THE STRUGGLE 
 
 FOR 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 
 ' 
 
 STE
 
 presented to the 
 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 
 Mrs. Griff ing Bancroft
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT
 
 Other books by 
 LINCOLN STEFFENS 
 
 r 
 
 THE SHAME OF THE CITIES
 
 THE 
 
 Struggle for Self-Government 
 
 BEING AN ATTEMPT TO TRACE 
 AMERICAN POLITICAL CORRUPTION TO ITS SOURCES IN 
 
 SIX STATES 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES 
 WITH A DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 BY 
 LINCOLN STEFFENS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
 MCMVI
 
 Copyright, 1906, by 
 cCLURE, PHILLIPS & Co. 
 Published May, 1906 
 
 Copyright, 1904-1905, by 
 THE S. S. McCLURE COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DEDICATION To His MAJESTY, NICHOLAS THE SECOND, 
 BY THE GRACE OF GOD, EMPEROR AND AUTOCRAT OF 
 ALL THE RUSSIAS, CZAR OF POLAND, GRAND DUKE OF 
 FINLAND, ETC., ETC v 
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI SHOWING How TO BEAT 
 THE BOODLE SYSTEM OF ST. Louis, THE PEOPLE HAD 
 TO CHALLENGE THE SAME SYSTEM IN THE STATE . . 3 
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS SHOWING How, SINCE 
 THE CORRUPTION OF A STATE AND ITS CITIES is ALL 
 ONE SYSTEM, MUNICIPAL REFORM MUST INCLUDE 
 STATE REFORM 40 
 
 WISCONSIN: REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT RESTORED 
 THE STORY OF LAFOLLETTE'S WAR ON THE RAILROADS 
 THAT RULED His STATE 79 
 
 RHODE ISLAND: A CORRUPTED PEOPLE SHOWING THAT 
 AMERICAN CITIZENS CAN BE BOUGHT (CHEAP) TO 
 SELL OUT THEIR CITIES AND STATES 120 
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF Two CITIES SHOWING BUSINESS 
 RULERS OF A STATE RESORTING TO ANARCHY TO 
 CHECK MUNICIPAL REFORM 161 
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE, PART I. THE CON- 
 QUEST: SHOWING How THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD 
 SEIZED THE GOVERNMENT 209 
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE, PART II. THE BE- 
 TRAYAL: SHOWING How THIS BOUGHT STATE SOLD 
 OUT THE UNITED STATES TO THE TRUSTS FOR MONEY 253
 
 TO 
 
 HIS MAJESTY, NICHOLAS THE SECOND, BY THE 
 
 GRACE OF GOD, EMPEROR AND AUTOCRAT 
 
 OF ALL THE RUSSIAS, CZAR OF POLAND. 
 
 GRAND DUKE OF FINLAND, ETC., ETC. 
 
 SIRE: Without permission, but with the best of private 
 intentions, I, a sovereign American citizen, fearful for 
 my crown as you are, Sire, for yours I lay this 
 book at the foot of your throne. It is a description of 
 something you dread, popular government, and I wrote 
 it for the encouragement of my own people, but they 
 do not see much to encourage them in it. Maybe your 
 Majesty will. My people regard the book as a series of 
 rather disquieting accounts of certain particular, excep- 
 tional evils of a kind that occur here and there and now 
 and then, but which, while disgraceful to the particular
 
 vi DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 States where they happened to happen, have no general 
 significance. Now, I chose the States described not because 
 they were the worst (some of them are the best State 
 governments we have) , but as types of the essential nature 
 of our whole government, as it has come to be. 
 
 Sire, these pages contain several accounts of a revolu- 
 tion, one revolution which is going on everywhere in my 
 country, in all the cities and in all the towns, in the rural 
 districts, in the States, and in the United States. And my 
 people will not see it so. To them, as to most men, a rev- 
 olution is something like that which you are in the throes 
 of now. They associate images of blood with that word, 
 and violence, civil war, and great physical discomfort. And 
 we had such a revolution once. It was one hundred and 
 thirty years ago. We, the American people, rose then, as 
 your Russians are rising now, and we achieved then what 
 your people hope to achieve now liberty, equality before 
 the law, and self-government. And I hear, and I do not 
 doubt, that your people, knowing of our days of 1776, and 
 believing (as we do ourselves) that we still are possessed 
 of the fruits of that ancient triumph, are looking to us, 
 to the history and the happiness of the American people, 
 for inspiration, example, and comfort. Sire, so shall you. 
 They find here what they seek. Sire, so would you. 
 
 Your Majesty should know that after our first, the 
 bloody American revolution, a second, bloodless, nameless 
 and slow, set in. After we had established " government of 
 the people, by the people, for the people," we went back 
 to work. We let who would rule us, and somehow or other it 
 has happened that those men have come into power who see
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR vii 
 
 in government, what Kings see, Sire, a source, not of 
 common, equal justice for all, but of special advantages 
 for the few; and, like the Kings of old, they have made 
 of our government not a safeguard of the free growth of 
 human character, but an agency for the development of 
 the resources of the country. The United States of Amer- 
 ica stands for business, not men, Sire; our representative 
 democracy represents not the peoplej but the protected 
 business of a few of the people. And protected business is 
 privilege. Wherefore, the while your subjects are study- 
 ing our first great revolution, I offer your Majesty this 
 study of the second, the greater revolution which followed 
 after the first was all over. 
 
 And there is more than hope for your future in this 
 book, Sire. There is present peace therein for you and 
 for your people. There is proof in it that the horrid con- 
 flict that has been waging between your Majesty and your 
 Majesty's subjects is entirely unnecessary. Incredible? 
 Let us consider together a moment, you on the edge of 
 your uneasy throne, I on mine, you a falling sovereign, I 
 a falling sovereign citizen let us peer into the darkness 
 of your land with the light from mine. What is the issue 
 between you and your would-be citizens ? 
 
 Your Majesty seems to wish to rule, you alone. Your 
 people are demanding representation in your government. 
 Apparently you both regard your purposes as cross and 
 incompatible. They are not so. Read my book and you will 
 see that we Americans have what we call " representative 
 democracy " ; but we have Czars, too. It is true we do not 
 call them by that title; we call them bosses. But names
 
 viii DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 and titles, like forms and charters, are intended to de- 
 ceive men, not the rulers of men, and our bosses are auto^- 
 crats, Sire, as you are ; no more so, but no less. They make 
 our representatives represent them, and we, satisfied with 
 the appearance of things, are not only a contented people, 
 we are proud ; nay, we Americans are conceited about our 
 government, which is not ours at all. And your Russians, 
 seeing our forms and hearing our boastings, are covetous 
 of our " liberty " ; and they are demanding of your Ma j - 
 esty a share in your government. Sire, give it them. Study 
 our Czars, and fear not. 
 
 But, you may object, we Americans have many Czars, 
 and you desire for Russia one alone. To which I answer, 
 Sire, that we also shall have but one boss. Our second 
 revolution is not yet over ; the structure of our government, 
 the actual government, is not quite finished. For we are a 
 conservative people, and very busy. We have had but 
 little time for politics. Our boss system, which was founded 
 in the cities, towns, and counties, has been developed only 
 through our States so far. But our State bosses send them- 
 selves to the United States Senate, and there the tendency 
 plain is to complete and perfect the autocracy with a 
 national boss. Already the Senate has a thing called " the 
 steering committee," which corresponds roughly to your 
 cabal of Grand Dukes, with a certain Senator Aldrich for 
 " leader." Now the natural jealousy of autocratic men 
 may retard the process somewhat, but, if things go on as 
 they have been going, some Aldrich some day is bound to 
 become the acknowledged political boss of the United 
 States. For, with the Senators controlling the Congress-
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR ix 
 
 men from their States, the Boss-Senator will have finally 
 only the President to reduce to his will. This he can do 
 either by having his national party nominate him or a 
 colleague for that office as was proposed in the case 
 of the late Senator Hanna; or, better still, by choosing 
 for candidates weak and amiable creatures known to us 
 as " safe men." This is the way " our " governors of States, 
 who once ranked United States Senators, have been reduced 
 to figureheads, and it works very well with the people. 
 Man's self-respect has ever been allayed with a fig leaf, as 
 all wise rulers know, and I have seen my people elect, in 
 New York, for instance, a Mayor McClellan when nothing 
 could induce them to vote for his Boss Murphy. This has 
 been done with the Presidency, and it will undoubtedly be 
 done again. Indeed, this same Mayor McClellan has been 
 talked of for that high office. Oh, mistakes are made, of 
 course. Strong men will slip in now and then, but with a 
 strong hold on the representative branch of a representa- 
 tive government, all the actual boss has to do is to cry out 
 against " the encroachment of the executive upon the rep- 
 resentatives of the people," the while he " cajoles " or 
 " checks," " advises " or " rebukes," " humiliates " or 
 finally " fights " the President as " a dangerous man." 
 If it comes to the worst, you can stand pat and wait for 
 the strong President to retire; his term is four years, a 
 Senator's is six ; and whereas the President may serve only 
 two terms, the Senate goes on forever. So, Sire, while 
 your people see only our House of Representatives and 
 find inspiration in it, I invite you to look into our Senate 
 and be of good cheer. The United States Senate will show
 
 x DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 you that autocracy is not only compatible with a repre- 
 sentative government ; many intelligent United States Sen- 
 ators will tell you that a Czar is an inevitable consequence 
 thereof. 
 
 " Ah, yes," your Majesty may say, " but the Ameri- 
 can Czar will not wholly represent himself. He will derive 
 his authority, not from God and by heritage in his family, 
 but from the State bosses, who derive from the bosses of 
 cities and counties; wherefore he will have to share with 
 them both his power and his profits." 
 
 In all deference to your Majesty, I beg leave most re- 
 spectfully to submit, that you, Sire, do not wholly repre- 
 sent yourself. Your Grand Dukes support' you, as our 
 .Senators would support our senatorial Czar. Your royal 
 uncles, cousins, brothers, friends these divide your power 
 with you, share your privileges ; their cabal " counsels 
 with you," " advises " ; they frighten, force, deceive as 
 we say in our democratic slang, your Grand Dukes 
 " steer " you very much as our Senators play upon some of 
 our Presidents. No, Sire, you are not absolute, and our 
 Boss-Senator will not be -absolute. An autocracy, in the 
 literal sense of the word, is impossible. All governments 
 are, at bottom, representative. The crucial question is, 
 What do they represent? And so far as I can make out 
 they all represent the same thing privileges. Your Grand 
 Dukes represent the vested interests and the privileged 
 classes of Russian society, and, therefore, they are power- 
 ful; your Majesty represents the Grand Dukes, and, there- 
 fore, you are powerful. So our national boss, when he 
 comes, will represent our Senators, who represent now, not
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR xi 
 
 our States, nor the people of the States, but " graft," 
 big business graft, which is our rough American word for 
 what you call, more politely, privilege. 
 
 And, as for keeping the crown in your family, that 
 can be arranged in the constitution. I notice that your 
 Majesty seems to have a superstitious dread of the very 
 word " constitution." Why? The thing is not so bad. A 
 constitution has its uses. But your Majesty should be sure 
 to draw the instrument and graciously grant it yourself 
 to your people. They will take almost anything from your 
 hands. If you resist until they have overthrown you, then, 
 of course, Sire, they will write their own constitution, and, 
 since there will be no Czar, they will leave you and the 
 name out of the paper. Bosses will grow up among the 
 people, and a boss will grow up among the bosses, and 
 that boss will be the Czar. But that will not be his title, 
 and you will not be the man. But all the people want is 
 all that you dread, the word. Give them " a " constitution ; 
 let it bestow upon your subjects representation, let it give 
 them almost anything, so long as it keeps for you the 
 essence of power, which is control of the graft; see to it 
 that you and your Grand Dukes can give pardon to 
 criminals, license to vice, franchises to business men, ex- 
 emption from taxation, appropriations to churches, chari- 
 ties, colleges, and schools; see to this, Sire, and you will 
 have thereafter only to study the history (as it is not 
 commonly written) of constitutional governments, mon- 
 archical, republican (in England, France, Germany, 
 United States, etc.), to keep the crown and pass it down 
 to your children throughout the generations. For even
 
 xii DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 if your foresight err and you make mistakes in the instru- 
 ment, your judges will correct then. Courts are made up 
 of lawyers ; lawyers are trained to revere not rights, but 
 property and possession; not justice, but the law, and not 
 the spirit of the law, but the technicalities and holes 
 therein ; if you represent property and the law, your judges 
 intuitively will mold that constitution to your security. 
 Sire, a constitution is not only an innocent gratification 
 to a people; shrewdly interpreted by corporation lawyers, 
 or, as you might say, by King's counsel, a constitution 
 may become the bulwark of the rulers of a people. 
 
 It is a pity that your constitution may come out of a 
 (bloody) revolution. You should have avoided that as you 
 would a bomb. How? By the suffrage. Oh, I can under- 
 stand your horror of that word. The ballot is sovereign 
 power, of course, and to give it to a people is like surrender- 
 ing to them the crown. But, if your people insist upon it, 
 grant it, Sire. They do not really want it ; my people 
 don't. If you gave it to them, they wouldn't know how to 
 use it ; my people don't. Your people know only that they 
 are miserable, that something or other is wrong ; and their 
 leaders are telling them that what they want is the suffrage 
 and a government representative of all the people. And 
 their leaders are right in a way. But my people are dis- 
 contented, too, just now. They also feel that something 
 is wrong, and I, having investigated their complaints, am 
 convinced that what we Americans lack and need is a 
 government representative of all the people; not of graft, 
 not of the few who get things out of the government, but 
 those among us a majority, I think who want only
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR xiii 
 
 justice and fair play. But the American people do not 
 think so. They don't require that their representatives shall 
 represent them. I hear them say that this representative 
 or that one is dishonest, that he is a grafter or takes bribes ; 
 never that he represents corruption. Citizens tell me that 
 this legislature is corrupt, and that the last one was, and 
 the one before that; they don't see that their legislature 
 represents normally and systematically the sources of the 
 corruption of the State. Sometimes they sigh for " honest 
 men in office," rarely for true representatives. Sire, I have 
 yet to find what we call a " good average American citizen " 
 demanding representative government in America. He 
 thinks he has that, and he has, on paper, in his consti- 
 tution, but, you see, Sire, he doesn't really know the 
 difference. 
 
 Lest you should find this difficult to believe, I will give 
 you an example from my own city, New York. New York 
 is the metropolis of America; that you know. But you 
 may not know so well as we New Yorkers do that every- 
 body in America who amounts to anything at all comes to 
 New York, so that this great city contains about all the 
 intelligence there is in the land, especially of political 
 intelligence. Queer men and cranky notions spring up in 
 the back country, but nothing that happens out of New 
 York or, to be well within the truth, let us say nothing 
 that happens west of " the East " is typical. Well, some 
 time ago the Pennsylvania Railroad wished to get into 
 New York by an underground route. The Pennsylvania 
 Railroad has corrupted every city and State that it ever 
 has entered; to admit it into New York was just like open-
 
 xiv DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 ing the gates to a revolutionary army, except that the in- 
 vaders carried bribes instead of guns. No matter. We are 
 after business now, not character and liberty ; and another 
 railroad terminal would help business. So we wanted the 
 road to come in. Our Board of Aldermen, which is the 
 representative branch of our city government, represented 
 graft, of course, and it wanted to boodle with the Pennsyl- 
 vania boodlers, of course. So our representatives wouldn't 
 let the Pennsylvania Railroad in unless the " Penn," as we 
 call the road affectionately, would out-boodle the old bood- 
 lers, the older roads that were in. Naturally we got " mad," 
 we, the people of New York. Now what do you think we 
 did? We went to the State legislature. This legislature is 
 forever interfering with us, and we are forever shouting 
 to it to keep off, leave us alone, and give us " home rule." 
 Yet we went to that Legislature, and with the cry " home 
 rule " on our lips asked that Legislature to take away from 
 the representative branch of our government the power 
 to represent us in the matter of franchises. I say 
 " we " advisedly. The leader in this movement was a club 
 to which I belong. This club is to New York what New 
 York is to the United States the cream of the cream of 
 political intelligence and civic righteousness. There are 
 other groups of reformers, and we, of my club, though 
 firm, are very tolerant and kind to them. But we are the 
 real people. Now it never occurred to us to make those 
 aldermen represent us. Out in Chicago, when the reformers 
 saw that their council was selling them out, they went into 
 the wards and they explained to the people what the matter 
 was, and they appealed to the people to elect men who
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR xv 
 
 could be trusted to represent them. This was democratic 
 instinct, and the people of Chicago responded to the ap- 
 peal, but, you see, this was " out West " ; and queer. We 
 in New York, we of the East, we believe not in the people. 
 Like you, Sire, we believe in ourselves. So we went not 
 to the people; we went to the representatives of the State 
 and we asked them to destroy the power of our representa- 
 tives to misrepresent us in the city. The Pennsylvania 
 helped us, of course, but we Home Rulers think we did 
 it; and we did. 
 
 Sire, the American citizen does not understand self- or 
 representative government, and does not demand it. He 
 wants what do you think the American people are ask- 
 ing their Czars or bosses for? Your Majesty never would 
 guess it; no crowned sovereign would. The American 
 people are asking for " good government." All they mean 
 by this is clean streets, well lighted and honestly policed 
 by a police force which, if it must blackmail vice and 
 protect crime, shall do so quietly so as not to annoy and 
 scandalize the good folk. Oh, there are a few other things 
 that we would like to have ; I cannot go into details. I as- 
 sure your Majesty, however, that we ask nothing that a 
 boss or a Czar cannot grant without interfering with 
 autocracy. Wherefore, I declare, Sire, that your people 
 really want not self-government, not " liberty " and " free- 
 dom," and all that nonsense, but only the appearance of 
 justice and an orderly administration of public affairs, 
 and especially of those which they come in contact with 
 and which contribute to their comfort and business 
 prosperity.
 
 xvi DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 And if you don't care to give them these trifling favors, 
 you need not ; they will not use the suffrage on you unless 
 you exasperate them beyond endurance, and then only 
 when some " demagogue " stirs them up. Why, about a 
 year ago, the good people of Philadelphia, having been 
 offended because " their " police protected a terribly 
 vicious practice against young immigrant girls, prayed 
 to God to move their Mayor to stop this one scandal. Yes, 
 Sire, with their ballots in their hands, so to speak, these 
 American citizens sent up their petition to Heaven. Why 
 not to the Mayor? Your Majesty has heard about the 
 "right of petition"; your subjects were asking for that 
 a year ago, I believe. They think we have it, and we have, 
 some of us. But the boss of Philadelphia took it away from 
 Philadelphians two or three years back as you may take 
 it away from your people, after the clamor for it dies. 
 The Philadelphians have recovered it since, but only by 
 the way. The boss, having committed outrage after out- 
 rage, and having seen his subjects submit to them, not 
 only with patience, but with apologies for him, he and his 
 Grand Dukes (leading business men) came to have for 
 them just such a contempt as, let me say, some of your 
 Grand Dukes have for your muziks. The boss wanted 
 to sell out the future of a great privilege the operation 
 of the municipal gas plant for the private profit for three 
 generations of his favorite Grand Dukes. All might have 
 gone well, but " a yellow newspaper " (a demagogic sheet 
 that tells the truth with some errors of fact) aroused the 
 people, and they revolted. They went to the Mayor; he 
 was one of those mistakes I mentioned above; selected by
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR xvii 
 
 the boss as safe, he stood for the people when they stood 
 for themselves, and, of course, that stopped the deal. 
 
 Such a demonstration of the power of the American 
 citizen may seem startling to you, but, look at the thing 
 cold and hard; what was it? It was only just such a re- 
 volt by the mob as you have to meet in your cities now 
 and then. It has, and can have, no significance as to the 
 suffrage until those people learn to use the suffrage 
 regularly, not only when exasperated, but in cold blood. 
 And if they do that, you can take the suffrage away from 
 them. The bosses of Philadelphia, Denver, Rhode Island, 
 and of many other cities and States, have done that in this 
 country, and the people do not rise up and fight to keep 
 it, as yours may fight to get it. In Washington the whole 
 citizen body was disfranchised, and the people down there 
 did not resist. They consented, and they tell me they like 
 it. " We have good government," they say. 
 
 You must understand, Sire, that it is a great deal of 
 trouble to vote. Sometimes elections occur as often as once 
 a year, and then your ballot has a lot of strange names on 
 it. When your people first get the suffrage it will be like 
 a new toy to them ; they will have heard that it makes the 
 difference between a subject and a citizen, and that it is a 
 great privilege to exercise a sovereign citizen's right to 
 vote. Their leaders will have told them this, and they will 
 send these leaders up to you to represent them. For a 
 while you will suffer from representative government. But 
 by and by the leaders will begin to want, not liberty and 
 other abstractions, but franchises, offices, and other good 
 things; and as for the people, they will get tired of the
 
 xviii DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 game. Inspired by the illusion of freedom, your subjects 
 are busy now with politics, but if you give them paper 
 patterns of the things they think they want, they will go 
 to work ; they will work j oyously and hard, and the country 
 will enjoy prosperity. 
 
 Prosperity is a tremendous help in the suppression of 
 a people's public spirit, and you must take care of that. 
 Some time I may describe, if your Majesty is interested, 
 how our rulers have nursed our prosperity and used it to 
 make us " stand pat." For the present, I assure you that 
 with prosperity your people, like mine, will become ab- 
 sorbed in business, and then, Sire, you can buy their leaders. 
 Thus " their " representative government will represent 
 you; you, Sire, and the grafters. What? Oh, yes, they 
 will, the leaders of the people will sell them out; at least, 
 they do with us. They call it " business," and we call them 
 "smart." Your Majesty despises business; the aristoc- 
 racies of Europe all look down on " shop-keepers," and 
 I can understand why. But this is a mistake. " Business " 
 is a word to conjure with; business is a means to your end. 
 I saw in the papers February, last year, that when your 
 people appeared in the streets of St. Petersburg with a peti- 
 tion which they wished to present to you, you sent your 
 Cossacks to shoot them down. That was unnecessary. Our 
 business method is more business-like. If you had sent 
 lobbyists to them, with bribes (or fees, or presents; the 
 word is important) for the leaders, you would have got the 
 the same result, and not only would you have caused no 
 pain, no scandal; you would have given pleasure and the 
 world would have admired you. At any rate this part of
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR xix 
 
 the world would. Bribes, Sire, are much better than bul- 
 lets. They are so pleasant that even the voters like them. 
 Yes, indeed, in a great many of our States and cities, 
 especially in good old American communities, our voters 
 sell their votes. True, bribery is expensive, and though 
 the voters are cheap (one dollar up to thirty, a head) it 
 is a waste to spend cash on the voters. Our method is to 
 use words, promises, names. 
 
