Jeff did some rapid thinking. “Then the program will be for us to nominate a weak ticket and elect Big Tim's by default. Is that it?”
“That's about it. The big fellows have to make sure of a Mayor who will be all right about the Gas and Electric franchise. So we're going to have four more years of Big Tim.”
“Will Brownell stand for it?”
Brownell was the principal owner of the Advocate.
“Will he?” Warren let his eyelash rest for a second upon the cheek nearest Jeff. “He's been seen. My orders come direct from the old man.”
The story was suppressed. No more was heard about the McGuire graft scandal exposure. It had run counter to the projects of big business.
Burke had to be satisfied without his revenge.
He got a job with a brewery and charged the McGuire matter to profit and loss.
As for Jeff the incident only served to make clearer what he already knew. More and more he began to understand the forces that dominate our cities, the alliance between large vested interests and the powers that prey. These great corporations were seekers of special privileges. To secure this they financed the machines and permitted vice and corruption. He saw that ultimately most of the shame for the bad government of American cities rests upon the Fromes and the Merrills.
As for the newspapers, he was learning that between the people and an independent press stand the big advertisers. These make for conservatism, for an unfair point of view, for a slant in both news recording and news interpretation. Yet he saw that the press is in spite of this a power for good. The evil that it does is local and temporary, the good general and permanent.