As an outsider I should say that the power of the "boss" was due to the fact that the best classes will have none of him, as a rule (I refer to the ordinary "boss"), and as a consequence he and his henchmen control the situation. I think I am not overstating the truth when I say that every city in the United States has been looted by the politicians of various parties. It is of public record that Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and New York citizens have repeatedly risen and shown that the city was being robbed in the most bare-handed manner. Bribery and corruption have been found to exist to-day in the entire system, and if the credit of the republic stands on its political morale this vast union of States is a colossal failure, as it is being pillaged by politicians. Every "boss" has what are termed "heelers," one function of whom is to buy votes and do other work in the interest of "reform." A friend told me that he spent election day in the office of a candidate for Congress in a certain Western town, and the candidate had his safe heaped full of silver dollars. All day long men were coming and going, each taking the dollars to buy votes. By night the supply was exhausted, and the man defeated. I expressed satisfaction at this, but my friend laughed; the other fellow who won paid more for votes, he said. I was told that all the great senatorial battles were merely a question of dollars; the man with the largest "sack" won.
On the other hand, there are senators who not only never paid for a vote but never expressed a wish to be elected. The foreign vote—Italians and others—are swayed by cash considerations; the negroes are bought and sold politically. The "bosses" handle the money, and the senators consider it as "expenses," and doubtless do not know that some of it has been used to influence legislators. The Americans have a remarkable network of laws to prevent fraudulent voting. Each candidate in some States is required to swear to an expense account, yet the wary politician, with his "ways that are dark," evades the law. The entire system, the control of the political fortunes of 80,000,000 Americans, is in the hands of a small army of political "bosses," some of whom, had they figured as grafters in "effete" China, would have been beheaded without mercy.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Slang for citizens.
[10] Slang for information, facts.
[11] Mexican hash in corn-husk.