 Our leaders, partly for convenience and partly to keep 
 down expenses, divide us into what they call parties. To 
 these parties they give attractive names like " Republican " 
 and " Democratic " ; they tell us they are " our " parties, 
 and they do announce principles or platforms which seem 
 to differ somewhat as to policy. But really both of them 
 represent graft and the grafters. We, the people, however, 
 are set to yelling and marching and arguing and fighting 
 for " our " parties until we make ourselves believe that 
 they really are ours. It is almost incredible, but I can 
 assure your Majesty that it is possible to transfer a peo- 
 ple's allegiance from their government to a party organi- 
 zation. Let me suggest that you send over to the United 
 States a Commissioner. I will show him great majorities 
 of American citizens who know no loyalty to their city, 
 their State, the nation, or even to themselves, but only to 
 " their party." Just now we are growing tired of this 
 sentiment also, and an " independent vote " is disturbing 
 our political situation. You can see what a menace that 
 is, but I mention it only to show you the very best feature 
 of the suffrage, viz., how it prevents revolutions. 
 
 I assume that you would be " above party " ; our rulers
 
 xx DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 are. They contribute to both party funds; as I assume 
 you would. In that case, when your people rose up, not as 
 in Philadelphia with mob violence, but with genuine deter- 
 mination at the polls, even then, Sire, they would see only 
 the especially atrocious sins of the particular men your 
 majority party had put in office to hide the operations of 
 yourself and your (popular) leaders. These independent 
 voters would vote out these men. Suppose they went fur- 
 ther and voted against the party, against the whole party 
 ticket, what of it? They would have to vote for your 
 other party, wouldn't they ? Of course, if they should keep 
 this up for a number of elections they would make both 
 parties represent them, and then the government would 
 come to represent them. But they won't keep it up; at 
 least my people don't. A " landslide," as we call such 
 uprisings, simply has the effect of letting off the feelings 
 of the people; they go back to their business and things 
 remain as bad I mean as good as before. Your other 
 party represents you; it proves to be "just as bad as 
 * the ' party," so we, the people, give up in despair. 
 
 In other words, Sire, with the suffrage, what you and 
 your Grand Dukes dread as revolutions would become what 
 in our free country we know as reform movements. Reform 
 movements serve to perfect the boss system of graft. The 
 people soon realize this, so instead of trying to recover 
 self-government they quit and submit. For, imagine a 
 moment : If your people had a constitution, representative 
 government (on paper), and the self -responsibility that 
 appears to go with the ballot, what more could they ask 
 of you ?
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR xxi 
 
 " A free press," you say. Your people are asking for 
 that and you think it is awful. You think you need your 
 official censor to keep the newspapers from telling the 
 people the truth? Not at all. We have a free press, but 
 we have a censorship, too. Our Grand Dukes wait until 
 a newspaper has the confidence of the public, then they 
 buy the property. The people don't know the difference. 
 The Grand Duke " directs the policy," but there is no 
 official censor, so the people go on calling it " their paper." 
 Our free press prints the news, Sire. 
 
 " Free speech? " I would give them that, too, if I were 
 in your place. That means only surrendering your right 
 to send orators to Siberia, and such drastic measures are 
 all out of date. After you write the words " freedom of 
 speech " into the constitution all you have to do is to keep 
 men boasting of their liberty and showing off their cour- 
 age, while in a hundred little ways you encourage " soci- 
 ety " to discourage " demagogery," " sensationalism," 
 etc. Men are natural cowards ; the rulers of the race have 
 taught them, however, to face bullets and defy death and 
 torture. Physical courage we have, and so have your 
 people. But try ridicule, Sire, or the frown of their own 
 leaders ; if that isn't sufficient, have some of their business 
 taken away. That will settle freedom of speech. At any 
 rate it often settles it in my own country. Why, I know 
 cities where men have suffered from a tyranny as great as 
 yours except as to physical injury and these same men 
 have asked me into their private offices to tell me the truth ; 
 yet were they afraid to speak. Afraid of what? They 
 were afraid, Czar, of their Czar!
 
 xxii DEDICATION TO THE CZAR 
 
 And, saving your Majesty's feelings, I wish to add one 
 more observation : I am not talking about a down-trodden, 
 ignorant, half-barbarous people like your poor Russians. 
 My advice to you is founded upon what I have seen among 
 the American people, the proudest, the bravest, the most 
 enlightened the greatest nation of men and women that 
 ever trod upon this earth. Now, it may just be that they 
 will turn around some day and take back their government 
 and rule themselves. I can see signs of the dawn of 
 political intelligence here and there and now and then. 
 But I am afraid they will be satisfied again with clean 
 streets, and a " good man for Mayor," or the promise of 
 " good government " from some boss wiser than any we 
 yet have had. And if you will read our history you also 
 will doubt the promises of reformers who are afraid to 
 hurt business. I expect to see the people get tired of 
 " exposure " and seek a more " optimistic " prospect than 
 the everlasting effort, which is what self-government 
 means. 
 
 But, Sire, even if I am wrong, you are safe. For your 
 people are several hundred years behind mine, and they 
 have still to go through what mine have gone through, 
 so that I feel that I can offer you for your peace and for 
 the peace of your subjects, in these your days of sore trou- 
 ble, this assurance dug up out of the depths of the land of 
 the free: 
 
 Your Majesty may grant all that your people ask, and 
 more, representative government and a constitution, free 
 speech and a free press, education and the suffrage, and 
 yet you may rule them as you rule them now, absolutely
 
 DEDICATION TO THE CZAR xxiii 
 
 and with little more heed to their best interest. For have I 
 not shown, Sire, that we, the great American people, have 
 all that we want of all of these things, and that, neverthe- 
 less, our government differs from yours in essentials 
 not so much as you thought, not so much as your people 
 think, and not nearly so much as my people think? 
 
 LINCOLN STEFFENS.
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 
 
 SHOWING HOW, TO BEAT THE BOODLE SYSTEM OF 
 
 ST. LOUIS, THE PEOPLE HAD TO CHALLENGE 
 
 THE SAME SYSTEM IN THE STATE 
 
 (April, 1904) 
 
 EVERY time I attempted 1 to trace to its sources the polit- 
 ical corruption of a city ring, the stream of pollution 
 branched off in the most unexpected directions and spread 
 out in a network of veins and arteries so complex that 
 hardly any part of the body politic seemed clear of it. 
 It flowed out of the majority party into the minority; 
 out of politics into vice and crime; out of business into 
 politics, and back into business ; from the boss, down 
 through the police to the prostitute, and up through the 
 practice of law into the courts ; and big throbbing arteries 
 ran out through the country over the State to the Nation 
 and back. No wonder cities can't get municipal reform ! 
 No wonder Minneapolis, having cleaned out its police ring 
 of vice grafters, discovered boodle in the council! No 
 wonder Chicago, with council-reform and boodle beaten, 
 found itself a Minneapolis of police and administrative 
 graft! No wonder Pittsburg, when it broke out of its 
 local ring, fell, amazed, into a State ring! No wonder 
 New York, with good government under Mayor Seth Low, 
 voted itself back into Tammany Hall ! 
 
 1 See " The Shame of the Cities," McClure, Phillips & Co.
 
 4 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 They are on the wrong track; we are, all of us, on the 
 wrong track. You can't reform a city by reforming part 
 of it. You can't reform a city alone. Y.ou can't re- 
 form politics alone. And as for corruption and the under- 
 standing thereof, we cannot run 'round and 'round 
 in municipal rings and understand ring corruption ; it 
 isn't a ring thing. We cannot remain in one city, or 
 ten, and comprehend municipal corruption; it isn't a 
 local thing. We cannot " stick to a party," and follow 
 party corruption ; it isn't a partisan thing. And I have 
 found that I cannot confine myself to politics and grasp 
 all the ramifications of political corruption. It isn't 
 political corruption. It's corruption. The corruption 
 of our American politics is our American corruption, 
 political, but financial and industrial, too. Miss Tarbell 
 has shown it in the trust, Mr. Baker in the labor union, 
 and my gropings into the misgovernment of cities have 
 drawn me everywhere, but, always, always out of politics 
 into business, and out of the cities into the State. Business 
 started the corruption of politics in Pittsburg; upheld 
 it in Philadelphia ; boomed with it in Chicago and withered 
 with its reform; and in New York, business financed the 
 return of Tammany Hall. Here, then, is our guide out of 
 the labyrinth. Not the political ring, but big business 
 that is the crux of the situation. Our political corruption 
 is a system, a regularly established custom of the country, 
 by which our political leaders are hired, by bribery, by 
 the license to loot, and by quiet moral support, to conduct 
 the government of city, State and Nation, not for the 
 common good, but for the special interests of private
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 5 
 
 business. Not the politician, then, not the bribe-taker, but 
 the bribe-giver, the man we are so proud of, our successful 
 business ' man he is the source and sustenance of our 
 bad government. The captain of industry is the man to 
 catch. His is the trail to follow. 
 
 We have struck that trail before. Whenever we followed 
 the successful politician, his tracks led us into it, but also 
 they led us out of the cities from Pittsburg to the State 
 Legislature at Harrisburg; from Philadelphia, through 
 Pennsylvania, to the National Legislature at Washing- 
 ton. To go on was to go into State and National politics, 
 and I was after the political corruption of the city ring 
 then. Now I know that these are all one. The trail of the 
 political leader and the trail of the commercial leader 
 are parallels which mark the plain, main road that leads off 
 the dead level of the cities, up through the States into the 
 United States, out of the political ring into the System, 
 the living System of our actual government. The highway 
 of corruption is the " road to success." 
 
 Almost any State would start us right, but Missouri is 
 the most promising. Joseph W. Folk, the Circuit Attor- 
 ney of St. Louis, has not only laid wide open the road out 
 there; he knows it is the way of a system. He didn't at 
 first. He, too, thought he was fighting political corrup- 
 tion, and that the whole of it was the St. Louis ring. 
 But he got the ring. Mr. Folk convicted the boss and 
 nearly all the members of the " boodle combine " that 
 was selling out his city; yet the ring does not break. 
 Why? Because back of the boodlers stand the big busi- 
 ness men who are buying the city up. But Folk got the
 
 6 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 business men, too ; Charles H. Turner, president of the 
 Suburban Railway Company, president of the Common- 
 wealth Trust Company; Philip Stock, secretary of the 
 St. Louis Brewery Association ; Ellis Wainwright, the 
 millionaire brewer; George J. Kobusch, president of the 
 St. Louis Car Company; Robert N. Snyder, banker and 
 promoter, of Kansas City and New York; John Scullen, 
 ex-president of street railways, a director then and now of 
 steam railways, a director then and to the end of the Loui- 
 siana Purchase Exposition. These are not " low-down poli- 
 ticians " ; they are " respectable business men." Having 
 discovered early that boodlers flew in pairs ; that wherever 
 there was a bribe-taker there also was a bribe-giver, Folk 
 hunted them in pairs. And in pairs he brought them 
 down. And still the ring does not break. What is the 
 matter ? 
 
 That's what's the matter. " That man Folk " is attack- 
 ing the System. If he had confined his chase to that 
 unprotected bird, the petty boodler, all might have been 
 well. Indeed, there was a time, just before the first trial of 
 the boss, Colonel Ed Butler, when the ring was in a panic 
 and everybody ran. If he had stayed his hand then, Folk 
 could have been Governor of Missouri with the consent of 
 " his party," and a very rich man besides. But he would 
 not stop. These were not the things he was after. At 
 that moment he was after Boss Butler; and he got him. 
 
 " And the conviction of Butler was the point," he said, 
 " where we passed out of the ring into the System." 
 
 Butler was not only the boss of the ring; he was the 
 tool of the System. He was the man through whom the
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 7 
 
 St. Louis business man did business with the combine, and 
 Folk hadn't caught all the business men involved. The 
 first time I met him, early in his work, he was puzzled by 
 the opposition or silence of officials and citizens, who, he 
 thought, should have been on his side. The next time I 
 saw him this mystery was clearing. One by one those 
 people were turning up in this deal or 'way back of that 
 one. He could not reach them; he can never reach them 
 all; but there they were, they, their relatives, their 
 friends, their lawyers, their business and social associates 
 " nobody can realize," said Mr. Folk, " the infinite 
 ramifications of this thing." " They," " this thing," the 
 " vested interests " of St. Louis, are the St. Louis System. 
 Corruption was saved, not ended, by the very thorough- 
 ness of Mr. Folk. The ring was rallied, not smashed, by 
 his conviction of its boss. The boodlers who had wanted 
 to turn state's evidence " stood pat." Why ? They had 
 an assurance, they said, that " not one of them would go 
 to the pen." Who made this promise? Butler. Ed Butler, 
 himself sentenced to three years in the penitentiary, gave 
 this explicit assurance, and he added (this was last sum- 
 mer) that " the courts will reverse all Folk's cases, and, 
 when Folk's term expires, we will all get off, and the fel- 
 lows that have peached will go to jail." Maybe Butler 
 lied ; some of the politicians said that it would be " bad 
 politics " to reverse " all Folk's cases," and that some, 
 possibly Butler's own, would have to be affirmed. Butler, 
 however, was not afraid, and, sure enough, in December 
 his case was reversed. All the boodle cases so far have 
 been reversed. Not a boodler is in jail to-day (January
 
 8 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 22, 1904), and the same court gave a ruling which made 
 it necessary for Folk to reindict and retry half a dozen of 
 his cases. The boodlers are a power in politics. Butler sits 
 in the councils of the Democratic party. He sat there with 
 the business men and with the new, young leaders who drew 
 up the last platform, which made no mention of boodle, and 
 he assisted in the naming of the tickets. After the last 
 election, Butler was able to reorganize the new House of 
 Delegates, with his man for Speaker, and the superin- 
 tendent of his garbage plant (in the interest of which he 
 offered the bribe for which he was convicted) for chair- 
 man of the Sanitary Committee. But the nominations he 
 had helped to make were not only those of aldermen, but 
 of the candidates for the vacancies on the bench which was 
 to try boodle cases, and also for that court which was to 
 hear these cases, and his own, on appeal ! And the presiding 
 justice of this, the criminal branch of the Supreme Court 
 of Missouri, went upon the stump last fall and declared 
 that a man who thought as Mr. Folk thought, and did as 
 Mr. Folk did, had better leave the State ! 
 
 Appalling? It did not appall Mr. Folk. He realized 
 then that it was a System, not the ring, that he was fight- 
 ing, and he went after that. There was another way into 
 it. One Charles Kratz, the head of the council combine, 
 did business, like Butler, with and for business men. Kratz 
 fled to Mexico with means supplied by his business back- 
 ers, but Mr. Folk used the good offices of the President 
 and the Secretary of State to get the man back. And he 
 succeeded ; he had Kratz brought back. The hope was that 
 Kratz would confess and deliver up his principals. The
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 9 
 
 other boodlers, however, received Kratz with a champagne 
 dinner, and he also stood pat. But even if Kratz should 
 surrender, and even if Folk thus were to smash the Butler 
 ring and catch not five or six, but fifty, of the captains of 
 industry behind it still, I believe, the System would 
 stand. Why? Because "this thing" is more than men, 
 and bigger than St. Louis. 
 
 All the while Mr. Folk was probing the city he kept an 
 eye on the State. It was out of his jurisdiction, but 
 it affected his work. Some of the silent opposition he 
 encountered came from State officials, and the court which 
 was inspiring so much faith in boodlers was a State court. 
 These officials were not implicated in his exposures, and 
 these judges were honest men, but the State Legislature, 
 at Jefferson City, sent forth significant rumors, and about 
 these Folk gossiped with the St. Louis boodlers, who 
 explained that corruption was an ancient custom of the 
 State. Helpless, but informed, Folk watched and waited, 
 till at last his chance came. 
 
 One day in February, 1903, when a bill in which the 
 Speaker of the House was interested failed of passage, 
 that officer left his chair in anger, saying, " There is 
 boodle in this." The House was disturbed. Folk's work 
 had opened the public mind to suspicion, and the news- 
 papers were alert. Investigations were ordered, one by 
 the House Committee, which found nothing; another by 
 a Jefferson City Grand Jury, which resulted in a state- 
 ment by Circuit Attorney R. P. Stone that it was all " hot 
 air " and that, anyhow, he had no ambition " to become a 
 second Folk." (Stone was indicted himself afterward.)
 
 10 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Then the Governor directed Attorney-General E. C. Crow 
 to take charge, and Crow took charge. Picking Lieuten- 
 ant-Governor Lee for a weakling, he concentrated on him. 
 Lee was telling things, bit by bit, but he kept denying 
 them, and the jury was uneasy and reluctant. The out- 
 come of the inquiry was in doubt in Jefferson City, when 
 Mr. Folk heard that " floating all around town " were a 
 lot of thousand-dollar bribe bills which were distributed 
 at the Laclede Hotel. The Laclede Hotel is in St. Louis, 
 and St. Louis is Folk's bailiwick. Folk jumped in. He 
 traced the bills, and, in a jiffy, he had the whole inside 
 story. He gave out an interview directed at Lieutenant- 
 Governor Lee, who saw it ; saw, he said, " that Folk 
 had him," and ran to Attorney-General Crow to confess. 
 Changing his mind, he fled the State, but Folk gave out 
 another interview that brought him back. Meeting and 
 agreeing on a course, Folk and Crow worked together. 
 They got Lee's confession in full, and his resignation of 
 the Lieutenant-Governorship ; and with all this for a lever, 
 they opened the mouths of other legislators. Indictments 
 followed, and trials ; Crow took all the evidence and car- 
 ried on the dull, slow trials, which we need not follow. 
 
 The lid was off Missouri. The stone Mr. Folk had had 
 so long to leave unturned was lifted. What was under it? 
 Squirming in the light and writhing off into their dark 
 holes were State Senators and State officers, State com- 
 mittee-men and party leaders, but also there were the 
 Western Union Telegraph Company, the Missouri Pacific 
 Railroad, the St. Louis and San Francisco, the Iron Moun- 
 tain and Southern, the Wabash; Mr. Folk's old friend,
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 11 
 
 the St. Louis Transit Company ; the breweries, the stock 
 yards, the telephone companies ; business men of St. 
 Louis, St. Joseph, and Kansas City the big business of 
 the whole State. There they were, the " contemptible " 
 bribe-taker and the very " respectable " bribe-giver, all 
 doing business together. So they still traveled in pairs ; 
 and the highway still lay between the deadly parallels 
 business and politics. The System was indeed bigger than 
 St. Louis ; it was the System of Missouri. 
 
 What, then, is the system of Missouri? The outlines of 
 it can be traced through the " confessions of State Sena- 
 tors which," Folk's grand jury said, " appall and astound 
 us as citizens of this State. Our investigations," they 
 added, " have gone back twelve years, and during that 
 time the evidence shows that corruption has been the 
 usual and accepted thing in State legislation, and that, 
 too, without interference or hindrance. . . . We have 
 beheld with shame and humiliation the violation of the 
 sacred trust reposed by the people in their public 
 servants." 
 
 Just as in the city, the System in the State was corrup- 
 tion settled into a " custom of the country " ; betrayal of 
 trust established as the form of government. The people 
 elect, to govern for them, representatives who are to care 
 for the common interest of all. But the confessing Sena- 
 tors confessed that they were paid by a lobby to serve 
 special interests. Naturally enough, the jurors, good citi- 
 zens, were incensed especially at the public servants " who 
 sold them out." But who did the buying? Who are the 
 lobby? The confessions name Colonel William H. Phelps,
 
 12 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 John J. Carroll, and others, lawyers and citizens of stand- 
 ing at the bar and in the State, and they were the agents 
 of the commanding business enterprises of the State. 
 Moreover, they were aggressive corruptionists. You hear 
 business men say that they are blackmailed, that the poli- 
 ticians are corrupt, and that the " better people " have 
 to pay. 
 
 Colonel Phelps, an officer of the Missouri Pacific, and 
 the lobbyist of the Gould interests, has said that he had to 
 exercise great cunning to keep the Legislature corrupt. 
 New legislators often bothered him, especially " honest 
 men," Senators who would not take money. Sometimes he 
 " got " them with passes, which was cheap, but not sure, 
 so he had been compelled sometimes actually to " rape " 
 some men, as he did Senator Fred Busche, of St. Louis. 
 
 Busche is himself a business man, a well-to-do pie- 
 baker, and he went to Jefferson City full of high purpose 
 and patriotic sentiment, he said. Among the measures up 
 for passage was a bill to require all railways to keep a 
 flagman at all crossings. It was a " strike " bill. Phelps 
 himself had had it introduced, to prove his usefulness in 
 killing it, perhaps, or to raise money for himself and his 
 pals. (The corrupt corporations are often cheated by 
 their corrupt agents.) At any rate, Phelps asked Busche 
 to vote against the bill, and Busche did so. A day or two 
 later Phelps came up to Busche, thrust a hundred-dollar 
 bill into his pocket, then hurried away and remained out of 
 sight till Busche had become reconciled to the money. 
 " After that," Busche added, " Phelps had me." Busche 
 accepted a regular salary of $500 a session from the rail-
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 13 
 
 road lobbyist, and other bribes: $5.00 on the St. Louis 
 transit bill, $500 on an excise bill, etc. He estimated that 
 he had made corruptly some $15,000 during his twelve 
 years. 
 
 Phelps put Busche into the " Senate Combine," which is 
 just such a non-partisan group of a controlling majority 
 as that which Colonel Butler wielded in the municipal 
 legislature councils of St. Louis. Butler, however, was a 
 boss ; Phelps is not. There is no boss of Missouri as there 
 is of New York, Pennsylvania, and other more advanced 
 States. Phelps is the king of the lobby, and the lobby 
 rules by force of corruption. The lobbyists, representing 
 different special business interests, bought among them a 
 majority of the legislators, organized the Senate, ran 
 dominant committees, and thus controlled legislation. You 
 could do business with any lobbyist, and have the service, 
 usually, of all, or you could deal with a member of the 
 combine. Indeed, the " combine " was free to drum up 
 trade when times were dull, and Mr. Folk quotes a tele- 
 gram from a member sent on such a mission to St. Louis : 
 " River rising fast," it said. " Driftwood coming down. 
 Be there to-morrow." 
 
