He has his own interests, his own business, and it is difficult for him to spare the time to go around to the primaries, to see to the organization, to see to getting out the vote--in short, to attend to all the thousand details of political management.
On the other hand, the spoils system breeds a class of men whose financial interest it is to take this necessary time and trouble.

They are paid for so doing, and they are paid out of the public chest.
Under the spoils system a man is appointed to an ordinary clerical or ministerial position in the municipal, Federal, or State government, not primarily because he is expected to be a good servant, but because he has rendered help to some big boss or to the henchman of some big boss.
His stay in office depends not upon how he performs service, but upon how he retains his influence in the party.

This necessarily means that his attention to the interests of the public at large, even though real, is secondary to his devotion to his organization, or to the interest of the ward leader who put him in his place.

So he and his fellows attend to politics, not once a year, not two or three times a year, like the average citizen, but every day in the year.

It is the one thing that they talk of, for it is their bread and butter.