ABSTRACT
An American political party has the less continuity of principle than an English political party; it is rather a group of supporters gathered round a temporary leader who imposes upon them what influence they can. The character of American political parties is reflected in the habits of Congress. The fact is that political parties in the United States, because they are the parties of a continent, are rarely unified in a European sense of the term. The House of Representatives has been the least successful of federal institutions, and it retains that unenviable characteristic. The greatest change in the federal system is in the significance of the presidential office. The federal government did not attempt to repeal the legislation dealing with social security and them attempts to alter more than the details of the machinery of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The volume of contradictions in the American political scene covers an area wider than is easily accountable.