 " Driftwood " was boodle bills for business men, and 
 some of it was blackmail, but it was all irregular. The 
 regular business was more businesslike. The " combine " 
 was only the chief instrument of the lobby and was made 
 up of dishonest legislators. The lobby controlled also the 
 honest men. For these belonged to their party. The cor- 
 porations and big businesses contribute to all campaign 
 funds, and this is the first step toward corruption every-
 
 14 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 where. It is wholesale bribery, and it buys the honest 
 legislator. He may want to vote against the " combine," 
 but the lobby serves the party as well as business, and the 
 " State Committee " has to " stand in." That is the way 
 the Democratic party got control of the police and elec- 
 tion machinery of Missouri cities and forced those nor- 
 mally Republican communities into the Democratic line. 
 The lobby delivers the dishonest votes. In return for 
 such services and for the campaign contributions, the 
 State Committee of the dominant Democratic party has 
 to deliver the honest votes, and often, too, the Governor of 
 the State. As for the minority party, the Republicans 
 in Missouri are like the minority everywhere: just as cor- 
 rupt and more hungry than the majority. Disrupted by 
 quarrels over the Federal patronage, the Republican legis- 
 lators follow the Democrats for more, for dribblets of graft, 
 and the first Senator convicted by Crow was a Republican. 
 There is nothing partisan about graft. Only the people 
 are loyal to party. The " hated " trusts, all big grafters, 
 go with the majority. In Democratic Missouri, the De- 
 mocracy is the party of " capital." The Democratic 
 political leaders, crying " down with trusts," corner the 
 voters like wheat, form a political trust, and sell out the 
 sovereignty of the people to the corporation lobby. And 
 the lobby runs the State, not only in the interest of its 
 principals, but against the interest of the people. Once, 
 when an election bill was up the bill to turn over the 
 cities to the Democrats citizens of Kansas City, Demo- 
 crats among them, had to hire a lobbyist to fight it, and 
 when this lobbyist found that the interest of his corpora-
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 15 
 
 tions required the passage of the bill, he sent back his fee 
 with an explanation. And this story was told me as an 
 example of the honesty of that lobbyist ! Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor Lee in his confession gave another such example. 
 Public opinion forced out of committee, and was driving 
 through the Senate, a bill to put a just tax on the fran- 
 chises of public service corporations. The lobby dared not 
 stop it. But Colonel Phelps took one day " his accustomed 
 place " behind a curtain back of the Lieutenant-Governor's 
 chair, and he wrote out amendment after amendment, 
 passed them to Senator Frank Farris, who introduced 
 them, and the lobby put them through, so that the bill 
 passed, " smothered to death." 
 
 When Lieutenant-Governor Lee drew aside that curtain 
 he revealed the real head of the government of Missouri. 
 I mean this literally. I mean that this system I have been 
 describing is a form of government; it is the government. 
 We must not be confused by constitutions and charters. 
 The constitution of Missouri describes a Governor and his 
 duties, a Legislature and the powers lodged in a Senate 
 and a House of Representatives, etc., etc. This is the 
 paper government. In Missouri this paper government 
 has been superseded by an actual government, and this 
 government is: a lobby, with a combine of legislators, 
 the Democratic State Committee, and State leaders and 
 city bosses for agents. One bribe, two bribes, a hundred 
 bribes might not be so bad, but what we have seen here is 
 a System of bribery, corruption installed as the motive, 
 the purpose, the spirit of a State government. A revolu- 
 tion had happened. Bribes, not bullets, were spent in it,
 
 16 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and the fighting was slow and quiet, but victory seemed 
 sure; the bribe-takers were betraying the government of 
 the people to an oligarchy of bribe-givers, when Joseph 
 Folk realized the truth. 
 
 " Bribery," he declared, " is treason, and a boodler is a 
 traitor." 
 
 " Bosh ! " cried the lawyers. " Poppy-cock," the cynics 
 sneered, and the courts ruled out the cases. " Bribery," 
 said Judge Priest, at the trial of the banker, Snyder, " is, 
 at the most, a conventional crime." " Corruption is an 
 occasional offense," the ring orators proclaim, but they 
 answer themselves, for they say also, " corruption is not 
 a vice only of Missouri, it is everywhere." 
 
 " It is everywhere," Folk answers, and because he has 
 realized that, because he realized that boodling is the 
 custom and that the " occasional " boodler who sells his 
 vote is selling the State and altering the very form of our 
 government, he has declared boodle to be a political issue. 
 And because the people do not see it so, and because he 
 saw that no matter how many individual boodlers he might 
 catch, he, the Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, could not stop 
 boodling even in St. Louis, Mr. Folk announced himself a 
 candidate for Governor, and is now appealing his case to 
 the people, who alone can stop it. His party shrieked and 
 raged, but because it is his party, because he thinks his 
 party is the party of the people, and because his party is 
 the responsible, the boodle, party in his State, he made the 
 issue first in his own party. He has asked his people to 
 take back the control of it and clean it up. 
 
 Thus, at last, is raised in St. Louis and Missouri the
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 17 
 
 plain, great question: Do the people rule? Will they, can 
 they, rule? And the answer of Missouri will be national 
 in importance. Both the Democracy and democracy are 
 being put to the test out there. 
 
 But Missouri cannot decide alone. " Corruption is every- 
 where." The highway of corruption which Folk has taken 
 as the road to political reform goes far beyond Missouri. 
 When he and Attorney-General Crow lifted the lid off 
 Missouri, they disturbed the lid over the United States, 
 and they saw wiggling among their domestic industries 
 and State officials, three " foreign trusts " the American 
 Sugar Refining Company, the American Book Company, 
 and the Royal Baking Powder Company. These are na- 
 tional concerns ; they operate all over the United States ; 
 and they are purely commercial enterprises with probably 
 purely commercial methods. What they do, therefore, is 
 business pure and simple; their way will be the way of 
 business. But off behind them slunk a United States Sena- 
 tor, the Honorable William J. Stone. He was on the same 
 road. So they still run in pairs, and the road to success 
 still lies between the two parallels, and it leads straight to 
 Washington, where, in political infinity, as it were, in that 
 chamber of the bosses, the United States Senate, the par- 
 allels seem to meet. Are the corrupt customs of Missouri 
 the custom of the country ? Are the methods of its politics 
 the methods of Business? Isn't the System of that State 
 the System of the United States ? Let us see. 
 
 Among the letters of the confessed boodler, Lieutenant- 
 Governor Lee, to his friend Daniel J. Kelly, are many 
 references to his ambition to be Governor of the State.
 
 18 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 When Folk decided to run for that office the politicians 
 were shocked at his " ambition " ; he had not served the 
 party, only the people. But Lee, whom they knew to be a 
 boodler, was not regarded as presumptuous. He was a 
 " possibility." And, in his first letter on the subject to 
 Kelly, he asks how he can sell himself out in advance to 
 two trusts. " Of course you can help me get a campaign 
 fund together," he says, " and I will be grateful to 
 you. . . . How would you tackle Sugar-Tobacco if 
 you were me in the campaign-fund matter? " Kelly must 
 have advised Lee to write direct, for the next letter is from 
 H. O. Havemeyer, expressing " my hopes that your polit- 
 ical aspirations will be realized," and adding, suggestively, 
 " If I can be of any service I presume your representative 
 will appear. (Signed) H. O. Havemeyer." Lee wanted 
 Kelly to " appear," and there was some correspondence 
 over a proposition to have the contribution made in the 
 form of advertisements in Lee's two trade journals. But 
 Lee " needed help badly, as the country papers must be 
 taken care of," so he asks Kelly " to so present the case to 
 Mr. H. that he will do some business with the papers and 
 help me out personally besides. Do your best, old man," 
 he pleads, " and ask Mr. H. to do his best. A lift in time is 
 always the best." And Mr. H. did his best. Lee had 
 arranged that Kelly was to see Havemeyer on both per- 
 sonal and business accounts, but the " personal " came by 
 mail, and Lee wires Kelly to " drop personal matter and 
 confine to advertising. Personal arranged by mail." And 
 then we have this note of explanation to " Friend Kelly " : 
 " The party sent me $1,000 personally by mail. If you
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 19 
 
 do anything now it will be on the advertising basis. Truly 
 and heartily, Lee." 
 
 Here we have a captain of industry taking a " little 
 flyer " in a prospective governor of a State. Mr. Have- 
 meyer probably despises Lee, but Mr. Havemeyer himself 
 is not ashamed. Business men will understand that this is 
 business. It may be bad in politics, but such an investment 
 is " good business." And there is my point ready made : 
 This " bad " politics of ours is " good " business. 
 
 A longer trail is that of William Ziegler; his business, 
 the Royal Baking Powder Company; and the company's 
 agent, Daniel J. Kelly. In Missouri they said Crow was 
 " after " United States Senator Stone, but " they travel 
 in pairs," so he had to begin with the business men, as Folk 
 did. He indicted first Kelly, then Ziegler, for bribery. 
 Lee, whose confession caused the indictment of Kelly, wired 
 this warning : " D. J. Kelly : Your health being poor, brief 
 recreation trip if taken would be greatly beneficial. James 
 Sargent." Kelly took the recreation trip to Canada, and 
 Ziegler, in New York, resisted extradition to Missouri for 
 trial. The prospect was of a long lawyers' fight, the result 
 of which need not be anticipated here. Our interest is in 
 the business methods of this great commercial concern, the 
 Royal Baking Powder " trust," and the secrets of the suc- 
 cess of this captain of the baking-powder industry. And 
 this, mind you, as a key to the understanding of " politics." 
 
 We have been getting into business by following poli- 
 tics. Now, for a change, we will follow a strictly business 
 career and see that the accepted methods of business are 
 the despised methods of politics, and that just as the trail
 
 20 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 of the successful politician leads us into business, so the 
 trail of the successful business man leads us into politics. 
 
 Ziegler's " success story " is that of the typical poor 
 boy who began with nothing, and carved out a fortune 
 of many, many millions. He was not handicapped with 
 a college education and ethical theories. He went straight 
 into business, as a drug-clerk, and he learned his morals 
 from business. And he is a " good business man." This 
 is no sneer. He told me the story of his life one night, not 
 all, of course, for he knew what the purpose of my article 
 was to be ; but he told me enough so that I could see that 
 if the story were set down the daring enterprise, the 
 patient study of details, and the work, the work, the terri- 
 ble, killing work if this all were related, as well as " the 
 things a business man has to do," then, I say, the story of 
 William Ziegler might do him, on the whole, honor as well 
 as dishonor. But this, the inspiring side, of such stories, 
 has been told again and again, and it does not give " our 
 boys " all the secrets of success, and it does not explain the 
 state. either of our business or of our politics. I have no 
 malice against Mr. Ziegler ; I have a kind of liking for him, 
 but so have I a liking for a lot of those kind, good fellows, 
 the low-down politicians who sell us out to the Zieglers. 
 They, too, are human, much more human than many a 
 " better man." How often they have helped me to get the 
 truth ! But they do sell us out, and the " good business 
 men " do buy us out. So William Ziegler, who also helped 
 me, he, to me here, is only a type. 
 
 Ziegler went into the baking-powder business way back 
 in 1868 with the Hoaglands, a firm of druggists at Fort
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 21 
 
 Wayne, Indiana. The young man mastered the business, 
 technically as a pharmacist, commercially as a salesman. 
 He fought for his share in the profit ; he left them and 
 established a competitive business to force his point, and 
 in 1873 they let him in. So you see, Young Man, it isn't 
 alone sobriety, industry, and honesty that make success, 
 but battle, too. Ziegler organized the Royal Baking 
 Powder Company in 1873, with himself as treasurer. 
 
 The business grew for three or four years, when it was 
 discovered that alum and soda made a stronger leaven, 
 and cheaper. Worse still, alum was plentiful. Anybody 
 could go into its manufacture, and many did. The Royal, 
 to control the cream of tartar industry, had contracted to 
 take from European countries immense quantities of argol, 
 the wine-lees from which cream of tartar is made. They 
 had to go on making the more expensive baking-powder or 
 break a contract. That would be " bad business." 
 
 So Ziegler was for war. His plan was to " fight alum." 
 His associates, less daring than he, objected, but Ziegler 
 won them over, and thus was begun the " Alum War," 
 famous in chemistry, journalism, and legislation. Outsiders 
 knew little about it, but they can find the spoils of Zieg- 
 ler's battle in the bosom of their own family. Let any man 
 in the North, East, and West, ask himself if he does not 
 think " alum in food is bad " ; if he can't answer, let him 
 ask his wife. She will not know exactly why, but she is 
 pretty sure to have a " general impression " that it is 
 injurious in some way and that " the Royal is pure," " the 
 best." This general impression was capitalized by Ziegler 
 in 1898, at a valuation of many millions of dollars. He
 
 22 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 combined, in a trust, the Cleveland, Price, and Royal cream 
 of tartar companies ; their separate capitalization amounted 
 to something over one million. The trust was capitalized 
 at $20,000,000. 
 
 Now, how did Ziegler plant this general impression which 
 was sold as so much preferred and common stock? He 
 began the war by hiring chemists to give " expert opin- 
 ions " against alum and for cream of tartar. The alum 
 people, in alarm, had to hire chemists to give opposite 
 opinions for alum and against cream of tartar. What the 
 merits of the chemical controversy are, no man can decide 
 now. Hundreds of " eminent scientific men," chemists, 
 physiologists, and doctors of medicine, have taken part 
 in it, and there are respectable authorities on both sides. 
 The Royal's array of experts, who say " alum is bad," is 
 the greater, and they are right as to " alum in food." 
 But that is a trick phrase. The alum people say, and truly, 
 that the alum in baking-powder disappears in the bread, 
 just as cream of tartar does, and that the whole question 
 resolves itself into the effects on the human system of what 
 is left. In the case of the alum, the residuum is hydrate of 
 aluminum, of which Dr. Austin Flint, who experimented 
 with Professor Peter F. Austin and Dr. E. E. Smith, says 
 that it " is inert ; has no effect upon the secretion of gastric 
 juice, nor does it interfere with digestion ; and it has no 
 medicinal effects." On the other hand, the alum party say 
 that the residuum of cream of tartar powder is " Rochelle 
 salts, an irritant drug with purgative qualities." This 
 the Royal overwhelmed with testimony, but Ziegler does 
 not believe much in defense. He attacks. His was a war on
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 23 
 
 " impure food," and his slogan was short and sharp : 
 " alum, a poison." That was all. 
 
 And that is enough for us. Our war is on " impure 
 business," and, whatever the truth is about alum and cream 
 of tartar, the truth about Ziegler and the Royal Baking 
 Powder is this : they were making alum baking-powders 
 themselves. All the while Ziegler was buying those expert 
 testimonials against it, he was manufacturing and selling 
 alum baking-powder. 
 
 This, on his own testimony. He brought a suit once 
 against the Hoaglands, his associates, and he wanted to 
 show that he, not they, had made the business what it was ; 
 so he went upon the stand and swore that Tie started the 
 alum war; he hired Dr. Mott, the first chemist, etc., etc. 
 Listen, then, to this captain of industry confessing himself : 
 
 " I have heard the testimony about what is called the 
 ' alum war,' " he says. " I instituted it upon the part of 
 the company. I employed Dr. Mott personally it is pos- 
 sible that Mr. Hoagland may have made the money ar- 
 rangement with him ; I also visited other chemists and got 
 certificates ; I did all that business connected with the 
 chemical part of the investigation, preparing the matter; 
 I originated that matter ; Mr. Joseph C. Hoagland bitterly 
 opposed it; he said war on alum would injure the sale of 
 all baking-powders ; that it would bring all baking-powders 
 into disrepute, and it was difficult for the public to tell an 
 alum baking-powder from a cream of tartar powder. 
 
 *' We had also as a company been manufacturing alum 
 baking-powder, which was in the market, not under our 
 brand 'Royal? but another brand. The theory was that
 
 24 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 our competitors might get hold of some of that, analyze It, 
 and show that we also manufactured alum baking-powder." 
 
 Nor is that all. Ziegler says he " got " the chemists. 
 How he " got " them I don't know, but the company had 
 at one time an ammonia skirmish. They were making 
 ammonia baking-powder, and the alum people " showed 
 them up," so Ziegler had to have ammonia testimonials 
 from leading chemists, and he sent out for them. 
 
 " I got some myself," he testifies. " I went over and saw 
 Professor Norton, who had given an adverse opinion. I 
 got him to change his mind. He did not deny what he had 
 said before, but he gave us something that answered our 
 purpose." 
 
 " Answered our purpose ! " There you have the equiva- 
 lent in business of the political platform. The purpose 
 answered in the alum war was advertisement. Having 
 " got " the chemists' opinion, he had to turn that into 
 public opinion, so he had to " get " the press. And he 
 got the press, and his method of advertising fixed public 
 opinion. How? 
 
 The Chamber of Commerce of Richmond, Va., recently 
 " in seeking the source of a prejudice which once existed 
 in the State [against alum baking-powder, which is a 
 staple in the South] believes," it says, " that it is to be 
 found in a comprehensive system of what may be called 
 ' blind advertising ' or ' reading notices ' inaugurated years 
 ago in the newspapers of the country by the Royal." The 
 Chamber printed a sample contract : 
 
 Please publish articles as below, each one time, in Daily
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 25 
 
 and Weekly, as pure, straight reading, on top half of fifth 
 page, set in the same size and style of type, and with the 
 same style of heading as the pure reading adjoining, leaded 
 or solid to correspond with such pure reading, to be sur- 
 rounded by pure reading, and without date, mark or anything 
 to designate them as paid matter; and with the express under- 
 standing that they are not at date of publication or afterward 
 to be designated or classed by any article or advertisement in 
 your paper as advertisements, or as paid for, or as emanating 
 from us. Start with top one on list and publish, in same order, 
 daily two days apart and weekly one week apart. 
 
 ROYAL BAKING POWDER Co. 
 
 This step paved the way to the publication of anything 
 the Royal might want to say as news or as the disinterested 
 opinion of the paper. They would get a case of poisoning, 
 for example, have it investigated and reported in one news- 
 paper, then they would send the clipping for publication 
 to their other newspapers. Here is one: 
 
 From the Commercial-Appeal, Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 2, 1900. 
 
 SAID TO BE ALUM POISONING SERIOUS CASE OP ILLNESS 
 
 REPORTED FROM THE USE OP IMPURE BAKING POWDER. 
 
 Johnstown (Pa.) Tribune. 
 
 The poisoning of the Thomas family, of Thomas Mill, 
 Somerset County, four members of which were reported to 
 have been made dangerously ill by impure baking powder 
 used in making buckwheat cakes, has been further investigated. 
 
 The original can, with the remainder of the baking powder 
 left over after mixing the cakes, was secured by Dr. Critch- 
 field. The powder had been bought at a neighboring country 
 store, and was one of the low-priced brands.
 
 26 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Dr. Critchfield said that the patients had the symptoms of 
 alum poisoning. As the same kind of baking powder is sold 
 in many city groceries as well as country stores, Dr. Critch- 
 field thought it important that a chemical examination should 
 be made to determine its ingredients. He therefore trans- 
 ferred the package of powder to Dr. Schill, of this city, for 
 analysis. Dr. SchilFs report is as follows: 
 
 " I certify that I have examined chemically the sample 
 of ... baking powder forwarded to me by Dr. Crich- 
 field. The specimen contained alum." 
 
 DR. FRANCIS SCHILL, JR., Analyst. 
 
 Alum is used in the manufacture of the lower-priced bak- 
 ing powders. It is a mineral poison, and for this reason the 
 sale of baking powders containing it is in many cities pro- 
 hibited. 
 
 The Thomas family tried to answer this " news item." 
 Six of them signed a statement that they were sickened 
 not by alum baking-powder, but by arsenical poisoning 
 from a newly-painted sausage machine ; that " the doctors 
 did not tell us that the symptoms was alum poisoning, but 
 arsenical poisoning " ; that they were " using alum baking- 
 powder then and are yet, as Dr. Schill and Dr. Critchfield 
 said it was all right." And the physicians made affidavits 
 to the same effect, one of which, Dr. Critchfield's, covers 
 both: 
 
 Personally appeared before me J. B. Critchfield, who de- 
 poses and says as follows: That I am the doctor who attended 
 the Thomas family who were poisoned some time ago. The 
 statements and advertisements of the Royal Baking Powder
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 27 
 
 Company that I stated that they (the Thomas family) 
 were poisoned by alum in baking powder is false. I never 
 made any such statement. Mr. La Fetra, the agent of the 
 Royal Baking Powder Company, called on me and asked me 
 if I would state that the poisoning was alum poisoning, and 
 I told him I would not. They have in their advertisements mis- 
 quoted me and have made false statements in regard to the 
 matter, as the symptoms were arsenical poisoning and not 
 alum. 
 
 J. B. CRITCHFIELD. 
 April 20, 1900. 
 
 Such lying was not so common as a more subtle de- 
 ception. A typical form of " reading notice " was to speak 
 of alum as a poison, and then add suggestively : " Recently 
 in New York two deaths occurred from poisoning by the 
 use of powders sent to victims in samples." This does not 
 say that the powders were alum, and, so far as I can learn, 
 the only two deaths that occurred in this way at about that 
 time were those of Barnett and Mrs. Adams, for whose 
 murder Molineux was tried and acquitted ; and Kutnow and 
 bromo-seltzer were the powders alleged to have been used 
 on them. 
 
 Such methods are corruption: not in law, not in busi- 
 ness ; " seeing " a chemist and getting him " to change 
 his mind " and give " something that will answer a pur- 
 pose," would be " fraud " and " pull " in politics ; in 
 business it is only a " trick of the trade." Printing lies 
 is " faking," when the newspaper itself does it ; but to do 
 it for a big advertiser is a common practice of every-day 
 business. It pays, and what pays is right. In the years
 
 28 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 preceding the formation of the trust, the Royal company, 
 capitalized at $160,000, made profits which rose from 
 $17,647, in 1876, to $725,162, in 1887. In other words, 
 the income in 1887 was more than four times the capital, 
 and the largest item of expense was for advertising, which 
 ran up from $17,647, in 1876, to $291,084, in 1887. As 
 the Hoaglands swore : " The great value of the property, 
 estimated at millions of dollars, consists not in goods, nor 
 in factories, nor in substantial assets, but in the good-will 
 and popularity of its name and trade-mark." In short, as 
 I said before, in a capitalization of twenty millions, eight- 
 een represented a " general impression " that " alum was 
 bad " and that cream of tartar was " the best." 
 
 But this was not enough. One year's profits of a million 
 and a half were made on only twenty per cent, of the bak- 
 ing-powder business. If they could get the other eighty 
 per cent., they could make six and one-half millions a year. 
 And why not? Alum had not been driven out of the trade; 
 it made gains steadily. The Royal had to keep up its 
 fight. As Mr. Hoagland said : " A subtle tenure hangs 
 upon its continued success (sic) which can be maintained 
 only by the most unique and peculiar abilities, by the most 
 cunning tact and long experience." Since, then, they had 
 to fight for life, why not fight for a monopoly? Ziegler 
 was for entirely driving alum out of use. 
 
