The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

by Alfred Henry Lewis

While I was engaged about those preliminaries demanded of me if the machine were to begin its four-years' reign on even terms of comfort, Morton was often at my shoulder with a point or a suggestion. I was glad to have him with me; for his advice in a fog of difficulty such as mine, was what chart and lighthouse are to mariners.

One afternoon while Morton and I were trying to hit upon some man of education to take second place and supplement the ignorance of one whom the equities of politics appointed to be the head of a rich but difficult department, the Reverend Bronson came in.

We three—the Reverend Bronson, Morton, and myself—were older now than on days we could remember, and each showed the sere and yellow of his years. But we liked each other well; and, although in no sort similar in either purpose or bent, I think time had made us nearer friends than might have chanced with many who were more alike.

On this occasion, while I engaged myself with lists of names and lists of offices, weighing out the spoils, Morton and the Reverend Bronson debated the last campaign, and what in its conclusion it offered for the future.

“I shall try to be the optimist,” said the Reverend Bronson at last, tossing up a brave manner. “Since the dying administration was not so good as I hoped for, I trust the one to be born will not be so bad as I fear. And, as I gather light by experience, I begin to blame officials less and the public more. I suspect how a whole people may play the hypocrite as much as any single man; nor am I sure that, for all its clamors, a New York public really desires those white conditions of purity over which it protests so much.”

“Really!” returned Morton, who had furnished ear of double interest to the Reverend Bronson's words, “it is an error, don't y' know, to give any people a rule they don't desire. A government should always match a public. What do you suppose would become of them if one were to suddenly organize a negro tribe of darkest Africa into a republic? Why, under such loose rule as ours, the poor savage beggars would gnaw each other like dogs—they would, really! It would be as depressing a solecism as a Scotchman among the stained glasses, the frescoes, and the Madonnas of a Spanish cathedral; or a Don worshiping within the four bare walls and roof of a Highland kirk. Whatever New York may pretend, it will always be found in possession of that sort of government, whether for virtue or for vice, whereof it secretly approves.” And Morton surveyed the good dominie through that historic eyeglass as though pleased with what he'd said.

“But is it not humiliating?” asked the Reverend Bronson. “If what you say be true, does it not make for your discouragement?”

“No more than does the vulgar fact of dogs and horses, don't y' know! Really, I take life as it is, and think only to be amused. I remark on men, and upon their conditions of the moral, the mental, and the physical!—on the indomitable courage of restoration as against the ceaseless industry of decay!—on the high and the low, the good and the bad, the weak and the strong, the right and the wrong, the top and the bottom, the past and the future, the white and the black, and all those other things that are not!—and I laugh at all. There is but one thing real, one thing true, one thing important, one thing at which I never laugh!—and that is the present. But really!” concluded Morton, recurring to affectations which for the moment had been forgot, “I'm never discouraged, don't y' know! I shall never permit myself an interest deep enough for that; it wouldn't be good form. Even those beastly low standards which obtain, as you say, in New York do not discourage me. No, I'm never discouraged—really!”

“You do as much as any, by your indifference, to perpetuate those standards,” remarked the Reverend Bronson in a way of mournful severity.

“My dear old chap,” returned Morton, growing sprightly as the other displayed solemnity, “I take, as I tell you, conditions as I find them, don't y' know! And wherefore no? It's all nature: it's the hog to its wallow, the eagle to its crag;—it is, really! Now an eagle in a mud-wallow, or a hog perching on a crag, would be deuced bad form! You see that yourself, you must—really!” and our philosopher glowered sweetly.