The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

by Alfred Henry Lewis

Now, when I had him to counsel with, I gave Morton my troubles over the Australian law. The situation, generally speaking, showed good; the more because there were three tickets in the field. Still, nothing was sure. We must work; and we must omit no usual means of adding to our strength. And the Australian law was in our way.

“Really, you're quite right,” observed Morton, polishing his eyeglass meditatively. “To be sure, these beasts of burden, the labor element, have politically gone to pieces since our last campaign. But they are still wandering about by twos and threes, like so many lost sheep, and unless properly shepherded—and what a shepherd's crook is money!—they may fall into the mouths of opposition wolves, don't y' know. What exasperating dullards these working people are! I know of but one greater fool than the working man, and that is the fool he works for! And so you say this Australian law breeds uncertainty for our side?”

“There is no way to tell how a man votes.”

Morton behind that potent eyeglass narrowed his gaze to the end of his nose, and gave a full minute to thought. Then his eyes, released from contemplation of his nose, began to brighten. I placed much reliance upon the fertility of our exquisite, for all his trumpery affectations of eyeglass and effeminate mannerisms, and I waited with impatience for him to speak.

“Really, now,” said he, at last, “how many under the old plan would handle your money about each polling place?”

“About four,” I replied. “Then at each polling booth there would be a dozen pullers-in, to bring up the voters, and go with them to see that they put in the right ballots. This last, you will notice, is by the Australian system made impossible.”

“It is the duty of artillery people,” drawled Morton, “whenever the armor people invent a plate that cannot be perforated by guns in being, don't y' know, to at once invent a gun that shall pierce it. The same holds good in politics. Gad! we must invent a gun that shall knock a hole through this Australian armor; we must, really! A beastly system, I should call it, which those beggarly Australians have constructed! It's no wonder: they are all convicts down there, and it would need a felon to devise such an interference. However, this is what I suggest. You must get into your hands, we'll put it, five thousand of the printed ballots in advance of election day. This may be secretly done, don't y' know, by paying the printers where the tickets are being struck off. A printer is such an avaricious dog; he is, really! The tickets would be equally distributed among those men with the money whom you send about the polling places. A ballot in each instance should be marked with the cross for Tammany Hall before it is given to the recruit. He will then carry it into the booth in his pocket. Having received the regular ticket from the hands of the judges, he can go through the form of retiring, don't y' know; then reappear and give in the ticket which was marked by your man of the machine.”

“And yet,” said I breaking in, “I do not see how you've helped the situation. The recruit might still vote the ticket handed him by the judges, for all our wisdom. Moreover, it would be no easy matter to get hold of fifty thousand tickets, all of which we would require to make sure. Five thousand we might manage, but that would not be enough.”

“You should let me finish; you should, really!” returned Morton. “One would not pay the recruit until he returned to that gentleman of finance with whom he was dealing, don't y' know, and put into his hands the unmarked ballot with which the judges had endowed him. That would prove his integrity; and it would also equip your agent with a new fresh ballot against the next recruit. Thus you would never run out of ballots. Gad! I flatter myself, I've hit upon an excellent idea, don't y' know!” and with that, Morton began delicately to caress his mustache, again taking on his masquerade of the ineffably inane.

Morton's plan was good; I saw its merits in a flash. He had proposed a sure system by which the machine might operate in spite of that antipodean law. We used it too, and it was half the reason of our victory. Upon its proposal, I extended my compliments to Morton.