 How? By legislation. But success would cost the con- 
 sumer thirty millions a year. The consumer is the people, 
 and legislators are representatives of the people. No mat- 
 ter. The representatives of the people must use the power 
 of the people to build up a trust by compelling the people
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 29 
 
 to use only trust baking-powder. Impossible? Not at all. 
 Legislation favorable to the Royal has been enacted or 
 offered in twenty-four States of the Union ! How the trust 
 worked in all these States I do not know. Ziegler charged 
 the Hoaglands with having " paid money to influence 
 legislators in the Legislature of the State (of New York) 
 and paid the same out of the funds of the company." I 
 don't know about New York. I must go by the experience 
 of Missouri, and, while Attorney-General Crow charges 
 Ziegler with bribery out there, all I can prove is that 
 bribes were paid in the interest of the Royal. Besides, 
 direct bribery by a captain of industry himself is not 
 typical, and it is the typical that we want to understand. 
 This commercial concern went into politics, and it applied 
 to the politics of Missouri those " peculiar abilities " and 
 the " cunning tact " which we know and which we see have 
 met the supreme test of business success. Now we can 
 see what business methods look like in politics. 
 
 Ziegler becomes a mere shadow. Corrupt Royal agents 
 do the work. One of these was Daniel J. Kelly, publisher of 
 the American Queen. Kelly organized, in 1890, the Na- 
 tional Health Society, a " fake " as to national member- 
 ship; just like fake political organizations. " Pure food " 
 is the Royal's platform, and Kelly made pure food his 
 hobby. " I have made a study of the subject," he said in 
 an affidavit submitted to the United States Industrial Com- 
 mission. " Such time as I have had free from the demands 
 of my publishing business I have largely devoted . . 
 to furthering the passage of pure-food bills in the various 
 States. For the past two or three years my attacks . . .
 
 30 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 have been largely directed against alum baking-powder, 
 and I have been interested in the movement that has spread 
 through nearly all the States of the Union in favor of 
 pure-food laws, prohibiting the use of alum baking-pow- 
 ders on the ground that they are poisonous." 
 
 To follow Kelly through " nearly all the States of the 
 Union " would be interesting, but Missouri's experience 
 was probably typical. In 1899 a bill was introduced into 
 the legislature of that State, prohibiting the use of poisons 
 in food, " arsenic, calomel, bismuth, ammonia or alum." 
 " Or alum " was the point. Missouri is an alum State ; 
 $15,000,000 was invested there in the alum baking-powder 
 industry, which was one of the largest in the State and 
 represented all the capital and all the enterprise of many 
 of its citizens. " Or alum " would drive them out of busi- 
 ness and leave a foreign trust a monopoly. But those 
 legislators, in this Democratic State, advanced that bill 
 out of turn and passed it, without a hearing, without 
 notice, in secret. And the alum men did not learn till 
 August 14, that after August 17 they could not continue 
 in business, and then they heard of the law by accident. 
 
 This outrage aroused public opinion, and the alum men 
 prepared a repeal bill for the next session, two years later. 
 Meanwhile, however, Kelly and the National Health So- 
 ciety extended their organization. The Health Society of 
 Missouri was formed and the founder thereof was that 
 " friend of the people," the Hon. William J. Stone, ex- 
 Governor of Missouri, and then a candidate for United 
 States Senator. Now, Stone is no boodler. He and Colonel 
 Phelps, after a long political friendship, quarreled once,
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 31 
 
 and Stone called Phelps a lobbyist. " Oh," said Phelps, 
 " we both suck eggs, Stone and I, but Stone, he hides the 
 shells." But I do not believe that Stone handles bribes. 
 He is that other type, the orator of the people whose stock 
 in trade is his influence ; " an embezzler of power " Folk 
 called him once. This anti-trust orator was hired by the 
 trust to bring action under the trust's " or alum " law 
 against his fellow citizens and thus install the foreign trust 
 in the field of a general local industry. " Ah, but he acted 
 as a lawyer." Do you know who said that? None other 
 than William J. Bryan, arch-Democrat, arch-friend of 
 the people, arch-foe of the trust, and that does excuse this 
 political treason in law and in business. I asked one of 
 Folk's confessed boodlers, once, whether, if he had it all 
 to do over again, he would boodle again. " Yes," he said 
 thoughtfully, " but I would study law." " Why? " I asked. 
 " So as I could take fees instead of bribes," he said, with- 
 out humor. In other words, he saw, as Bryan saw, and 
 Stone and the commercial world see, that what is boodling 
 in politics is business in the practice of the law. And the 
 practice of law is business. 
 
 When the alum men's repeal bill was introduced in the 
 session of 1901, Kelly's plan to beat it was laid. Lieuten- 
 ant-Governor Lee, who has told the story, referred the 
 measure to a picked committee which was to have a hear- 
 ing. The Hon. William J. Stone was to appear on the 
 trust side, but not for the trust. There was no hearing, 
 but Stone's speech, full of the Royal expert's chemical 
 facts, in the Royal's phraseology, was laid on the desks 
 of the members, and this is the way it begins :
 
 32 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 " I appear before you on the request of the Health 
 Society of Missouri. This association is composed of a 
 number of people good people, both men and women 
 living in different parts of the State, with headquarters in 
 St. Louis." There was no such society. The " number " 
 was three. They were not " good people," not " both men 
 and women " ; they were Stone, his son, and one other 
 man. And the headquarters in St. Louis was in the safe 
 of Stone's law office. 
 
 And this is a United States Senator ! The Democrats of 
 Missouri have sent him to Washington to do battle there 
 for the " good people, both men and women," against the 
 Republican representatives of the Octopus. Well, we also 
 are bound for Washington and we'll be interested chiefly 
 in the Republican Senatorial traitors, but we shall meet 
 Stone there, too, and an introduction to a Democrat or 
 two may help us. Let us turn now to an honest boodler, 
 the Hon. John A. Lee, and hear how the " little alum fel- 
 lows' " repeal bill was killed in 1901, and how again, in 
 1903, in the session which elected Stone United States 
 Senator, it was beaten. 
 
 " When I was elected Lieutenant-Governor in 1900," 
 Lee says, " I was entirely unfamiliar with the ways of 
 legislation. The Royal Baking Powder Company had been 
 doing extensive advertising in the paper with which I was 
 connected. I have known Daniel J. Kelly for some years 
 and he has been ostensibly my friend. In the beginning 
 of the session of 1901, I made no secret of the fact 
 that it was my desire to defeat the repeal of the (anti-) 
 alum law.
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 33 
 
 " One day Senator Farris came to me and said that 
 it ought to be worth a good deal to the Royal Baking 
 Powder Company to keep the anti-alum law on the statute 
 books; and that the boys on the committee did not think 
 that they ought to prevent its repeal without some com- 
 pensation. I asked him what the boys wanted. He said 
 they wanted $1,000 apiece for six of the committee,* which 
 was all of the committee except Senator Dowdall, and 
 $1,000 for the Senator who introduced the bill. Unfortu- 
 nately for me, Kelly called me up over the long-distance 
 telephone from New York that same day, and I com- 
 municated to him the proposition made to me by Farris. 
 He said he would see his principal and wire me the next 
 day whether or not the proposition would be accepted. I 
 received a telegram the next day from Kelly stating that 
 the proposition was agreeable. This telegram I gave to 
 Farris in Senator Morton's room, who was ill at the time. 
 The agreement was that the bill, in return for the money 
 to be paid each Senator, would be killed in committee 
 that is, never reported from the committee. The committee 
 did keep the bill, and though there were various protests 
 all over the State demanding a report from the committee, 
 none was made. 
 
 " I have since learned that the chairman of the com- 
 mittee, in order to escape the pressure being brought upon 
 the committee, left Jefferson City with the bill in his 
 pocket, not returning until the closing day of the session, 
 and that the report of the committee on the bill was filed 
 by the chairman after the session adjourned, and the 
 journal falsified, so as to have it appear that the report
 
 34 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 was made during the session of the Senate on the last day. 
 This report made by the committee on the bill was written 
 in New York and sent to me by Kelly. I turned it over to 
 Farris, and this report was made a report of the com- 
 mittee, I believe, without any change. 
 
 " On February 28, 1901, I received a check from Kelly 
 for $8,500, being the $7,000 for the seven Senators 
 mentioned and $1,500 for myself. On March 19, 1901, the 
 day after the adjournment of the Legislature, I met 
 Farris by appointment at the Laclede Hotel and settled 
 with him and his associates in accordance with his prop- 
 osition. I went to the bank and drew $7,000, leaving 
 $1,500 for my share, went to Farris's room, and there 
 handed the money to Senator Farris. He divided the 
 $7,000 into seven different packages or envelopes. While 
 I was in the room Senator Mathews and Senator Smith 
 came in, and to each of these Senator Farris gave one of 
 the packages. The $1,500 was to go to me, and was used 
 by me in a trade paper. 
 
 " Just prior to the last session (1903) Kelly sent for 
 me to come to the Planters' Hotel. I went to his room, 
 found Senator Farris there, and Kelly told me in the pres- 
 ence of Farris that he had $15,000 for the Senators to 
 defeat the repeal of the alum law of this session, and that 
 $1,000 was for me. I told him I could not take it. He 
 communicated with me at various other times, that he had 
 $1,000 for me in return for what I should do for him, etc., 
 but I was determined to take no more money in that way, 
 and refused. Finally, it seems he sent for my brother and 
 gave him a check for $1,000, telling him to give it to me,
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 35 
 
 tendering it as payment to me for my official in- 
 fluence." 
 
 Poor Lee! The miserable bribe-taker is disgraced and 
 abandoned. He might have been Governor. The alum 
 people were for him in the last session; he had promised 
 them a fair committee, and he hoped not to have to vote 
 himself. But Senator Farris was against him, and Farris 
 arranged it so that, when the measure came up, there was 
 a tie in the Senate. At the close of the roll, when the 
 clerk turned to the chair for the deciding vote, Farris rose 
 in his place. The chamber was still ; everybody was aware 
 that a weak boodler " wanted to reform," and that the 
 " game was to show him up." Lee hesitated. 
 
 " Mr. President," said Farris, pointing his finger at 
 Lee, " we are waiting for you." 
 
 " Nay," Lee voted, in a whisper, and the trust was left 
 in control for two years more. 
 
 Even then Lee's hopes were not dead, nor his chances. 
 But he " peached " and that ended Lee. He is a traitor 
 to the System. 
 
 But what of the captain of industry? What of the 
 Royal Baking Powder Company, what of the Gould rail- 
 roads, what of the breweries? What of Ellis Wainwright 
 and George J. Kobusch and John Scullen? What of all 
 the rest of the big business men ? They are the sources of 
 our political corruption. What of the System back of 
 the corrupt rings? That is the sustenance of our political 
 degradation. Ellis Wainwright, a fugitive from justice, 
 dines in Paris with the American Ambassador, who is 
 negotiating a treaty for the extradition of bribers. A
 
 36 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 group of the ablest criminal lawyers in New York, at a 
 hearing before Governor Odell at Albany, could not speak 
 of John A. Lee without twisting their faces into ludicrous 
 scorn; but they were defending William Ziegler from ex- 
 tradition to Missouri. And John Scullen ! I cited once, 
 as an example of the shamelessness of St. Louis, the fact 
 that Turner, the State's witness in the boodle cases, was 
 still president of his trust company. When I returned to 
 the city, some honest business men told me triumphantly 
 that Turner had had to resign. 
 
 " Is John Scullen still a director of the World's Fair? " 
 I asked. 
 
 He was, they said. " Then why has Turner been 
 punished?" I inquired. "Was it because he boodled, or 
 because he was a traitor to the System and peached? " 
 
 " Because he peached, I guess," was the answer, and 
 there lies the bitter truth. There is no public opinion to 
 punish the business boodler, and that is why Joseph W. 
 Folk had to go into politics and run for Governor out in 
 the State with " boodle " for the sole issue. He is laying 
 down as a political platform the doctrine of the new patriot- 
 ism : that corruption is treason ; that the man who, elected 
 to maintain the institutions of a government by the people, 
 sells them out, is a traitor; whether he be a constable, a 
 legislator, a judge, or a boss, his act is not alone bribery, 
 but treason. Folk's appeal is to the politician, the people, 
 and the business man, all three, and there is hope in all 
 three. The politician is not without patriotic sentiment : 
 Ed Butler does not mean harm to his country; he is only
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 37 
 
 trying to make money at his business. And as for the 
 business man 
 
 One night, at a banquet of politicians, I was seated 
 beside a man who had grown rich by unswerving loyalty 
 to a corrupt ring " the party organization," he would 
 have called it which had done more permanent harm to 
 his country than a European army could do in two wars. 
 He was not a politician, but a business man ; not a boodler, 
 but the backer of boodlers, and his conversation was a 
 defense of " poor human nature," till the orchestra struck 
 up a patriotic air. That moved him deeply. 
 
 " Isn't it beautiful ! " he exclaimed ; and when the 
 boodlers joined in the chorus, he murmured, " Beautiful, 
 beautiful," then leaned over and with tears in his eyes he 
 said: 
 
 " Ah, but the tune for me, the song I love, is * My 
 Country, 'tis of Thee.' " 
 
 I believe this man thinks he is patriotic. I believe H. 
 O. Havemeyer thinks his success is success, not one kind 
 of success, but success, not alone his, but public " pros- 
 perity." And William Ziegler, 1 who is spending millions 
 to plant the American flag first at the North Pole, I am 
 sure he regards himself as a peculiarly patriotic American 
 and he is. They all are, according to their light, hon- 
 orable men and patriotic citizens. They simply do not 
 know what patriotism is. They know what treason is in 
 war; it is going over to the enemy, like Benedict Arnold, 
 and fighting in the open against your country. In peace 
 i William Ziegler died in 1905; but the type still lives.
 
 38 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and in secret to seize, not forts but cities and States, and 
 destroy, not buildings and men, but the fundamental in- 
 stitutions of your country and the saving character of 
 American manhood that is not treason, that is politics, 
 and politics is business, and business, you know, is business. 
 
 " Do you really call it wrong to buy a switch? " asked 
 a St. Louis business man. " Even if it is necessary to your 
 business ? " 
 
 " Say," said a politician, " if a rich mogul comes along 
 and shakes his swag in your face and asks for a switch 
 that he has a right to get, because he needs it in his busi- 
 ness, wouldn't you grab off a piece? On the level, now, 
 wouldn't you? " 
 
 They answer each other, these two, and each can judge 
 the other, but neither can see himself as he is or the enor- 
 mity of his crime. And " that man Folk," rising out of 
 the wrecked machinery of justice in Missouri, may lead 
 his people to see that the corruption of their government 
 is not merely corruption, but a revolutionary process mak- 
 ing for a new form of government; and the people of 
 Missouri, rising out of the wrecked machinery of the 
 government of Missouri, may teach their politicians a 
 lesson in liberty and honor. But that is not enough. That 
 will reach neither the source nor the head of the evil. Some 
 power greater than Folk, greater than that of the people 
 of Missouri, must rise to bring home to the captain of in- 
 dustry the truth: That business, important as it is, is not 
 sacred; that not everything that pays is right; that, if 
 bribery is treason, if the corrupt politician is a traitor, 
 then the corrupting business man is an enemy of the re-
 
 FOLK'S FIGHT FOR MISSOURI 39 
 
 public. No matter how many bonds he may float in war, 
 or how much he may give for charity and education, if 
 he corrupts the sources of law and of justice, his business 
 is not success, but treason, and his own and a people's 
 failure. 2 
 
 2 Mr. Folk was elected Governor. For the first time in its history 
 Democratic Missouri went Republican for President; and Roosevelt 
 carried Republicans into all the State offices excepting that of 
 Governor. It was hard to split tickets in Missouri, but St. Louis 
 and Missouri did it for Folk.
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 
 
 SHOWING HOW, SINCE THE CORRUPTION OF A STATE 
 AND ITS CITIES IS ALL ONE SYSTEM, MU- 
 NICIPAL REFORM MUST INCLUDE 
 STATE REFORM 
 (August, 1904) 
 
 MISSOURI was a Democratic State. Illinois is Repub- 
 lican. " Graft " knows no politics, but the " good citizen " 
 does. To the grafter a party is but a tool of his trade, 
 and the party to which a ma j ority of the citizens " be- 
 long " is his party. He does not belong to it ; it belongs 
 to him. The result is that neither of our great parties 
 truly represents us; both stand to-day for graft. They 
 differ upon other, unessential things ; they are alike in this, 
 that whichever is in power is the grafter's party. Now, 
 wherever we have gone, we have found that the biggest 
 grafter is Big Business, and Big Business kept changing 
 its party to be of the majority. After Missouri I visited 
 three Republican States Ohio, New York, and Illinois. 
 The railroad that took me into Illinois turned Republican 
 at the State line. The Royal Baking Powder Company, 
 which had dealt with the Democrats in Missouri, appeared 
 in New York with the Republicans. So with the American 
 Book Company in Missouri a Democrat, at home in Ohio 
 it is a Republican. And so it goes in national politics. 
 Wall Street, and all that "Wall Street" connotes, was 
 
 40
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 41 
 
 Republican till President Roosevelt, refusing to acknowl- 
 edge the privilege of capital, enforced the law against 
 a combination of railroads. Then Wall Street began plot- 
 ting with the Republican leaders for the nomination of a 
 " safe man " for President, and, when that " safe man " 
 died, looked to the Democrats looked with its great 
 campaign contribution for a bribe and corrupt Dem- 
 ocratic leaders, itching for the great financial graft, began 
 its search for a " safe man." 
 
 If the good citizen would do as the corrupt politician 
 and the corrupting business man do, shift freely from one 
 party to the other as the change served his interest, then 
 both parties would represent good citizenship. They would 
 differ more than they do now on broad questions of 
 public policy, but they would both stand, as they do not 
 now, for the public interest. But the good citizen is " loyal 
 to party." Half the loyalty that is betrayed by parties 
 would, if devoted to the State and the nation, save the coun- 
 try and the parties, too! Such independence, however, 
 would mean non-partisanship in State and national politics, 
 and the good citizen is only just learning, with many a 
 qualm of conscience, to vote independently in municipal 
 elections. In State and national politics he votes too con- 
 stantly, not for his State and the United States, but for 
 " his party." Hence his party can deliver his vote. Hence 
 his party does deliver his vote in Ohio, New York, and 
 Illinois, as in Missouri to all comers with " pulls " and 
 bribes. 
 
 This is serious, since we realized, in Missouri, that 
 " bribery and corruption " are not accidental and occa-
 
 42 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 sional, but general and deliberate. I quoted the declaration 
 made in open court by Judge Priest, one of the leaders 
 of the Missouri bar, that bribery, at the most, is a " con- 
 ventional crime." And he was right. Bribery out there was 
 " a custom of the country," and political corruption was 
 a system. And this system, laid wide open by Joseph W. 
 Folk, proved to be, not an evil of government, but the 
 government itself. Corruption had worked a revolution 
 there. The representative democracy described in the State 
 constitution of Missouri was a thing of paper. Drawn by 
 dead men, it was dead. In its stead stood a reorganization 
 of society, a commercial oligarchy, a government of spe- 
 cial, not of common, interests ; and this, the actual, govern- 
 ment of this great State, was not a creation of paper and 
 ink ; you could not study it in the State library. We traced 
 its superstructure in the crimes, the indictments, and the 
 confessions of living men, and we saw that its foundation 
 was laid, true and nice, upon the exact adjustment of the 
 sordid ambitions of the political leaders of Missouri to 
 the financial lusts of her captains of industry. 
 
 Political corruption, then, is a force by which a repre- 
 sentative democracy is transformed into an oligarchy 
 representative of special interests, and the medium of the 
 revolution is the party. 
 
 So we must recognize parties and take up next a Re- 
 publican State Illinois. Illinois is not so demonstrably 
 corrupt as Missouri. Other Republican States are worse, 
 but these two offer just now a remarkable parallel, super- 
 ficially in this, that at the same time Joseph W. Folk, the 
 Democratic Circuit Attorney who had " done his duty "
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 43 
 
 in St. Louis, was running for the Democratic nomination 
 for Governor of Democratic Missouri, Charles S. Deneen, 
 the Republican State's Attorney (the same office), who 
 had " done his duty " in Chicago, was running for the Re- 
 publican nomination for Governor of Republican Illinois. 
 There are many unessential differences, and we shall note 
 them as we go along, but fundamentally the parallel is 
 still more striking and significant in this, that while the 
 Democrats of Missouri were being asked to take back from 
 Democratic boodlers the control of their party, the Re- 
 publicans of Illinois were being asked to take back from 
 Republican boodlers the control of their party. Boodle 
 was the issue in both campaigns ; boodle is the underlying 
 issue in most American political campaigns, but here it 
 was a party issue. Politicians, anxious to preserve their 
 parties, have always pleaded for " reform within the 
 party." Well, here we have it. Here we have the fighting 
 done within the party, and that is right. For parties do 
 rule us, and if American citizens will " stick to party," 
 then it is important for all of us to know what each party 
 decides within itself to represent: all of us or a few of 
 us, the common interests which ask for nothing but law, 
 order, and fair play, and pay for these in taxes that sus- 
 tain the State ; or those special interests which seek special 
 favors and pay for them in bribes which corrupt the State. 
 Folk began the movement which his candidacy is bring- 
 ing to a logical conclusion. Deneen did not. This does 
 not matter. We are interested not in the men, but in the 
 issue for which they stand, and the issue arose in both 
 States in the same way in a fight for municipal reform
 
 44 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and the failure to get it. Fortunate failure ! " Municipal 
 reform " is a mean ideal. We have talked about it for 
 years now, till it has come to be the highest aim of Ameri- 
 can citizenship. But think of it for a moment: It is not 
 the cities alone that are corrupt, but the States also and 
 the United States, and we all know that this is so. Yet 
 we of the cities say, " Give us good government in the 
 cities where we live, and the States and the United States 
 may go to the deuce." It is a mistake. It is more than 
 a mistake. Municipal reform, all by itself, is impossible. 
 City government and State government are of one sov- 
 ereignty, and, as for corruption, the city and the State are 
 in one system, and the city man and the " up-State " man 
 have to work together to get what each needs. 
 
 The big grafter knows this ; there is nothing narrow 
 and " provincial " about him, and Folk and the Chicago 
 reformers got over their municipal narrowness by follow- 
 ing the big grafter. They started right. They did not 
 begin their reform by passing and enforcing laws to 
 make other people good. They saw early that the " best 
 citizens " were the worst grafters, and they went after 
 them and the municipal legislators who were selling out 
 to them. Folk's method was that of the criminal prosecutor, 
 and he put the municipal bribe-givers and bribe-takers on 
 trial, and when they appealed to the State courts, the 
 pursuit into the State taught the Circuit Attorney of 
 St. Louis that boodling was not a crime of city individuals, 
 but the established method of conducting public business 
 in both city and State. Boodle was a question of govern- 
 ment, and Mr. Folk, in order to finish his job, had to go
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 45 
 
 into politics, and he went into politics. Declaring boodle 
 to be the issue in both city and State, he appealed to the 
 people. 
 
