His word has got to be good - or he goes out of business.
It is good. Under circumstances where a written contract is necessary,
and sometimes a law suit, to force a layman to carry out his solemn
promises, a business politician will meet his commitments without a murmur,
even though the situation may have changed so that it costs him immediate
loss or embarrassment. His personal reliability is his stock in trade; he must
not jeopardize it.
I can hear a snort of derision; everybody knows that broken political
promises are common as flies around a garbage dump. Whose promises,
citizen? The promises of a "reform" ticket? The promises of some office-
happy candidate? Or the flat commitment of a successful boss of an
entrenched machine? If you know personally of a broken promise of the last-
named sort, I would appreciate it if you would write to me, care of the
publisher, giving me the details.25
The commitments of a successful boss are made with a careful eye to
what his experience has taught him the majority of the people really want.
The Pendergast Machine, now moribund, of Kansas City, Missouri, was a
perfect example of a machine which gave the people what they cared most
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about and stayed in power for more than a quarter of a century thereby.
People want good pavements and aren't too interested in the cost; Kansas
City had excellent streets all through the reign of the Machine. Parents want
good schools; the Old Man saw to it that high-minded citizens sat on the
school board and forbade the members of the organization to monkey with
the school system.
People also want personal service from their government. The Old Man
was in his office daily and the door was open. Any bindlestiff or solid citizen
could walk in his office, make his complaint, and get a decision. The decision
was backed up with action, and most of the decisions and actions would
have met with your warm approval. The cop who had shoved around the
bindlestiff was ordered to cut it out; the solid citizen got the chuck holes in
front of his house repaired.
In addition, Widow Murphy got free coal and free food to help her and her
kids through the cruel mid-western winter.
It is alleged that there was a Machine ruling which forbade shooting south
of Twelfth Street. True or not, the respectable citizens worried very little
about killings around the water front. Later on, when the Boss grew older and
the Machine lost its careful attention to detail, it was certainly true that the
sound of gunfire was not too uncommon in the "respectable" neighborhoods;
the gangsters had moved south and set themselves up in fine apartments on
Armour Boulevard, Linwood, the Paseo, and the Plaza.26
This was the beginning of the end; the Machine had overreached itself
and permitted things which the citizens really disliked. Shortly thereafter the
Old Man was so old and sick that he was unable to attend personally to one
campaign. The "Boys" decided to make him a present, a really fine majority.
Ghost votes were common in Kansas City, but this one reached a new high -
or low. The Machine majorities were so enormous; the tallied opposition so
microscopic, that it was easy for a federal grand jury to dig up proof of fraud
from the persons who were willing to swear that they had voted against the
Machine.