The leaven in a great city

by Lillian William Betts

The man at the bottom knows the duplicate of the leader nearest his own level; this man is his friend, his countryman often. The links in the chain are unbroken, and the man who dares to disobey the orders issued from the top feels not only the displeasure of the henchman, but the combined strength of the chain, or as much of it as is necessary to compel him to obey or to crush him. The poor man whose tool to earn a living is a shovel, a pick or a broom is not in a position to defend his rights; he has no public sentiment in the only world he knows to support him in any attempt he may make to attain his rights when defrauded by the political system he, in utter ignorance, has helped to establish. When he is thrown out of work given to secure his vote, he has no redress. The man at the bottom must make the rule of his life "Small favors thankfully received." His hope for work in the future depends on keeping in friendly touch with the system; this is the first principle of American citizenship grasped by the naturalized citizen.

Just before our last national election a number of men employed in skilled labor in one of our city departments were laid off. To some of those men this loss of work meant suffering for their families; to others it meant debt and dependence. It was startling the spirit in which this loss of work and wages were accepted by these men. The district leader, elected by the people to make the laws at Albany, in order "to hold his district in line" for this election, had to provide forty-eight voters with places. He demanded from the department forty-eight places; the work was in his district. No one questioned his right to make this demand; these places represented his political capital. In no way could his demands be met except by the discharge of forty-eight men then at work who lived outside the district. It was done. The men laid off, almost to a man, accepted it as the fortune of the political protégé. Scarcely a word of resentment was expressed. There were removals into this special district before the next municipal election, and new enrollments under the leader's banner, irrespective of the political bias of the voters. Some of the men were sullen and felt the loss of manhood; some said, "I'll vote as I like, but I must have work;" others believed that only under this leader's banner could a poor man hope to get his rights—the privilege to earn his living; or, in their language, "He is hustling for his friends."

Not only does the skilled and unskilled manual laborer find that the approval of his district leaders is necessary to secure work under the city, but that the affiliations and power of the district leader and his political followers can secure him work under corporations holding public franchises. He knows that the district leader secures privileges, licenses, votes for franchises, directly or indirectly, with the distinct understanding that his recommendations insure places to the men who carry them. Under corrupt city government the man in business who does not cater to the political powers finds his privileges curtailed; that he is made the target for petty annoyances. Especially is this true in the downtown districts, where in the transaction of business the rights of citizens to the streets are ignored. Until one has lived close to it, it is almost impossible to believe the power over the working masses the smallest cog in the political machine exercises. It is this that makes imperative the control of the city by men of high moral standing. No amount of unselfish philanthropy can save a city governed by the corrupt.

There are sections in the city of New York where from the time the boy is old enough to recognize the power of a policeman he guides his life to curry favor with this visible expression of power. He knows almost as soon as he can talk the man who rules in the world in which he lives. He sees his playmate defy the policeman because his father is a man of power, or the friend of the man who rules the district. "Pull" is the law, all the law he recognizes. He hears discussed from his earliest years the dependence of his class on the political powers who govern, not for the good of the city, but that they may have their rights; their rights, as interpreted, being the securing of a place for a longer or shorter period at the nod of a "boss." Their district is all the city thousands of the inhabitants of these sections know. How can it be otherwise? They are never called for any purpose to any other part of the city, unless it be the cemetery. Family, friends, business all center within a score of blocks. If a distance must be traversed, it is through thoroughfares that but duplicate regions they know, all a part of the kingdom of the "boss."

When the observer sees five thousand men walking behind a banner conferred on the leader of the district because every man in it who votes votes at his dictation, there comes to him a faint apprehension of what political power in the tenement-house district is. This district leader interprets all these men know of this country or its institutions. They know that he secures work for them; that he befriends them in time of trouble. He interprets Christ's doctrine to them: "I was hungry and ye gave me meat; thirsty and ye gave me drink. I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked and ye clothed me; I was sick and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye came unto me." This is what the district leader does, if not in person, by proxy. Is it any wonder he can control votes? Is it any wonder that the poor, ignorant, unequipped voter should curry favor, bow to him, acknowledge his supremacy even to the law? For this the voter can break the law, and the leader secure remission of the penalty. The leader's nod has been known to guide the judge on the bench. The leader can make the innocent suffer because his power is greater than the law to which the innocent appeal. This is the moral doctrine with which we inoculate our newly made citizens, and under which the children of our overcrowded tenement houses grow up. As the boys approach manhood they know no greater privilege than to serve the man who has the power to give them place, and he begins to cultivate their acquaintance early.

It takes brains, moral standards, a knowledge of life and experience to put the district leaders and their cohorts in the place they belong. Talking against them accomplishes nothing while the majority he represents keeps him in power, yes, makes him possible. He makes morality an evil, dishonesty justice to the people who know him as the representative of republican principles. They are the people. They have left one land because it deprived them of rights. Rights as they know them are personal, and the district leader secures them.

MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

The opposition to the reform movement by the people governed by the district leader comes from the conviction, dimly conceived or implanted, that the election of the men who represent it would mean that everywhere merit and not "pull" would keep the voter at work; that business would have to be conducted according to law; that crime would be punished; that no man would hold the keys of the prison for their benefit, but for the protection of the community.