 The Chicago reformers went into politics at the first 
 plunge. The system that confronted them was like that 
 of St. Louis ; it was the typical form of municipal govern- 
 ment in all unreformed American cities. The citizens were 
 divided between two parties. These parties were organized 
 by two groups of " leaders " : Robert E. Burke, John 
 Powers, Mayor John P. Hopkins, and Roger C. Sullivan, 
 "Democrats"; and William Lorimer, "Doc" T. N. 
 Jamieson, James Pease, et al, " Republicans." (Others 
 there were, but those named are active to-day.) They had 
 a rough working agreement by which the Democrats took 
 the city, the Republicans Cook County, and these govern- 
 ments they ran " for the good of the party." That was 
 their highest spoken sentiment not the good of the com- 
 munity, but of the party, and the good of the party came 
 to mean the good of the leaders and their friends. They 
 and their friends were in politics for " what there was in 
 it for them." Thus the government of Chicago and Cook 
 County was not a government in the interest of the people. 
 
 The followers of the two groups of leaders, operating 
 like bandits, held up citizens and robbed them, just as train 
 robbers and brigands do. Everybody had to pay for every- 
 thing, lawful and unlawful; taxpayers had to help the 
 tax-collector defraud the city, and shared with him the 
 " reduction " ; merchants paid to violate ordinances ; con- 
 tractors to be freed from inspections ; health board super- 
 vision was largely blackmail; and the police operated a
 
 46 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 system such as that which we found exposed in Minneap- 
 olis. The police of Chicago did not protect life and 
 property; they protected the criminals; they licensed 
 burglars and hold-up men by districts, guarded them while 
 at work, and shared in their booty. 
 
 Now this is preposterous, but this is not the worst. This 
 is crime, and if, when they had committed their crimes, 
 the criminals had run away, all might have been well. But 
 these were not private robbers, they were public plunderers ; 
 they not only robbed the citizens, they plundered the city. 
 And they not only plundered the city and county once or 
 twice, they operated methodically and systematically. And, 
 they not only stayed by the loot, they stayed as judges, 
 legislators, and executives. They were the government, 
 and they sold the law, they rotted the sources of the law, 
 they gave away public property, and they carried off the 
 self-respect of the citizens of Chicago. For hold-up men 
 and vulgar criminals were not the only " friends " of the 
 leaders. Their circle included some of the leading citizens 
 of the city. All men who were against the law were with 
 the party rings; all men whose interests ran counter to 
 the public interests were satisfied customers of this traffic 
 in a people. Thus, though boodle was all that the poli- 
 ticians were after, their business was the sale of privileges ; 
 and the effect of the establishment of that business as the 
 actual government, was to transform the representative 
 democracy of Chicago into an oligarchy representative 
 of privileged classes. 
 
 Nor is this all. The classes favored were: first, those 
 who like pickpockets, hold-up men, gamblers, and keepers
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 47 
 
 of saloons and bawdy houses wanted to break the law; 
 second, those who like tax-dodgers, railroads, and estab- 
 lished big businesses wanted to evade the law ; and third, 
 those who like traction, gas, and other public utility 
 companies wanted to abuse general and procure and mis- 
 use special laws. In other words, boodle and graft, the 
 " evils " happy pessimists speak of so lightly, had turned 
 the city government of Chicago into an oligarchy of the 
 worst citizens, of the enemies of the city. 
 
 The Chicago reformers attacked the third form of 
 corruption, that of active boodling for franchises and 
 other special ordinances. As I have pointed out in " The 
 Shame of the Cities," there are two main roads to reform. 
 One goes down among the vulgar criminal classes to the 
 correction of obvious police scandals, and leads to what 
 we call " good government." This is easily achieved. Min- 
 neapolis got it in a summer. New York has fought longer 
 for it, but has it at last from Tammany Hall ! The other 
 road takes the reformer higher up among his own friends 
 through high finance to higher politics, and leads, when 
 successful, to an awakened public opinion against corrupt 
 misrepresentation in government to what I call self- 
 government. Chicago's Municipal Voters' League had 
 every incentive to fight for " good government." The city 
 had police graft and administrative abuses as bad as any 
 Minneapolis or New York ever had. But John H. Ham- 
 line, William Kent, and other young men who were serv- 
 ing as aldermen, and the best of the newspapers, advised 
 the League to strike at the council, and George E. Cole 
 and his associates struck at the council. And when they
 
 48 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 struck there they struck the trail we traveled with Folk 
 from St. Louis, the trail that runs between the two great 
 parallels, business and politics, out of the city, up through 
 the State to the United States. 
 
 The council was the heart of the corrupt system of 
 Chicago. The aldermen, supposedly elected to represent 
 the city, but really chosen by the leaders of the two parties, 
 were selling out the city. Peter Dunne (" Mr. Doo- 
 ley"), a reporter in those days, described many of the 
 members as criminals marked by nature as such. Two- 
 thirds of them were organized into a bipartisan " com- 
 bine," which operated under the direction of a " good 
 business man," Martin B. Madden, president of the 
 Western Stone Company. " I rounded up the boys," said 
 Johnnie Powers [Democrat], " and Madden [Republican] 
 he told 'em what for." There we have the linking of the two 
 rings, political and financial. Back of the Democrats in 
 the " combine " were the party bosses " Bobbie " Burke, 
 Mayor Hopkins, and Roger Sullivan, and back of the Re- 
 publicans were the Republican bosses Billy Lorimer, 
 " Doc " Jamieson, Pease, and others. Lorimer, Jamieson 
 and Company did not direct or share in the bribery of Re- 
 publican aldermen. The city council was not a Republican 
 graft; the Republicans, as I explained, had the county. 
 But just as the Republican sheriff, in return for non- 
 interference by the Democratic police in his horse-racing 
 graft, let the police alone in vice graft, so for general 
 immunity from all hindrances in their county contracts, 
 the Republican leaders delivered over to the Democrats the 
 Republican aldermen to vote with the " combine " that
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 49 
 
 sold out municipal legislation. This was the bipartisan 
 political system back of the corrupt council. 
 
 In front of the council were two financial rings. One 
 of these was intact when I began my study of Illinois ; this 
 is the ring which centers in the Chicago National Bank 
 John R. Walsh, president. 1 Walsh is a Democrat. He is 
 the owner of the Democratic party organ, The Chronicle, 
 and the power behind the throne of the Democratic bosses. 
 The power behind the throne of the Republican bosses is 
 John M. Smyth, the head of one of Chicago's " big stores." 
 Smyth (Republican) is a director of the bank of Walsh 
 (Democrat), and its former cashier, now vice-president, is 
 Fred M. Blount, an active Republican politician. 
 
 The great graft of the Chicago Republicans is public 
 contracts, and they control the sources of contracts State 
 and county boards and, through judges like Hanecy, and 
 the Governor, park 'boards. Lorimer was a street-car 
 driver, but in politics he became a contractor and a friend 
 of Walsh. Walsh is treasurer of the South Park Board; 
 William Best, a director of the Chicago National Bank, 
 is a member of the board, and so is Lyman A. Walton, 
 vice-president of (Walsh's) Equitable Trust Company. 
 Blount has been treasurer of the West Park Board and of 
 the Sanitary Board. The latter is the board which has 
 spent millions to reverse the Chicago River, and make it, 
 the city's sewer, run out of, instead of into, the Lake. 
 This developed a water power which the board once pro- 
 posed to sell to a private corporation. Thomas M. Smyth, 
 a relative of John M. Smyth, is an ex-president of the 
 i Walsh and his bank failed scandalously this year (1906).
 
 50 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 board. Contracts from all these boards have gone some- 
 times to a Democratic firm like Lyden & Drews (Lyden 
 is a nephew of ex-Mayor Hopkins), more often to a Lori- 
 mer firm. Walsh's institutions bond public officials and 
 public officials deposit funds in his institutions. So do 
 many of the politicians and sporting people. Other banks 
 share in all this " legitimate graft," of course ; the Chicago 
 National group does not get it all. Here, briefly outlined, 
 is one great business ring which profits by, is satisfied 
 with, and gives financial aid and moral support to, the 
 debased political system of the city, county, and State. 
 
 The other ring, now broken, was that of which the 
 world-famous promoter, Charles T. Yerkes, was the center. 
 He went to Chicago as a representative of Widener & 
 Elkins, the street railway " financiers " of Philadelphia. 
 He bought The Inter Ocean, the newspaper organ of the 
 " stalwart " Republicans, and became a financial leader. 
 He banked at the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, John 
 J. Mitchell, president. Now Mitchell is to Chicago what 
 J. P. Morgan is to New York. But when Yerkes, recog- 
 nized and beaten by Chicago, organized his street railway 
 properties to leave them, the financial scheme involved a 
 capitalization which could only be floated upon the theory 
 that a new franchise was obtainable, and upon terms which 
 it is incredible would be granted by an honest city council ; 
 yet Mitchell in Chicago and Morgan in New York helped 
 float this plan for the Union Traction Company. Such 
 financial cooperation is moral support, and Yerkes had that 
 from Mitchell and from other banks ; he had it from the 
 financial world generally. And when you consider the
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 51 
 
 ramifications of influence from such banks in both rings, 
 their directors, stockholders, customers, and friends, and 
 from associated institutions, companies, and businesses, 
 you can begin to understand what upheld the Hopkins- 
 Sullivan Democrats, the Lorimer-Jamieson Republicans, the 
 corrupt city council, and the whole rotten system of 
 Chicago graft. What I have given is but a superficial 
 sketch of the two main groups of those respectable powers 
 which the Chicago reformers attacked when they attacked 
 the Chicago City Council. 
 
 In 1895, when the Municipal Voters' League began its 
 work, these financial powers had big plans before them. 
 We shall follow two of them. The People's Gas and Coke 
 Company wanted to combine all the Chicago gas companies 
 and make a monopoly. The Hopkins-Sullivan Democrats, 
 knowing this, had put through the council, when Hopkins 
 was mayor, a franchise for the Ogden Gas Company. The 
 organizers boast that they paid no bribes, but why should 
 they ? In the deal were Martin B. Madden, Johnnie Powers, 
 Thomas Gahan, Roger Sullivan, and others. Chicago be- 
 lieves Mayor Hopkins had a two-elevenths interest, but I 
 was most urgently persuaded to think that he had not. 
 Say he wasn't in the deal. His crowd was, and among them 
 were the politicians who sold franchises to business men; 
 why shouldn't they give one to themselves? The scheme 
 had all the marks of what, in Pennsylvania, would be called 
 a " mace " a company organized to sell out at black- 
 mail prices to a " trust " ; and, as a matter of fact, some 
 fellows in the deal did come pretty near blackmail in their 
 efforts to make the People's Company buy them out. More-
 
 52 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 over, the two companies are working amicably together 
 now under a financial settlement that made fortunes for 
 the political promoters. But I must not get ahead of my 
 story. In 1895 the gas deal had been passed through the 
 " Democratic " Chicago council and was ready for the 
 Republican State Legislature. 
 
 The other big plan was Yerkes's own. Many Chicago 
 traction franchises were expiring, and the companies 
 wanted to have them extended. The corrupt municipal sys- 
 tem being in good order, the companies could have had 
 from the city council anything bribery could buy, but the 
 council was unable under the law to grant an extension of 
 franchises for more than twenty years, and that was not 
 enough for Yerkes. Some of his bonds ran longer than 
 that, and besides, he had learned his financial politics in 
 Pennsylvania, where they give franchises for 999 years and 
 " in perpetuity." Yerkes wanted a franchise for at least 
 50 years. 
 
 And he tried to get it. Where? From the Illinois State 
 Legislature. Yerkes was a Big Business man, and, like the 
 gas men, he understood the whole machinery of govern- 
 ment as it is. He did not try first for home rule in Chicago ; 
 his plans took him out into the State. He was not de- 
 pendent upon the boodlers of Chicago. Yerkes knew that 
 corruption was a State as well as a municipal system in 
 Pennsylvania, and when, in 1895, he went to Springfield, 
 the capital of Illinois, he went confident that he would find 
 the system there. And it was there. 
 
 It had been there for at least twenty years and closely 
 resembled that of Missouri. The railroads and other great
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 53 
 
 corporations of the State had built it up, and it was theirs. 
 They hadn't much use for it in Yerkes's day; they had 
 long before got about all they required. They were vulner- 
 able to taxation, but they controlled the State Board of 
 Equalization (of taxes). About the only other use they 
 had for the system was to prevent adverse legislation, and 
 since, as the railroad men say, Illinois is " fair " and 
 harbors no anti-railroad sentiment, they were, and they 
 are, in very little danger. Nevertheless, with a few notable 
 exceptions, the roads have always kept in touch with 
 politics all along their lines, and maintained the system 
 which still is the actual government of Illinois. The head 
 of it is, not the railroad lobby, as in Missouri, but the bi- 
 partisan group of Senators, called the " Senate combine," 
 which is an old institution now reduced to refined black- 
 mail and the orderly protection, for lump fees, of special 
 interests. The House, more unwieldly and changeable, has 
 to be moved by individual bribes of various amounts, and 
 there is often scandal and quarreling over the division of 
 the spoils ; but the " regular business " in the House is 
 done by committees which the Speaker appoints. To com- 
 plete the legislative system, the Governor should be either 
 a figurehead or the boss. 
 
 There are railroad officials and corporation managers 
 in Illinois of sufficient moral development to denounce cor- 
 ruption and oppose it, and they think well of themselves, 
 because they never boodle. But the corrupt system which 
 their roads established remains standing ready for the 
 service of all who seek to plunder the people. And when 
 Yerkes arrived, it was at his service. The system put
 
 64 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 through his 50 years' act for him. There was much 
 talk of money paid; when, after the session, Speaker 
 Meyer died, a large sum in new thousand-dollar bills was 
 found in his safe deposit box. But Governor Altgeld, a 
 Democrat, and neither a figurehead nor the boss of the 
 system, vetoed the bill. The old system was not in good 
 working order. 
 
 Yerkes, a great man in his class, set about making it 
 go. In a quiet, " business-like " way, he " favored " John 
 R. Tanner for Governor on the Republican ticket for the 
 election of 1896. Tanner was chairman of the Republican 
 Central Committee. As we noted in Missouri, the chairman 
 of a State committee is a powerful factor in a corrupt 
 State system. Tanner came as near being a State boss as 
 any man in Illinois politics, and he was " safe." He was 
 nominated, and in that presidential year " good old Re- 
 publican " Illinois elected him with a " solid Repub- 
 lican " Legislature. Thus was the Republican State system 
 repaired. 
 
 All clear before him, Yerkes found trouble brewing in 
 his rear. The Democratic city system was getting out of 
 order. The Chicago reformers were making progress. 
 They were cutting down the corrupt majority of the 
 council and organizing the public opinion which the great 
 Chicago newspapers had developed against franchise steal- 
 ing. Better men were chosen aldermen, and the League 
 and the newspapers watched them and made the public 
 watch and understand. By the spring of 1897 traction 
 and Yerkes had become an issue in the city, and Carter H. 
 Harrison was elected mayor on it. Yerkes was not afraid
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 55 
 
 of Harrison. " Bobble " Burke, the Democratic boss, 
 had nominated the young man, and, though Harrison 
 talked inimically, Burke would probably control him; 
 and, anyhow, Yerkes used to say, " every man has his 
 price." 
 
 To make sure of his plans, however, Yerkes determined 
 to make the perfected State system do the whole job for 
 him. Instead of having it grant the city council power to 
 extend traction franchises, he would have the State Legis - 
 lature pass bills granting the extension outright. And a 
 set of measures, called the Humphrey Bills, which gave the 
 companies fifty years more of life, were introduced in the 
 Senate. This was an outrage, but it rendered a great serv- 
 ice to Chicago. The Humphrey Bills began for the city 
 one of the greatest lessons a city can learn that the State 
 is a part of the municipal government and that municipal 
 reform must include State reform. The mayoralty cam- 
 paign was going on when these bills appeared, and the 
 candidates, their orators, and the newspapers lashed them- 
 selves and the voters into a white heat over them. These 
 bills violated the principle of " Home Rule," and mass- 
 meetings denounced them in burning resolutions which 
 spoke of " financial anarchists," " bribe-givers and bribe- 
 takers," and ordered posted on billboards as political trait- 
 ors all Cook County Senators who voted for the Humphrey 
 Bills. The city recognized the real enemies of the city. 
 John Maynard Harlan, a candidate for mayor, and the 
 city's most effective orator, called a roll of directors and 
 stockholders of the Chicago City Railway Company ; these 
 were the most self-respecting men in Chicago Erskine M.
 
 56 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Phelps, George H. Wheeler, Samuel W. Allerton, Marshall 
 Field but their company was interested with Yerkes ; their 
 counsel was with him at Springfield ; and the town believed 
 that their company's money was being paid out with his 
 In bribes. This is the way Mr. Harlan called the roll : 
 
 And now we have got to talk plain language. We have 
 got to hold the right people responsible. We have got to 
 name the directors of these companies ; call them up. Erskine 
 M. Phelps, I put you on the stand; take your seat; take your 
 oath before the people of Chicago; place your hand upon the 
 Bible of the people; take your oath, and let me question you, 
 a director of the city railway. Erskine M. Phelps, do you 
 know that your general counsel, do you know that the presi- 
 dent of your company is down at Springfield or if not there 
 in person, by his attorney and representative for the pur- 
 pose of taking part in a grand larceny of the people of 
 Chicago? There for the purpose of burglarizing the City of 
 Chicago? If you don't know that we tell it to you now. 
 Your agent, your president, your general counsel, formerly 
 an honored member of the bar, that has done great service 
 to this community, your general counsel is there engaged in 
 this vile conspiracy. Now you know it, you know it well, 
 Erskine M. Phelps, and you should stop it. 
 
 Marshall Field, merchant prince, the founder of a great 
 museum, a museum that shall be the home of art, literature, 
 and science; Marshall Field, whose voice is heard, when he 
 chooses to make it heard, in the councils of the nation; Mar- 
 shall Fieldj to whom there has been no such word as failure 
 in all his private undertakings; Marshall Field, stockholder, 
 influential citizen; Marshall Field, bring your influence to 
 bear as a stockholder and stop this robbery.
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 57 
 
 Thus Mr. Harlan went through the list. It hurt, and 
 it helped, too, for it aroused public opinion all over the 
 State, and State opinion was needed, for when the re- 
 formers and Mayor Harrison, elected, went down to 
 Springfield to protest, they found the State system 
 at work for Yerkes, and it was at work for the gas 
 companies also. It was one of the worst sessions in the 
 history of the State. Everybody captains of industry 
 and bosses, bootblacks, hack-drivers, and chambermaids 
 talked graft ; all men seemed to have money, and the bars 
 and poker games were awash with it. It was a system in 
 joyous operation, and anybody the reformers, Chicago, 
 the whole State could see just what it was and whose it 
 was and who were directing it. 
 
 Yerkes sat in a chair at the head of the stairs in the 
 rotunda of the capitol; he represented the American busi- 
 ness man. In the executive chamber was Governor Tanner ; 
 he represented the State machine. William Lorimer occu- 
 pied a chair in the Senate chamber; he represented the 
 Republican party organization of Cook County. In the 
 lobby moved " Doc " Jamieson (Republican) and Roger 
 Sullivan (Democrat). The Democrats of Cook County 
 turn over to the Republicans the legislators they elect just 
 as the Republicans of Chicago deliver Republican alder- 
 men to the Democrats. But Roger Sullivan and his fol- 
 lowers represented the Hopkins-Sullivan-Gahan Democrats 
 at Springfield, and the two groups of " leaders " labored 
 together. One day when Mayor Harrison, there to speak 
 for his city, came up the stairs, Yerkes laughed at him, 
 and well he might ; for with both party leaders, the Gov-
 
 58 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ernor, and the State delivering over the city to him, what 
 could the Mayor of the city do? It was absurd. The 
 Mayor protested and the citizens met in mass, but their 
 State government did not represent them; it represented 
 " Business " ; special, not common, interests. And the gas 
 and the traction bills were advanced. 
 
 There was a hitch over the gas bills. They went to 
 committee with the understanding that everything was 
 " arranged," and gas stock rose. The bills did not come 
 out and the stock dropped. Then " all was settled " and 
 the stock revived. Again the bill hung, and all was unset- 
 tled, especially the stock. This happened time and time 
 again, till the impression was spread abroad that the 
 People's and the Ogden were fighting. Then the bills came 
 out and were passed. It developed afterward that while 
 petty legislators may have received cash bribes for gas 
 legislation, the " Senate combine " and the bosses were 
 taking their pay out of the stock market, and the succes- 
 sion of favorable reports and apparent failures were only 
 for stock- jobbing purposes. After the session Lorimer, 
 Jamieson, and others had plenty of money, and people 
 were asking them " where they got it." The answer in the 
 public mind was that they " got it " for putting the gas 
 bills through with the traction deal, and they were silent 
 for two years. Then they suddenly explained. Their 
 belated explanation differed somewhat from that just 
 given, but it admits that they received gas stock and is 
 full of incidental interest. 
 
 In 1899 these Republican bosses were accused of a wish 
 to make John W. Gates a United States Senator. When
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 59 
 
 such politicians choose such a " business man " for such 
 high office, it is a safe working hypothesis to assume that 
 the man himself or the business he represents has been at 
 least a steady contributor to campaign funds. The Chi- 
 cago newspapers had to account for the sudden rise of 
 this great financial " sport " to such " bad eminence," and 
 they recalled that in the rush of business men to the 
 scandalous legislature of 1897 Gates was there with two 
 bills for his Illinois Steel and Wire Company, and that 
 Lorimer and Jamieson helped him to pass them. Now 
 Lorimer and Jamieson were for Gates for United States 
 Senator. Why? Report had it that Gates had purchased 
 for them at 82, two thousand shares apiece of gas stock; 
 and that when the gas bills passed Lorimer sold his at 93, 
 while Jamieson held on till he got 103 and cleared $40,000. 
 The bosses liked this story, for the Gates bills were " honest 
 bills." Here is Jamieson's statement as printed in the Chi- 
 cago Evening Journal: 
 
 As far as the stock story goes, it is correct. It is also true that 
 the start of it was the four thousand shares of gas stock which 
 Mr. Gates margined for us. It was in return for our looking 
 out for Bills 90 and 108 [Gates's], which were liable to be 
 overlooked in the rush of the closing day of the legislature. 
 They were perfectly honest bills, there was no opposition to 
 them, and our influence simply went to the extent of having 
 them called up for discussion and passage. There were no 
 views or votes against them, and naturally they passed. Mr. 
 Gates in return gave us the gas stock and we carried it through 
 the big rise. With the money made we have made other deals. 
 We have speculated freely and I may say with some success,
 
 60 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and I do not care who knows it. There is nothing about the 
 entire transaction to conceal, and perhaps it will answer 
 the question some of our enemies have asked, " Where did 
 you get it? " Since it is out, I have no desire to deny or 
 conceal it. 
 
