Since the days of the “New England Reformers,” about whom Emerson wrote, American politics has been characterized by great numbers of political action groups whose members had, personally, nothing to gain from their work except the satisfaction of improving, or attempting to improve, society. Such reform groups we may call altruistic to distinguish them from groups in which the members hope to gain economic or prestige rewards for themselves — but “altruistic” in this sense is not to be understood as having value content or implying agreement with the goals of such groups.