 As for Mr. Gates's candidacy, that is another matter. I do 
 not know what his ambitions are. But I will say this, that he 
 can have anything I can give him or help him to get. He has 
 been a heavy contributor to the Republican campaign funds 
 for many years, and has taken a big interest in State politics. 
 He is a big man in this State, brainy, influential, and a leading 
 manufacturer. He would make a good Senator and he can have 
 my support whenever he wants it. I am making no announce- 
 ment of his candidacy, neither do I deny it. He could have a 
 very large portion of Cook County back of him. 
 
 Lorimer, Congressman and boss, said : " I have no desire 
 to conceal anything. What Dr. Jamieson has said I 
 indorse, and I am inclined to think Mr. Gates would get a 
 good chance of winning if he entered the race as a candi- 
 date for Senator." 
 
 Gates did not go to the Senate, so we may pass this 
 side-light on the way " the system " produces United 
 States Senators. Pass also, but note well, the exposure this 
 " explanation " makes of the character of the Cook County 
 leaders of the Republican party of Illinois. The fact of 
 immediate interest is that the gas bills went through the 
 legislature and were signed by the Governor, and that 
 Chicago did not care. The city had been torn up again 
 and again for the mains of companies that promised com- 
 petition to the trust, and always the competitors sold out
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 61 
 
 to the trust. They were at least relieved of that condition, 
 for the purpose of the bills was to create a monopoly. 
 
 Chicago concentrated all its attention upon the Hum- 
 phrey Bills, and that attention began to take effect. These 
 bills had come down from the " Senate combine " to the 
 House, and were in a fair way of being passed there, when 
 the agitation in Chicago and the fight of the Chicago 
 newspapers, which circulate throughout the State, aroused 
 the country people, who began to speak to their represent- 
 atives in the lower house. There was no direct appeal from 
 Chicago to the country. I have never yet come upon an 
 instance where a State, having been made intelligent con- 
 cerning any sound, essential demand of a city, has failed 
 to respond, but few cities have learned to confide in the 
 " farmers," as they call them, and Chicago had not. Chi- 
 cago's case was presented only indirectly to Illinois, but 
 the State acted. Illinois killed the Humphrey Bills in the 
 House. 
 
 That did not beat the bosses. Chicago's chief stated 
 objection to the Humphrey Bills was that they violated 
 the home-rule principle, so Yerkes substituted another, 
 called the Allen Bill, which did not grant outright the 
 fifty-year extension of franchises, but permitted the Chi- 
 cago council to do so. From the point of view of the 
 country this was fair, since it left the problem to Chicago, 
 but as Chicago saw it, the move was an appeal from the 
 State system back to the city system, and, with the impli- 
 cation of threatened bribery of the council, the Allen Bill 
 threw the city into a fresh tempest of passion. The swing 
 of public opinion was so swift that even the Allen Bill
 
 62 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 seemed in danger. The 'country members had " lost their 
 nerve," and the bosses saw that the measure must be ad- 
 vanced under the gavel. Speaker Curtis was afraid to use 
 force, and he suddenly developed a " gum boil," and was 
 sent off in a special car to Mammoth Cave. The Speaker 
 pro tern, hammered the bill through to the third reading, 
 then it was passed by both houses and Governor Tanner 
 signed it. 
 
 The next step for Yerkes now was to get a Chicago 
 council that would pass an ordinance to carry the Allen 
 Law into effect. The outlook was discouraging, for the 
 town was ringing with wrath, but Yerkes and his friends 
 in both parties went quietly to work. The honest news- 
 papers and the League also went to work, however, and 
 loudly, and their appeal was to the people to send up 
 aldermen that Yerkes couldn't buy. How the people re- 
 sponded, I have told in an article on Chicago in " The 
 Shame of the Cities." But there is a part of the story I did 
 not tell, Mayor Harrison's part. The League had tried to 
 get enough honest aldermen to organize the council, but 
 failed. Johnnie Powers beat them and the combine con- 
 trolled the committees and had a majority for Yerkes's 
 Lyman ordinance, which was to put the Allen Law into 
 effect. But the Mayor presides in the Chicago council, 
 and he has a veto which it takes a two-thirds vote to 
 override. Carter H. Harrison was the key to the situation. 
 
 The time was come for Yerkes to " see " Mayor Har- 
 rison. The promoter had called often on the young man 
 in the city hall, but always the Mayor's secretary or 
 someone else was by. Yerkes asked the Mayor to dismiss
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 63 
 
 the witness or go into a separate room, but the Mayor 
 never would. Now, with the council organized and ready, 
 Yerkes had to " see " Harrison, and alone, and he saw him 
 alone, as Yerkes thought; but there was a witness, so I 
 know that Yerkes said that he could not understand why 
 the young Mayor was against traction. " Many of my 
 friends in the deal are your friends," he said. " Some of 
 your friends are in it. Why are you against it? " And the 
 Mayor answered that. Then Yerkes put to the Mayor the 
 great question : 
 
 " Mr. Mayor, what is it that you want ? " 
 
 When the Mayor answered that, Mr. Yerkes saw the 
 beginning of the end of his Chicago career. He did not 
 give up at once. The fight proceeded in the council, and 
 it was a fight indeed. Reform aldermen were bought over 
 and Harrison Democrats weakened, but the reformers put 
 spies on their men and Harrison put the whip on his. And 
 the System had its troubles, too. Aldermen in the boodle 
 combine were asked by their children if what the other 
 " scholars said at school was true, that their papa was a 
 boodler " ? Willing boodlers coming home at night found 
 a mass committee from the ward .waiting to ask them if 
 they were going to " sell us out to Yerkes "? One alder- 
 man, finding his house closed against him one night, 
 knocked for admittance, and, when his wife answered, she 
 asked through the closed door if he was " for Chicago or 
 for Yerkes "? Some of these men declared they would 
 have to " go back on the party," and many more had to 
 " turn honest," for a mob, organized by Harrison 
 Democrats, stood ready with ropes at the crisis to hang
 
 64 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 all " traitors." The council did not make the Allen Law 
 effective; it did not grant a fifty-year extension of fran- 
 chise for " nothing but boodle." Mayor Harrison defeated 
 the treason of his own party. 
 
 Chicago is thinking seriously now of throwing aside 
 Mr. Harrison for a mayor who will give the city adminis- 
 trative reform, and anyone who will talk with this remark- 
 able man must feel that a change is necessary. He has 
 made many improvements. He has abolished some intoler- 
 able abuses. With all that he has accomplished, however, 
 graft and inefficiency persist, and I could not find in his 
 own mind any hope of such thorough-going administra- 
 tive reform as that which Chicago now seems bent upon. 
 No, that will not come from Mr. Harrison; he does not, 
 in his heart, care enough about good government to give 
 it. But Harrison does care about self-government; he 
 really has a sense of government for a people. I don't 
 know how he came by it, whether it was born in him or 
 was acquired from his political experience, nor does that 
 matter. Harrison is not merely a Democrat ; he is a demo- 
 crat with a small d. For the democracy he withstood 
 Yerkes and all Yerkes's money. And he withstood also 
 Richard Croker. The Tammany boss called on the ambi- 
 tious young Mayor just before a National Democratic 
 Convention. He spoke for himself, William C. Whitney, 
 and other National Democrats, and his subject was the 
 future of the party and Mr. Harrison. As the Mayor 
 once put it with a laugh: " Croker took me up on the 
 mountain and showed me the cities of the earth." And 
 while Harrison contemplated the view, Croker said that
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 65 
 
 he had a friend, Mr. Yerkes, and that anything Mayor 
 Harrison could do for that friend would be appreciated 
 by Mr. Croker and by Croker's and Whitney's Wall 
 Street friends, whom Yerkes had loaded up with Chicago 
 traction stock. The Chicago Democratic Mayor put aside 
 the temptation of the National Democrats, and he cut 
 loose from some of the same sort of " Democrats " at 
 home. He did not recognize John R. Walsh. He fought 
 Johnnie Powers and his Democratic combine. He finally 
 dropped " Bobbie " Burke, his own Democratic boss. And 
 when leaders of the Hopkins-Sullivan-Gahan wing of the 
 Cook County Democracy came to him to sign an ordinance 
 to permit them to sell out their Ogden Gas Company and 
 complete the deal with the People's Gas and Coke Com- 
 pany, he refused them also. The two companies have 
 finally come to an understanding with John R. Walsh, 
 Roger Sullivan, etc., on the Ogden board; and C. K. G. 
 Billings, chairman of the People's board, on the board of 
 Walsh's bank. But they could not combine legally, and 
 it was Harrison who foiled them. Harrison has lost all 
 these leaders of the " business end " of his own party, 
 and he had beaten them year by year till this spring (1904) 
 William R. Hearst came along with his anti-trust boom 
 for the Presidency and combined with those fellows who 
 have sold out the Democracy to trusts. With such help the 
 Hopkins-Sullivan-Burke-Powers Democracy rose and de- 
 feated the Harrison Democracy. Let Chicago put Har- 
 rison aside, and go on its way, as it must, but the city 
 should acknowledge that this man has served well the City 
 of Chicago and American democracy.
 
 66 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 But this is a Republican article. Yerkes, beaten in 
 Chicago, was looking back to the State again. And Chi- 
 cago, victorious in Chicago, was also looking back to the 
 State. Yerkes asked only time and no legislation. Chicago 
 demanded the repeal of the Allen Law in the session of 
 1899. Yerkes's hope was in the State system ; Chicago's 
 was in the people of Illinois, and this time the appeal was 
 direct; not sympathetic, but emotional and intimate, and 
 the country papers took it up. Chicago asked the State 
 to keep out of the Legislature every man who had voted 
 for the Allen Law, and I'd like to have every city in 
 every State grasp the significance of the result of this 
 cry of Chicago to Illinois of sixteen retiring Senators 
 who voted for the act, but two were reflected ; and of the 
 eighty-two Representatives who voted for it, but four- 
 teen were reflected. 
 
 By this verdict the State system was thrown out of 
 order once more, and it had to be rebuilt. The " Senate 
 combine " was reorganized, but it was timid, and Law- 
 rence Y. Sherman, one of the fourteen Representatives 
 reflected over their Allen vote, was elected Speaker of 
 the House. But Sherman, a lean, long, fighting country- 
 man, " deceived," he said, " by Lorimer," was swearing 
 angry at the Cook County ring, and when he organized the 
 House he knew what he was about. It was his House, not 
 Yerkes's, not Lorimer's, and it was going to repeal the 
 Allen Law " first off." No Lorimer-Jamieson leader dared 
 approach Sherman, so Yerkes himself sent for him and 
 wanted the Speaker to " gavel " the repeal down. 
 
 "Will the Allen Law be repealed? " he asked Sherman.
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 67 
 
 " I don't know," said Sherman, " but there will be a 
 roll-call." 
 
 " If there's a roll-call the bill will be repealed," said 
 the captain of industry. 
 
 " Do you think I would stand up there and suspend a 
 roll-call on a measure so important as that? " Sherman 
 asked. 
 
 Then Yerkes became angry. " You don't dare let the 
 Allen Law be repealed. No man can turn tail on our 
 interests and live politically." 
 
 There was the voice of the System, the sentiment of Big 
 Business. Sherman dared, and Sherman has had to fight 
 for his political life; but he lives politically by fighting. 
 And he lives in Illinois, too. Yerkes lived in New York and 
 London. There was a roll-call on the Allen repeal, and it 
 was carried, with only one or two votes against it. The 
 Senate passed it on up to Governor Tanner, and the 
 Governor signed it. That ended traction legislation in 
 the interest of the franchise boodlers ; and it ended the 
 use of the State government as a system for turning out 
 laws for special interests. But it did not destroy the Sys- 
 tem itself. 
 
 Mayor Harrison and the Chicago reformers, strength- 
 ened in the city council, took the aggressive now. They 
 could refuse to extend franchises to the street railways, 
 but they would have to let the companies run over the 
 time, since the city had no power to take the property. 
 They did not all want " municipal ownership," but the 
 city had to obtain from the State Legislature power to 
 receive back the property in order to carry on negotia-
 
 68 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 tions to compel fair terms. They might not want to exer- 
 cise that power, but they had to have it. They asked the 
 Legislature of 1899 for it. The legislators, afraid of the 
 whole subject, would not touch any phase of it, and noth- 
 ing was done. Negotiations with the companies pro- 
 ceeded, and the disposition of the city council, Mayor, and 
 reformers was to be fair, but the traction people would 
 not give up their faith in corrupt force. They would not 
 settle. In 1901 the city returned to the Springfield Legis- 
 lature with a comprehensive bill for a general street rail- 
 way law, but the State system was being reorganized, and 
 it was strong enough to strangle the city's bill in 
 committee. 
 
 That brought home to some of the Chicago reformers 
 with full force the truth that the State Legislature, being 
 a part of their municipal government, was as much in 
 need of systematic study and improvement as the council. 
 That was as far as they saw. They did not yet realize 
 that the legislative system is but a part of the whole State 
 system, that this system is rooted in the corruption of 
 the lesser cities, the towns, and country districts, and that 
 general State reform is as necessary as municipal reform 
 in Chicago. But Chicago reformers make their observa- 
 tions, not in a study, but on the firing line, and they see 
 only what is right before them. They shoot at what they 
 see, however, and in 1901 they organized a Legislative 
 Voters' League for Cook County, with George E. Cole 
 as president and Hoyt King as secretary. This League 
 applies to the nomination and election of Senators and 
 Representatives from Chicago the same methods that
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 69 
 
 proved so effective for aldermanic reform, viz.: it keeps 
 records of legislators' votes and conduct, publishes them, 
 and advises upon their nomination and election. Reform 
 in Chicago always organizes, informs and helps direct 
 the public opinion aroused, and its leaders wield that tre- 
 mendous power with tact, political skill, and common 
 sense, and with effect as they proved so dramatically at 
 the next session of the Legislature, the session of 1903. 
 
 Chicago was bound to have its enabling legislation. 
 Yerkes was gone, but his representatives and successors 
 and the Lorimer-Jamieson Republican ring were bound to 
 have no legislation. There was a new Governor, Richard 
 Yates, but Lorimer had led a convention stampede to 
 nominate him, and he was " with the party." The Legis- 
 lature was Republican, as usual. Lawrence Y. Sherman 
 and a group of independent Republicans, called the 
 " Fighting Forty," were preparing to represent Chicago, 
 but the Chicago bosses organized the House with John 
 H. Miller for Speaker. There were rumors that the news- 
 papers and the Legislative Voters' League had warned 
 and won over the " Senate combine," but it was the same 
 old bipartisan combine, and the bosses trusted it. The 
 situation seemed to be in Lorimer's hands when the rep- 
 resentatives of the Municipal and Legislative Voters' 
 Leagues, of the city council, and of all the candidates 
 that were running for Mayor in the pending Chicago 
 campaign, looked it over at Springfield. Mr. Edwin Bur- 
 ritt Smith, who was there as special counsel to the city 
 council's Traction Committee, sums it up thus in his 
 article in the Atlantic Monthly for January, 1904:
 
 70 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 It was understood that, as a condition of his election, the 
 Speaker was required to promise to carry out Hinman's [the 
 editor of Yerkes's " Republican " Inter Ocean] orders on all 
 street railway measures, and to use the gavel when necessary 
 to defeat objectionable legislation. Mr. Gus Nohe Lori- 
 mer's member from his own legislative district when asked 
 whether there was to be any traction legislation, replied: " I 
 don't know. I do whatever the old man [Lorimer] tells me; 
 and he tells me to do about traction as Hinman says." Hinman 
 himself announced that there would be no traction legislation 
 at that session. 
 
 Congressman Lorimer, the boss, did not want to appear 
 at Springfield, because he was running a " good business 
 man " for Mayor on the Republican ticket in Chicago, 
 and his candidate was for traction legislation. But one 
 of the city's bills, drawn by Walter L. Fisher, of the 
 Municipal Voters' League, was going through the Senate. 
 This was the Mueller Bill, and the " combine," under the 
 whip of the League, the Chicago newspapers, and public 
 opinion generally, sent the measure down to the House. 
 Lorimer had to go to Springfield, and he took personal 
 charge in the House. It was indeed an emergency. The 
 Mueller Bill was safely buried in the Municipal Commit- 
 tee, but clearly, with the lobby full of Chicago reformers 
 and committees from citizens' associations, to say nothing 
 of his own " business man for Mayor " all demanding 
 legislation some bill had to pass. Lorimer gave one day 
 the word for action, and both parties in the House held 
 caucuses that evening. The result was bad" for the 
 organization." Lorimer sent for the legislators one by
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 71 
 
 one, and late at night called a conference in his own room 
 in the Leland Hotel, of certain ring-leaders, the Chicago 
 Aldermanic Committee, Graeme Stuart, his business can- 
 didate for Mayor; Frank O. Lowden (a candidate this 
 year for Governor), Edwin Burritt Smith, and others. 
 Mr. Smith says Lorimer a Congressman, mind you, not 
 a State legislator opened the discussion by asking, 
 " What do you want ? " Lorimer declared that the Mueller 
 Bill was dead, and he offered as a substitute a bill to be 
 called the Lindley Bill. That the official representatives 
 of Chicago rejected; "it bore unmistakable signs," Mr. 
 Smith says, " of tender regard for traction interests." 
 Lorimer accepted some amendments, proposed others him- 
 self, and when these failed to satisfy the friends of the 
 city, the boss, a leader of the Republican party in Illinois, 
 said the Lindley Bill was all Chicago would get. " You 
 must accept it with these amendments, pull down all 
 opposition in the House and from the Chicago press, 
 and actively support the bill. It is the Lindley Bill or 
 nothing." 
 
 The Chicago press had been telling the city and State 
 all about the situation, and, with the Allen Bill episode in 
 mind, the organization legislators were anxious and weak. 
 Chicago decided to reject the Lindley substitute and to 
 fight its own boss on the floor of the House. With Sher- 
 man's " Fighting Forty " and the Democrats who were 
 willing to help they had the votes, and all that they needed 
 was a roll-call. But the Speaker, asked if he would allow 
 one, refused to say. For two days there were skirmishes, 
 and the voting showed that the " organization " was in a
 
 72 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 precarious condition, but at last the Speaker rose, pale, 
 but with gavel in hand, to force the amendments to the 
 Lindley Bill. Back of him were some women ; beside and 
 before him stood a score of strong men ready to defend 
 him. The bill was called up, and Mr. Lindley offered 
 Lorimer's Amendment Number One. The law required a 
 roll-call upon a demand of five members. Ninety-six rose 
 and shouted " Roll-call ! " The Speaker would not hear ; 
 he put the amendment and, amid confusion and outcries, 
 swung down his gavel and declared the amendment car- 
 ried. Amid great excitement Amendment Number Two 
 was offered ; members cried " Roll-call ! Roll-call ! " But 
 again the gavel fell and the second amendment was " car- 
 ried," and so, with the storm waxing, Numbers Three, 
 Four, Five, and Six were hammered through. But at the 
 sixth the House broke, and there was a rush for the Speak- 
 er's chair. If it hadn't been for the women back of him, 
 missiles would have been showered upon him; as it was, 
 the wave of angry members rose up to the chair, and the 
 Speaker fled through a back door. 
 
 Balked, the House paused a moment; then Representa- 
 tive Sherman whispered something to a friendly Repre- 
 sentative, who called the House to order. The House re- 
 organized with Representative Charles A. Allen as tem- 
 porary Speaker, a roll-call showed a quorum present, and 
 the Lindley Bill was moved for reconsideration. One by 
 one, on roll-call, the amendments, Numbers Six, Five, 
 Four, etc., were rejected in reverse order, the bill was 
 laid on the table, and the Mueller Bill was substituted for 
 it. Then a scathing resolution of censure was passed upon
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 73 
 
 the fugitive Speaker and the House adjourned. He was 
 in conference with Governor Yates, Lorimer, and Hinman, 
 and when he returned to his seat that afternoon he took 
 his censure and excused himself by making charges of 
 attempts to bribe him, which were investigated and found 
 to be unfounded. After the investigation the Mueller 
 traction bill was finally passed and Governor Yates signed 
 it. He wrote a memorandum giving reasons why the bill 
 should not become a law, but he made it a law. 
 
 Now for the Missouri-Illinois parallel. When Mr. Folk 
 realized that the political corruption of St. Louis was but 
 a part of the financial-political State system, which has 
 supplanted a representative democracy with an oligarchy 
 of criminals, he started what he called a counter-revolu- 
 tion. He saw, moreover, that his party, controlled by 
 boodlers, was the organization of this treason. The Dem- 
 ocratic party represented not democracy, but the enemies 
 of democracy. What did he do? Because he was a Demo- 
 crat, he appealed first to the Democrats of Missouri, be- 
 cause they were Democrats, to clear out first of all the 
 Democratic boodlers because they were Democrats. That 
 was putting party loyalty to a pretty severe test. What 
 happened? Such a splendid exhibition of genuine patriot- 
 ism as this country seldom has a chance to display. The 
 Democrats of Missouri rose up and they smashed that 
 rotten old machine all to pieces ; they took back the con- 
 trol of their party and they are making it fit for any 
 American citizen to support. And the good citizens of 
 Missouri will be asked to support it, for, incidentally, the 
 Democrats insured the nomination of Mr. Folk for gov-
 
 74. STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ernor. He will make his campaign on the same issue, 
 "Boodle," and since. the Republican party also boodled, 
 he will ask all men of all parties to let him organize an 
 administration that will represent, not bribery, but all 
 the men of Missouri. 
 
 The issue was not made so clear, nor so personal, nor 
 so exciting in Illinois, but Illinois seems to be more intelli- 
 gent politically than Missouri, less partisan, and boodle 
 was the issue there this summer. Chicago realized after 
 its eight years of war that the existing political system 
 misrepresented the people in both city and State govern- 
 ment, and that the Republican party, the dominant one, 
 was the party to try first to clean up. In it the worst 
 traitors to the people were the Lorimer-Jamieson group. 
 The Chicago reformers asked the Republicans of Cook 
 County and of Illinois to take away from them the con- 
 trol of the party and restore it to Republicans who would 
 represent the common interest of all the people of the 
 State. The Chicago Daily News, The Tribune, and The 
 Record-Herald, the trusted newspapers that express pub- 
 lic opinion in Chicago, and (therefore, I think) wield that 
 " power of the press " which so many journals elsewhere 
 are bemoaning the loss of, voiced a demand to have Charles 
 S. Deneen nominated for Governor. 
 
 Deneen is a Cook County Republican leader, a politi- 
 cian, who associated for years with Lorimer and Jamieson. 
 Chicago is not afraid of politicians. All the city's best 
 reform efforts have been directed, not to put reformers in 
 office, but rather to force the politicians to represent the 
 people, and the " newspaper trust " and the Voters'
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 75 
 
 Leagues are developing a class of politicians, not always 
 sincere, who recognize that public opinion is a constant 
 force in politics. Deneen is an honest man; I never heard 
 his integrity questioned. He has been State's Attorney 
 since 1896, and his record is one of orderly, efficient, fear- 
 less, and aggressively honest service. He did not go forth, 
 like Folk, seeking out corruption in all places, but he 
 performed the duties that came to him with tireless, mas- 
 terful energy, and there is a line of cells in one State 
 prison so full of business men whom Deneen convicted 
 that it is called Bankers' Row. Deneen is a remarkable 
 man. But, for the sake of simplification, let us say only 
 that he is a politician who believes that it is good politics 
 to serve the public. 
 
 That is all Chicago requires, and that made the issue 
 in the Republican party of Illinois in the summer of 1904 ; 
 the fight was over the nomination for Governor, but the 
 question raised was: What shall the Republican party 
 represent? Deneen said : " The public interest." He wanted 
 to be Governor, but he understood that the men who sup- 
 ported him were seeking to beat the Lorimer-Jamieson ring, 
 which believes that the Republican party exists to serve 
 special interests. Lorimer and Jamieson understood this, 
 too. There were other candidates. Governor Yates, a shal- 
 low, pompous person, sought a second term, but he thought 
 Yates was the issue. Then there was an eloquent young 
 lawyer, Frank O. Lowden, son-in-law of George M. Pull- 
 man, who wants to be something prominent in politics, 
 United States Senator or Governor. He is a " fine fellow " 
 and he has more personal friends among the reformers and
 
 76 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 best citizens of Chicago than Deneen, but when he appeared 
 as a candidate for the nomination the old ring backed him, 
 not all his friends. Mr. Lowden is a " safe man " ; he is 
 the type that " fools " most good citizens. Having a 
 " laudable ambition," he seeks an office, not an issue, and 
 he cannot understand why he should not " welcome the 
 support of his party " ; and when he achieves office he 
 cannot understand why he should not support his party. 
 The Lowdens are the kind of men political bosses put up 
 when the ring is on the verge of a defeat, and, being " good 
 men," they cloud issues and save the rings. They do not 
 mislead Chicago. The city saw through Lowden to the 
 ring behind him, and the Republicans of Cook County sent 
 to the convention a large majority of delegates instructed 
 for Deneen. Many of the delegates, and some of the ward 
 leaders, were reluctant and hankered for their old boss, 
 but Public Opinion held them to their instructions. 
 
 If Deneen, or, better still, if Chicago had made as care- 
 ful a canvass of the country as Folk did of Missouri, I 
 believe Illinois would have responded like Missouri. As 
 it was, the Republicans of Illinois did not decide. The 
 country districts followed their leaders and the nomina- 
 tion was left to the convention. There were six or seven 
 candidates. Yates, with his patronage-built State organ- 
 ization ; Lowden, with the old bosses, the special interests, 
 and his money ; and Deneen, with Cook County, the Chi- 
 cago newspapers, and the best public opinion these three 
 led in strength, and a deadlock ensued which, for dura- 
 tion, was unprecedented in the State. 
 
 The efforts to break it developed the apex of the State
 
 CHICAGO'S APPEAL TO ILLINOIS 77 
 
 System. I said a while ago that the United States Govern- 
 ment was a part of the State and municipal systems of 
 Illinois and Chicago. Speaker Cannon, of the National 
 House of Representatives, was chairman of the convention, 
 and United States Senators Cullum and Hopkins were pres- 
 ent also. These men, and the whole " Federal Bunch," as 
 the Federal officeholders are called, " worked " for Lowden. 
 Not that they cared especially for him, though one of them 
 remarked that it was well to have " a governor with a bar- 
 rel." But their influence was for " harmony," the " good of 
 the party," not of the State, nor even of the Republican 
 citizens of the State but of the old party leaders and " the 
 thing as it was." Well, they did help to break the deadlock. 
 Chicago and Illinois resent Federal interference. When this 
 spring the Municipal League made its successful fight to 
 beat " Doc " Jamieson in that boss's own ward, Congress- 
 man Lorimer and Senators Cullom and Hopkins persuaded 
 President Roosevelt to appoint Jamieson Naval Officer of 
 the Port. Upon their advice, confirmed, as he said, by 
 such " respectable business men as John M. Smyth," etc., 
 the President gave the discredited boss the office and the 
 moral and political support that went with it. William 
 Kent says that that helped to defeat Jamieson in his 
 ward. So, at the convention, the Chicago newspapers, 
 talking always of the old ring, were able to point out that 
 the National Government was back of Lowden and his 
 backers. This crystallized public opinion. The conven- 
 tion took a recess for ten days. When it reconvened, 
 though the deadlock held for two days more, the current 
 of sentiment was toward Deneen ; and Yates, to get even
 
 78 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 with the ring that had used, then dropped him, directed 
 his delegates to vote for Deneen. 
 
 There was a " deal " between Yates and Deneen. But 
 the terms were honorable, and besides, " political deals " 
 are, like politicians, not bad in themselves. They are bad 
 when they trade the public interest off for special and 
 personal interests, and the deal which carried out the 
 wishes of the best public opinion in Illinois and made 
 Charles S. Deneen the Republican candidate for Governor 
 (and Lawrence Y. Sherman the candidate for Lieu tenant- 
 Governor), did for the Republican party of Illinois what 
 the Democratic voters of Missouri did for the Democratic 
 party, when they sent up delegates instructed for Folk 
 restored the control to the people of the party. That deal 
 completed the political ruin of the Lorimer-Jamieson ring, 
 and, I verily believe, begins a movement to carry on out 
 into the State the reform which was begun eight years ago 
 in Chicago a reform which aims to make the government, 
 municipal and State, represent, not bribers, not corrupt 
 politicians, not corrupting business men, but the common 
 interests of the State the citizens and friends, not the 
 enemies, of the Republic. 2 
 
 2 Deneen was elected governor of Illinois by an overwhelming 
 majority.
 
 WISCONSIN: REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 RESTORED 
 
 THE STORY OF LA FOLLETTE'S WAR ON THE RAIL- 
 ROADS THAT RULED HIS STATE 
 (October, 1904) 
 
 THE story of the State of Wisconsin is the story of Gov- 
 ernor LaFollette. He is the head of the State. Not many 
 Governors are that. In all the time I spent studying the 
 government of Missouri I never once had to see or name 
 the Governor of Missouri, and I doubt if many of my 
 readers know who he was. They need not. He was only the 
 head of the paper government described in the Constitu- 
 tion, and most Governors are simply " safe men " set up 
 as figureheads by the System, which is the actual govern- 
 ment that is growing up in the United States in place of 
 the " government of the people, by the people, and for 
 the people, which shall not perish from the earth." The 
 System, as we have found it, is a reorganization of the 
 political and financial powers of the State by which, for 
 boodle of one sort or another, the leading politicians of 
 both parties conduct the government in the interest of 
 those leading businesses which seek special privileges and 
 pay for them with bribes and the " moral " support of 
 graft. And a " safe man " is a man who takes his ease, 
 honors, and orders, lets the boss reign, and makes no trou- 
 ble for the System. 
 
 79
 
 80 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 There is trouble in Wisconsin. Bounded on the east by 
 Lake Michigan, on the north by Lake Superior, on the 
 west by the Mississippi River, Wisconsin is a convenient, 
 rich, and beautiful State. New England lumbermen 
 stripped fortunes of forest off it, and, uncovering a fat 
 soil watered by a thousand lakes and streams, settlers 
 poured in from Northwestern Europe and made this new 
 Northwest ripen into dairy farms and counties of golden 
 wheat. From the beginning Wisconsin has paid, nor is 
 there now any material depression or financial distress 
 in the State. Yet there is trouble in Wisconsin. What is 
 the matter? I asked a few hundred people out there to 
 explain it, and though some of them smiled and others 
 frowned, all gave substantially one answer : " LaFollette- 
 ism." They blame one man. 
 
 Robert Marion LaFollette was born on a farm in Dane 
 County, Wisconsin, June 14, 1855. His father was a 
 Kentucky-bred French Huguenot; his mother was Scotch- 
 Irish. When the boy was eight months old the father died, 
 leaving the mother and four children, and, at the age of 
 fourteen, " Little Bob," as his followers still call him, 
 became the head of the family. He worked the farm till 
 he was nineteen years old, then sold it and moved the 
 family to Madison, the county-seat and capital of the 
 State. If, with this humble start, LaFollette had gone 
 into business, his talents might have made him a captain 
 of industry ; and then, no matter how he won it, his suc- 
 cess would have made him an inspiration for youth. But 
 he made a mistake. He entered the State University with 
 the class of '79. Even so, he might have got over his col-
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 81 
 
 lege education, but his father's French blood (perhaps) 
 stirred to sentiment and the boy thrilled for glory. He 
 had a bent for oratory. In those days debates ranked in 
 the Western colleges where football does now, and " Bob " 
 LaFollette won, in his senior year, all the oratorical con- 
 tests, home, State, and interstate. His interstate oration 
 was on lago, and his round actor's head was turned to the 
 stage, till John McCullough advised him that his short 
 stature was against that career. Also, he says, his debts 
 chained him to the earth. He had to go to work, and he 
 went to work in a law office. In five months he was admit- 
 ted to the bar, and in February, 1880, he opened an office 
 and began to practice. A year or so later the young 
 lawyer was running for an office. 
 
 " They " say in Wisconsin that LaFollette is ambi- 
 tious; that he cannot be happy in private life; that, an 
 actor born, he has to be on a stage. I should say that a 
 man who can move men, as LaFollette can, would seek a 
 career where he could enjoy the visible effect of his elo- 
 quence. But suppose " they " are right and the man is 
 vain ; I don't care. Do you ? I have noticed that a pub- 
 lic official who steals, or, like Lieutenant-Governor Lee, 
 of Missouri, betrays his constituents, may propose to be 
 Governor, without being accused of ambition. " They " 
 seem to think a boodler's aspirations are natural. He may 
 have a hundred notorious vices ; they do not matter. But 
 a " reformer," a man who wants to serve his people, he 
 must be a white-robed, spotless angel, or " they " will 
 whisper that he is what? A thief?' Oh, no; that is noth- 
 ing ; but that he is ambitious. This is the System at work.
 
 82 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 It was the System in Missouri that, after spending in 
 vain thousands of dollars to " get something on Folk," 
 passed about the damning rumor that he was ambitious. 
 And so in Wisconsin, " they " will take you into a back 
 room and warn you that LaFollette is ambitious. I asked 
 if he was dishonest. Oh dear, no. Not that. Not a man 
 in the State, not the bitterest foe of his that I saw, ques- 
 tioned LaFollette's personal integrity. So I answered that 
 we wanted men of ambition ; that if we could get men to 
 serve us in public life, not for graft, not for money, but 
 for ambition's sake, we should make a great step forward. 
 
 Mr. LaFollette has ambition. He confessed as much to 
 me, but he is after a job, not an office; Governor LaFol- 
 lette's ambition is higher and harder to achieve than any 
 office in the land. 
 
 The first office he sought was that of District Attorney 
 of Dane County, and, although his enemies declare that 
 the man is a radical and was from the start a radical, I 
 gathered from the same source that his only idea at this 
 time was to " pose " before juries " and win cases." Mr. 
 LaFollette married in this year (a classmate), and he says 
 he thought of the small but regular salary of the District 
 Attorney. However this may be, he won the office and he 
 won his cases, so he earned his salary. District Attorney 
 LaFollette made an excellent record. That is freely admit- 
 ted, but my attention was called to the manner of his 
 entrance into politics, as proof of another charge that is 
 made against him in Wisconsin. " They " say LaFollette 
 is a politician. 
 
 " They " say in Missouri that Folk is a politician.
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 83 
 
 " They " say in Illinois that Deneen is a politician. 
 " They " say in the United States that President Roose- 
 velt is a politician. " They " are right. These men are 
 politicians. But what of it? We have blamed our poli- 
 ticians so long for the corruption of our politics that they 
 themselves seem to have been convinced that a politician 
 is necessarily and inherently bad. He isn't, of course. 
 Only a bad politician is bad, and we have been discovering 
 in our studies of graft that a bad business man is worse. 
 To succeed in reform, a man has to understand politics 
 and play the game, or the bad business man will catch him, 
 and then what will he be? He will be an " impracticable 
 reformer," and that, we all know, is awful. 
 
 " Bob " LaFollette is a politician. Irish, as well as 
 French, he was born a master of the game, and he did 
 indeed prove his genius in that first campaign. Single- 
 handed he beat the System. Not that he realized then 
 that there was such a thing. All the young candidate 
 knew when he began was that E. W. Keyes, the post- 
 master at Madison, was the Republican State boss, and, 
 of course, absolute master of Dane County, where he 
 lived. LaFollette was a Republican, but he had no claim 
 of machine service to the office he wanted, and he felt that 
 Boss Keyes and Philip L. Spooner, the local leader, would 
 be against him, so he went to work quietly. He made an 
 issue; LaFollette always has an issue; but his first one 
 wasn't very radical. It had been the practice of District 
 Attorneys to have assistants at the county's expense, and 
 LaFollette promised, if elected, to do all his own work. 
 With this promise he and his friends canvassed the county,
 
 84. STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 house by house, farm by farm, and, partly because they 
 were busy by day, partly because they had to proceed 
 secretly, much of this politics was done at night. The 
 scandal of such " underhand methods " is an offense to 
 this day to the men who were beaten by them. Mr. 
 " Phil " 'Spooner (the Senator's brother) speaks with 
 contempt of LaFollette's " night riders." He says the 
 LaFollette workers went about on horseback after dark 
 and that he used to hear them gallop up to their leader's 
 house late at night. Of course he knows now that they 
 were coming to report and plot, but he didn't know it 
 then. And Boss Keyes, who is still postmaster at Madison, 
 told me he had no inkling of the conspiracy till the con- 
 vention turned up with the delegates nearly all instructed 
 for LaFollette for District Attorney. Then it was too 
 late to do anything. 
 
 Boss Keyes thought this showed another defect in the 
 character of LaFollette. " They " say in Wisconsin that 
 the Governor is " selfish, dictatorial, and will not consult." 
 " They " said that about Folk in Missouri, when he 
 refused to appoint assistants dictated by Boss Butler. 
 Wall Street said it about Roosevelt when he refused to 
 counsel with Morgan upon the advisability of bringing 
 the Northern Securities case, but the West liked that in 
 Roosevelt. The West said it about Parker when he sent 
 his gold telegram to the Democratic National Convention, 
 but the East liked that in Parker. There must be some- 
 thing back of this charge, and a boss should be able to 
 explain it. Boss Keyes cleared it up for me. He said that 
 at the time " Bob " was running for District Attorney,
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 85 
 
 " a few of us here were well, we were managing the 
 party and we were usually consulted about about things 
 generally. But LaFollette, he went ahead on his own 
 hook, and never said a word to well, to me or any of us." 
 So it's not a matter of dictation, but of who dictates, and 
 what. In the case of LaFollette, his dictatorial selfishness 
 consisted in this, that he " saw " the people of the county 
 and the delegates, not " us," not the System. No wonder 
 he was elected. What is more, he was reflected; he kept 
 his promises, and, the second time he ran, LaFollette was 
 the only Republican elected on the county ticket. 
 
 During the two terms of District Attorney LaFollette, 
 important changes were occurring in the Wisconsin State 
 system beyond his ken. Boss Keyes was deposed and 
 Philetus Sawyer became the head of the State. This does 
 not mean that Sawyer was elected Governor; we have 
 nothing to do with Governors yet. Sawyer was a United 
 States Senator. While Keyes was boss, the head of the 
 State was in the post-office at Madison, and it represented, 
 not the people, but the big business interests of the State, 
 principally lumber and the railways, which worked well 
 together and with Keyes. There were several scandals 
 during this " good fellow's " long reign, but big busi- 
 ness had no complaint to make against him. The big 
 graft in this Northwestern State, however, was lumber, 
 and the typical way of getting hold of it wholesale, was 
 for the United States to make to the State grants which 
 the State passed on to railway companies to help " de- 
 velop the resources of the State." Railroad men were in 
 lumber companies, just as lumbermen were in the rail-
 
 86 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 way companies, so railway companies sold cheap to the 
 lumber companies, which cleared the land for the set- 
 tlers. This was business, and while it was necessary to 
 " take care " of the Legislature, the original source of 
 business was the Congress, and that was the place for the 
 head of the System. Keyes had wished to go to the Senate, 
 but Sawyer thought he might as well go himself. He had 
 gone, and now, when Keyes was willing to take the second 
 seat, the business men decided that, since it was all a 
 matter of business, they might as well take it out of 
 politics. Thus Senator Sawyer became boss, and, since he 
 was a lumberman, it was no more than fair that the other 
 seat should go to the railroads. So the big business men 
 got together and they bought the junior United States 
 Senatorship for the Honorable John C. Spooner. 
 
 At Marinette, Wisconsin, lives to-day a rich old lumber- 
 man, Isaac Stephenson. He was associated for years with 
 Senator Sawyer and the other enemies of the Republic in 
 Wisconsin, and he left them because they balked an am- 
 bition of his. Having gone over, however, he began to 
 see things as they are, and not many men to-day are more 
 concerned over the dangers to business of the commercial 
 corruption of government than this veteran who con- 
 fesses that he spent a quarter of a million in politics. 
 
 Once he and Senator Sawyer were comparing notes 
 on the cost to them of United States Senatorships. 
 
 " Isaac," said Sawyer, " how much did you put in to 
 get the Legislature for Spooner that time? " 
 
 " It cost me about twenty-two thousand, Philetus. How 
 much did you put in ? "
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 87 
 
 " Why," said Sawyer, surprised, " it cost me thirty 
 thousand. I thought it cost you thirty." 
 
 " No, it cost me thirty to get it for you when you ran." 
 
 Friends of mine, who are friends of Senator Spooner 
 in Washington, besought me, when they heard I was 
 going to Wisconsin, to " remember that Spooner is a 
 most useful man in the Senate," and I know and shall not 
 forget that. Able, deliberate, resourceful, wise, I believe 
 Senator Spooner comes about as near as any man we 
 have in that august chamber to-day to statesmanship, 
 and I understand he loathes many of the practices of 
 politics. But the question to ask about a representative 
 is, what does he represent? 
 
 Senator Spooner, at home, represented the railroads 
 of his State. He served a term in the Wisconsin assembly, 
 and he served the railroads there. After that he served 
 them as a lobbyist. I do not mean that he went to Madi- 
 son now and then to make arguments for his client. Mr. 
 Spooner spent the session there. Nor do I mean to say 
 that he paid bribes to legislators ; there are honest lobby- 
 ists. But I do say that Mr. Spooner peddled passes, and 
 any railroad man or any grafter will tell you that this 
 is a cheap but most effective form of legislative cor- 
 ruption. United States Senator Spooner, then, is a pro- 
 duct, a flower, perhaps, but none the less he is a growth 
 out of the System, the System which is fighting Governor 
 LaFollette. 
 
 The System was fighting LaFollette 'way back in those 
 days, but the young orator did not know it. He was run- 
 ning for Congress. So far as I can make out, he was
 
 88 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 seeking only more glory for his French blood and a wider 
 field to shine in, but he went after his French satisfaction 
 in a Scotch-Irish fashion. Boss Keyes told me about it. 
 Keyes had been reduced to the control only of his Con- 
 gressional district, and, as he said, " We had it arranged 
 to nominate another man. The place did not belong to 
 Dane County. It was another county's turn, but Bob 
 didn't consult us." Bob was consulting his constituents 
 again, and his night riders were out. The System heard 
 of it earlier than in the District Attorney campaign, and 
 Keyes and Phil Spooner and the other leaders were angry. 
 Keyes did want to rule that Congressional district; it was 
 all he had, and Phil Spooner (who now is the head of the 
 street railway system of Madison) sensed the danger in 
 this self-reliant young candidate. 
 
 " What's this I hear about you being a candidate for 
 Congress?" he said to LaFollette one day. "Don't you 
 know nobody can go to Congress without our approval? 
 You're a fool." 
 
 But LaFollette's men were working, and they carried 
 all except three caucuses (primaries that are something 
 like town meetings) against the ring. The ring bolted, 
 but the people elected him; the people sent LaFollette 
 to Congress at the same time they elected the legislators 
 that sent John C. Spooner to the United States Senate. 
 
 When LaFollette had been in Washington a few weeks, 
 Senator Sawyer found him out and became " like a 
 father " to him. " Our boy " he called him, for LaFollette 
 was the " youngest member." The genial old lumberman 
 took him about and introduced him to the heads of de-
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 89 
 
 partments and finally, one day, asked him what committee 
 he would like to go on. LaFollette said he would prefer 
 some committee where his practice in the law might make 
 him useful, and Sawyer thought " Public Lands " would 
 about do. He would " fix it." Thus the System was com- 
 ing after him, but it held back; there must have been a 
 second thought. For the Speaker put LaFollette not on 
 " Public Lands," but on " Indian Affairs." 
 
 The Governor to-day will tell you with a relish that he 
 was so green then that he began to " read up on Indians " ; 
 he read especially Boston literature on that subject, and 
 he thought of the speeches he could make on Indian 
 wrongs and rights. But there was no chance for an orator. 
 The committee worked and " our boy " read bills. Most 
 of these bills were hard reading and didn't mean much 
 when read. But by and by one came along that was " so 
 full of holes that," as the Governor says, " even I could 
 see through it." It provided for a sale of pine on the 
 Menominee reservation in Wisconsin. Mr. LaFollette took 
 it to the (Cleveland's) Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 
 and this official said he thought it " a little the worst 
 bill of the kind that I have ever seen. Where did it come 
 from ? " They looked and they saw that it had been intro- 
 duced by the member from Oshkosh (Sawyer's home dis- 
 trict). None the less, Mr. LaFollette wanted a report, 
 and the Commissioner said he could have one if he would 
 sit down and write for it. The report so riddled the bill 
 that it lay dead in the committee. One day the Congress- 
 man who introduced it asked about it. 
 
 " Bob, why don't you report my bill ? " he said.
 
 90 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 " Bill," said Bob, " did you write that bill? " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " It's a steal." 
 
 " Let it die then. Don't report it. I introduced it be- 
 cause Sawyer asked me to. He introduced it in the Senate 
 and it is through their committee." 
 
 Sawyer never mentioned the bill, and the incident was 
 dropped with the bill. Some time after, however, a similar 
 incident occurred, and this time Sawyer did mention it. 
 The Indian Affairs Committee was having read, at the 
 rate of two hours a day, a long bill to open the big Sioux 
 Indian reservation in Dakota, by selling some eleven mil- 
 lion acres right through the center. It was said to be a 
 measure most important to South Dakota, and no one 
 objected to anything till the clerk droned out a provision 
 to ratify an agreement between the Indians and certain 
 railroads about a right of way and some most liberal 
 grants of land for terminal town sites. LaFollette in- 
 terrupted, and he began to talk about United States 
 statutes which provided not so generously, yet amply, 
 for land grants to railways, when a Congressman from 
 a neighboring State leaned over and said: 
 
 " Bob, don't you see that those are your home 
 corporations ? " 
 
 Bob said he saw, and he was willing to grant all the 
 land needed for railway purposes, but none for town site 
 schemes. When the committee rose, and LaFollette re- 
 turned to his seat in the house, a page told him Senator 
 Sawyer wanted to see him. He went out and the Senator 
 talked to him for an hour in a most fatherly way, with
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 91 
 
 not a word concerning the Sioux bill till they were about 
 to separate. Then, quite by the way, he said: 
 
 " Oh, say, when that Sioux Injun bill comes up there's 
 a little provision in it for our folks which I wish you to 
 look after." 
 
 LaFollette said the bill was up then, that they had just 
 reached the " little provision for our folks," and that 
 he was opposing it. 
 
 " Why, is that so ? " said Sawyer. " Let's sit down 
 
 and " they had another hour, on town sites. It was 
 
 no use, however. LaFollette " wouldn't consult." Sawyer 
 gave up reasoning with him, but he didn't give up " the 
 little provision." Political force was applied, but not by 
 the senior Senator. The System had other agents for such 
 work. 
 
 Henry C. Payne arrived on the scene. Payne was chair- 
 man of the Republican State Central Committee of Wis- 
 consin, and we have seen in other States what the legis- 
 lative functions of that office are. Payne reached Wash- 
 ington forty-eight hours after LaFollette's balk, and he 
 went at him hard. All sorts of influence was brought to 
 bear, and when LaFollette held out, Payne became so 
 angry that he expressed himself and the spirit of the 
 System in public. To a group in the Ebbitt House he 
 said: 
 
 " LaFollette is a damned fool. If he thinks he can buck 
 a railroad with five thousand miles of continuous line, 
 he'll find he's mistaken. We'll take care of him when the 
 time comes." 
 
 The State machine fought the Congressman in his own
 
 92 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 district, and so did Keyes and the " old regency " at 
 Madison, but LaFollette, the politician, had insisted upon 
 a Congressman's patronage, all of it, and he had used 
 it to strengthen himself at home. LaFollette served three 
 terms in Congress, and when he was defeated in 1890, for 
 the fourth, he went down with the whole party in Wis- 
 consin. This complete overthrow of the Republicans was 
 due to two causes, the McKinley tariff (which LaFollette 
 on the Ways and Means Committee helped to frame) and 
 a piece of State school legislation which angered the 
 foreign and Catholic voters. We need not go into this, 
 and the Democratic administration which resulted bears 
 only indirectly on our story. 
 
 One of the great grafts of Wisconsin (and of many 
 another State) was the public funds in the keeping of the 
 State Treasurer. The Republicans, for years, had de- 
 posited these moneys in banks that stood in with the Sys- 
 tem, and the treasurer shared with these institutions the 
 interest and profits. He, in turn, " divided up " with the 
 campaign fund and the party leaders. The Democrats 
 were pledged to break up this practice and sue the ex- 
 treasurers. Now these treasurers were not all " good " 
 for the money, and when the suits were brought, as they 
 were in earnest, the treasurers' bondsmen were the real 
 defendants. Chief among these was Senator Sawyer, the 
 boss who had chosen the treasurers and backed them 
 and the practice for years. Sawyer was alarmed. It was 
 estimated that there had been $30,000 a year in the 
 graft ; the Attorney-General was going back twenty years, 
 and his suits were for the recovery of all the back inter-
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 93 
 
 est. Several hundred thousand dollars was at stake. 
 And the judge before whom the cases were to be tried was 
 Robert J. Siebecker, brother-in-law and former law part- 
 ner of Robert M. LaFollette. 
 
 One day in September, 1891, LaFollette received from 
 Sawyer a letter asking for a meeting in the Plankington 
 Hotel, Milwaukee. The letter had been folded first with 
 the letter head on, then this was cut off and the sheet re- 
 folded ; and, as if secrecy was important, the answer sug- 
 gested by Sawyer was to be the one word " Yes " by wire. 
 LaFollette wired " Yes," and the two men met. There are 
 two accounts of what occurred. LaFollette said Sawyer 
 began the interview with the remark that " nobody knows 
 that I'm to meet you to-day " ; he spoke of the treasury 
 cases and pulled out and held before the young lawyer a 
 thick roll of bills. Sawyer's subsequent explanation was 
 that he proposed only to retain LaFollette, who, however, 
 insists that Sawyer offered him a cash bribe for his in- 
 fluence with Judge Siebecker. 
 
 Since Sawyer is dead now, we would better not try to 
 decide between the two men on this particular case, but 
 there is no doubt of one general truth : that Philetus Saw- 
 yer was the typical captain of industry in politics ; he 
 debauched the politics of his State with money. Old Boss 
 Keyes was bad enough, but his methods were political 
 patronage, deals, etc., and he made the government repre- 
 sent special interests. But when the millionaire lumberman 
 took charge, he came with money; with money he beat 
 Keyes ; and money, his and his friends', was the power in 
 the politics of his regime.
 
 94 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 His known methods caused no great scandal so long 
 as they were confined to conventions and the Legislature, 
 but the courts of Wisconsin had the confidence of the 
 State, and the approach of money to them made people 
 angry. And the story was out. LaFollette, after consulta- 
 tion with his friends, told Judge Siebecker what had hap- 
 pened, and the Judge declined to hear the case. His with- 
 drawal aroused curiosity and rather sensational conjec- 
 tures. Sawyer denied one of these, and his account seeming 
 to call for a statement from LaFollette, the young law- 
 yer told his story. Sawyer denied it and everybody took 
 sides. The cases were tried, the State won, but the Re- 
 publican Legislature, pledged though it was to recover in 
 full, compromised. So the System saved its boss. 
 
 But the System had raised up an enemy worthy of all 
 its power. LaFollette was against it. " They " say in 
 Wisconsin that he is against the railroads, that he 
 " hates " corporate wealth. It is true the bitterest fights 
 he has led have been for so-called anti-railroad laws, but 
 " they " forget that his original quarrel was with Sawyer, 
 and that, if hatred was his impulse, it probably grew out 
 of the treasury case " insult." My understanding of the 
 state of his mind is that before that incident, LaFollette 
 thought only of continuing his Congressional career. Af- 
 ter it, he was for anything to break up the old Sawyer 
 machine. Anyhow, he told me that, after the Sawyer meet- 
 ing, he made up his mind to stay home and break up the 
 System in Wisconsin. And, LaFollette did not originate 
 all that legislation. Wisconsin was one of the four original 
 Granger States. There seems to have been always some
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 95 
 
 discontent with the abuse of the power of the railways, 
 their corrupting influence, and their escape from just 
 taxation. So far as I can make out, however, some of the 
 modern measures labeled LaFolletteism, sprang from the 
 head of a certain lean, clean Vermont farmer, who came 
 to the Legislature from Knapp, Wisconsin. I went to 
 Knapp. It was a long way around for me, but it paid, 
 for now I can say that I knew A. R. Hall. He is a man. 
 I have seen in my day some seventeen men, real men, and 
 none of them is simpler, truer, braver than this ex-leader 
 of the Wisconsin Assembly; none thinks he is more of a 
 failure and none is more of a success. 
 
 Hall knows that there is a System in control of the 
 land. Sometimes I doubt my own eyes, but Hall knows it 
 in his heart, which is sore and tired from the struggle. 
 He went to the Legislature in 1891. He had lived in Minne- 
 sota and had served as an Assemblyman there. When he 
 went to the Legislature in Wisconsin, one of the first de- 
 mands upon him was from a constituent who wanted not 
 a pass, but several passes for himself and others. Hall 
 laughed at the extravagance of the request, but when he 
 showed it to a colleague, the older Assemblyman took it 
 as a matter of course and told him he could get all the 
 passes he cared to ask for from the railroad lobbyists. 
 " I had taken passes myself in Minnesota," Hall told me, 
 " but I was a legislator ; it was the custom, and I thought 
 nothing of it." A little inquiry showed him that the 
 custom in Wisconsin was an abuse of tremendous di- 
 mensions. Legislators took " mileage " for themselves, 
 their families, and for their constituents till it appeared
 
 96 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 that no man in the State was compelled to pay his fare. 
 Hall had not come there as a reformer; like the best re- 
 formers I have known, experience of the facts started him 
 going, and his reforms developed as if by accident along 
 empirical lines. Hall says he realized that the legislators 
 had to deliver votes legislation for these pass privileges, 
 and he drew an anti-pass resolution which was offered as an 
 amendment to the Constitution. It was beaten. Not only 
 the politicians, the railroads also fought it, and together 
 they won in that session. But Hall, mild-spoken and gentle, 
 was a fighter, so the anti-pass measure became an issue. 
 
 One day Assemblyman Hall happened to see the state- 
 ment of earnings of a railroad to its stockholders. Rail- 
 roads in Wisconsin paid by way of taxes a percentage 
 on their gross receipts, and, as Hall looked idly over the 
 report, he wondered how the gross receipts item would 
 compare with that in the statement to the State Treasurer. 
 He went quietly about his investigation, and he came to 
 the conclusion that, counting illegal rebates, the State 
 reports were from two to five millions short. So he asked 
 for a committee to investigate, and he introduced also a 
 bill for a State railroad commission to regulate railroad 
 rates. This was beaten, and a committee which was sent 
 to Chicago to look up earnings reported for the rail- 
 ways. But this was not enough. Hall was " unsafe " and 
 he must be kept out of the Legislature. So, in 1894, 
 " they " sent down into Dunn County men and money to 
 beat Hall for the renomination. They got the shippers 
 out against him (the very men who were at the mercy of 
 the roads), and one of these business men handled the
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 97 
 
 " barrel " which, as he said himself, he " opened at both 
 ends." Hall had no money and no organization, but he 
 knew a way to fight. The caucuses were held in different 
 places at different times, and Hall went about posting bills 
 asking the voters to assemble one hour before time and lis- 
 ten to him. At these preliminary meetings he explained just 
 what was being done and why ; he said that he might not be 
 right, but he had some facts, which he gave, and then he 
 declared he was not against the railroads, that he only 
 wished to make sure that they were fulfilling their obliga- 
 tions and not abusing their power. " I had only been trying 
 to serve honorably the people I represented, and it was hard 
 to be made to fight for your political life, just for doing 
 that. But we won out. Those voters went into those cau- 
 cuses and Dunn County beat the bribery. They then tried 
 to buy my delegates." 
 
 Mr. Hall was leaning against the railroad station as 
 he said this. We had gone over the night before, his 
 twelve years' fight, up to his retirement the year before, 
 and we were repeating now. He was looking back over it 
 all, and a hint of moisture in his eyes and the deep lines 
 in his good face made me ask: 
 
 " Does it pay, Mr. Hall?" 
 
 " Sometimes I think it does, sometimes I think it doesn't. 
 
 Yes, it does. Dunn County " He stopped. " Yes, it 
 
 does," he added. " They used to cartoon me. They lam- 
 pooned and they ridiculed, they abused and they vilified. 
 They called me a demagogue ; said I was ambitious ; asked 
 what I was after, just as they do LaFollette. But he is a 
 fighter. He will never stop fighting. And if I had served
 
 98 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 them, I could have had anything, just as he could now. 
 It is hard and it hurts, when you're only trying to do your 
 duty and be fair. But it does pay. They don't question 
 my motives now, any more." 
 
 No, they don't question Hall's motives any more. When 
 " they " became most heated in their denunciations of the 
 Governor and all his followers, I would ask them, the worst 
 haters, "What about A. R. Hall? " and the change was 
 instantaneous. 
 
 " Now, there's a man," they would say ; not one, but 
 everybody to whom I mentioned A. R. Hall. 1 
 
 When LaFollette began his open fight against the Sys- 
 tem in 1894, he took up the issues of inequalities in tax- 
 ation, machine politics, and primary elections. Hall and 
 LaFollette were friends and they had talked over these 
 issues together in LaFollette's law office in Madison, dur- 
 ing the sessions. " They " say in Wisconsin that LaFol- 
 lette is an opportunist. They say true. But so is Folk an 
 opportunist, and so are the Chicago reformers as to 
 specific issues. So are the regular politicians who, in 
 Wisconsin, for example, adopted later these same issues 
 in the platform. The difference is this: the regulars 
 wanted only to keep in power so as to continue the profita- 
 ble business of representing the railroads and other special 
 interests; Hall and LaFollette really wanted certain 
 abuses corrected, and LaFollette was, and is, for any 
 sound issue that will arouse the people of Wisconsin to 
 restore representative government. 
 
 In 1894 LaFollette carried his issues to the State con- 
 vention with a candidate for Governor, Nils P. Haugen, 
 i Mr. Hall died June 2, 1905.
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 99 
 
 a Norse-American who had served in Congress and as a 
 State railroad commissioner. LaFollette and his followers 
 turned up with one-third of the delegates. The regulars, 
 or " Stalwarts," as they afterward were called, were 
 divided, but Sawyer, declaring it was anybody to beat 
 LaFollette, managed a combination on W. H. Upham, a 
 lumberman, and Haugen was beaten. Hall was there, by 
 the way, with an anti-pass plank, and Hall also was 
 beaten. 
 
 The contest served only to draw a line between the 
 LaFollette " Halfbreeds " and the " Stalwarts," and both 
 factions went to work on their organizations. Upham was 
 elected, and the Stalwarts, who had been living on federal 
 patronage, now had the State. They rebuilt their State 
 machine. LaFollette, with no patronage, continued to 
 organize, and his method was that which he had applied 
 so successfully in his early independent fights for District 
 Attorney and Congressman. He went straight to the 
 voters. 
 
 " They " say in Wisconsin that LaFollette is a dema- 
 gogue, and if it is demagogy to go thus straight to the 
 voters, then " they " are right. But then Folk also is a 
 demagogue, and so are all thorough-going reformers. 
 LaFollette from the beginning has asked, not the bosses, 
 but the people for what he wanted, and after 1894 he sim- 
 ply broadened his field and redoubled his efforts. He cir- 
 cularized the State, he made speeches every chance he got, 
 and if the test of demagogy is the tone and style of a 
 man's speeches, LaFollette is the opposite of a dema- 
 gogue. Capable of fierce invective, his oratory is im-
 
 100 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 personal; passionate and emotional himself, his speeches 
 are temperate. Some of them are so loaded with facts 
 and such closely knit arguments, that they demand care- 
 ful reading, and their effect is traced to his delivery, which 
 is forceful, emphatic, and fascinating. His earnestness 
 carries the conviction of sincerity, and the conviction of 
 his honesty of purpose he has planted all over the State 
 by his Halfbreed methods. 
 
 What were the methods of the Sawyer-Payne-Spooner 
 Republicans? In 1896 the next Governor of Wisconsin 
 had to be chosen. The Stalwarts could not run Governor 
 Upham again. As often happens to " safe men," the Sys- 
 tem had used him up ; his appointments had built up the 
 machine, his approval had sealed the compromise of the 
 treasury cases. Someone else must run. To pick out his 
 successor, the Stalwart leaders held a meeting at St. 
 Louis, where they were attending a national convention, 
 and they chose for Governor Edward W. Scofield. There 
 was no demagogy about that. 
 
 LaFollette wished to run himself; he hoped to run and 
 win while Sawyer lived, and he was holding meetings, too. 
 But his meetings were all over the State, with voters and 
 delegates, and he was making headway. Lest he might 
 fall short, however, LaFollette made a political bargain. 
 He confesses it, and calls it a political sin, but he thinks 
 the retribution which came swift and hard was expiation. 
 He made a deal with Emil Baensch, by which both should 
 canvass the State for delegates, with the understanding 
 that whichever of the two should develop the greater 
 strength was to have both delegations. LaFollette says
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 101 
 
 he came into convention with enough delegates of his own 
 to nominate him, and Boensch had seventy-five or so besides. 
 The convention adjourned over night without nominating 
 and the next morning LaFollette was beaten. He had 
 lost some of his own delegates, and Baensch's went to 
 Scofield. 
 
 LaFollette's lost delegates were bought. How the 
 Baensch delegates were secured, I don't know, but Baensch 
 was not a man to sell for money. It was reported to 
 LaFollette during the night that Baensch was going over, 
 and LaFollette wrestled with and thought he had won 
 him back, till the morning balloting showed. As for the 
 rest, the facts are ample to make plain the methods of 
 the old ring. Sawyer was there ; and there was a " barrel." 
 I saw men who saw money on a table in the room in the 
 Pfister Hotel, where delegates went in and out, and news- 
 paper men present at the time told me the story in great 
 detail. But there is better evidence than this. Men to 
 whom bribes were offered reported to their leader that 
 night. The first warning came from Captain John T. 
 Rice, of Racine, who (as Governor LaFollette recalls) 
 said : " I have been with the old crowd all my life and I 
 thought I knew the worst, but they have no right to ask 
 me to do what they did to-night. I won't tell you who, 
 but the head of the whole business asked me to name my 
 price for turning over the Union Grove delegation from 
 you to Scofield." There are many such personal state- 
 ments, some of them giving prices cash, and federal and 
 State offices and some giving the names of the bribery 
 agents. The Halfbreed leaders tried to catch the bribers
 
 102 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 with witnesses, but failed, and at midnight Charles F. 
 Pfister, a Milwaukee Stalwart leader, called on LaFol- 
 lette, who repeated to me what he said : 
 
 " LaFollette, we've got you beaten. We've got your 
 delegates. It won't do you any good to squeal, and if 
 you'll behave yourself we'll take care of you." 
 
 So LaFollette had to go on with his fight. He would 
 not " behave." His followers wanted him to lead an inde- 
 pendent movement for Governor; he wouldn't do that, but 
 he made up his mind to lead a movement for reform 
 within the party, and his experience with corrupt dele- 
 gates set him to thinking about methods of nomination. The 
 System loomed large with the growth of corporate wealth, 
 the power of huge consolidations over the individual, and 
 the unscrupulous use of both money and power. Democ- 
 racy was passing, and yet the people were sound. Their 
 delegates at home were representatives, but shipped on 
 passes to Milwaukee, treated, " entertained," and bribed, 
 they ceased to represent. The most important reform was 
 to get the nomination back among the voters themselves. 
 Thus LaFollette, out of his own experience, took up this 
 issue direct primary nominations by the Australian 
 ballot. 
 
 During the next two years LaFollette made a propa- 
 ganda with this issue and railroad taxation, the taxation 
 of other corporations express and sleeping car com- 
 panies which paid nothing and the evils of a corrupt 
 machine that stood for corrupting capital. He sent out 
 circulars and literature, some of it the careful writings 
 of scientific authors, but, most effective of all, were the
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 103 
 
 speeches he made at the county fairs. When the time for 
 the next Republican State convention came around in 
 1898, he held a conference with some thirty of his leaders 
 in Milwaukee, and he urged a campaign for their platform 
 alone, with no candidate. The others insisted that LaFol- 
 lette run, and they were right in principle. As the event 
 proved, the Stalwarts were not afraid of a platform, if 
 they could be in office to make and carry out the laws. 
 LaFollette ran for the nomination and was beaten 
 by the same methods that were employed against him in 
 '96; cost (insider's estimate), $8,000. Scofield was re- 
 nominated. 
 
 But the LaFollette-Hall platform was adopted anti- 
 pass, corporation taxation, primary election reform, and 
 all. " They " say now in Wisconsin that LaFollette is 
 too practical; that he has adopted machine methods, etc. 
 During 1896, 1897, and 1898 they were saying he was 
 an impracticable reformer, and yet here they were adopt- 
 ing his impracticable theories. And they enacted some of 
 these reforms. The agitation (for LaFollette is indeed an 
 " agitator ") made necessary some compliance with public 
 demand and platform promises, so Hall got his anti-pass 
 law at last; a commission to investigate taxation was ap- 
 pointed, and there was some other good legislation. Yet, 
 as Mr. Hall said, " In effect, that platform was repudi- 
 ated." The railway commission reported that the larger 
 companies, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul and the 
 Northwestern, respectively, did not pay their propor- 
 tionate share of the taxes, and a bill was introduced by 
 Hall to raise their assessments. It passed the House, but
 
 104 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the Senate had and has a " combine " like the Senates of 
 Missouri and Illinois, and the combine beat the bill. 
 
 The failures of the Legislature left all questions open, 
 and LaFollette and his followers continued their agitation. 
 Meanwhile Senator Sawyer died, and when the next 
 gubernatorial election (1900) approached, all hope of 
 beating LaFollette was gone. The Stalwarts began to 
 come to him with offers of support. One of the first to 
 surrender was J. W. Babcock, Congressman and national 
 politician. Others followed, but not John C. Spooner, 
 Payne, and Pfister, not yet. They brought out for the 
 nomination John M. Whitehead, a State Senator with a 
 clean reputation and a good record. But in May (1900) 
 LaFollette announced his candidacy on a ringing plat- 
 form, and he went campaigning down into the strongest 
 Stalwart counties. He carried enough of them to take 
 the heart out of the old ring. All other candidates with- 
 drew, and Senator Spooner, who is a timid man, wrote a 
 letter which, in view of his subsequent stand for reelection, 
 is a remarkable document; it declared that he was un- 
 alterably determined not to run again for the Senate. 
 LaFollette was nominated unanimously, and his own plat- 
 form was adopted. The victory was complete. Though 
 the implacable Stalwarts supported the Democratic candi- 
 date, LaFollette was elected by 102,000 plurality. 
 
 Victory for reform is often defeat, and this triumph 
 of LaFollette, apparently so complete, was but the begin- 
 ning of the greatest fight of all in Wisconsin, the fight 
 that is being waged out there now. Governor LaFollette 
 was inaugurated January 7, 1901. The legislature was
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 105 
 
 overwhelmingly Republican and apparently there was 
 perfect harmony in the party. The Governor believed 
 there was. The Stalwart-Halfbreed lines were not sharply 
 drawn. The Half breeds counted a majority, especially in 
 the House, and A. R. Hall was the " logical " candidate 
 for Speaker. It was understood that he coveted the honor, 
 but he proposed and it was decided that, in the interest 
 of peace and fair play, a Stalwart should take the chair. 
 The Governor says that the first sign he had of trouble 
 was in the newspapers which, the day after the organiza- 
 tion of the legislature, reported that the Stalwarts con- 
 trolled and that there would be no primary election or 
 tax legislation. The Governor, undaunted, sent in a firm 
 message calling for the performance of all platform prom- 
 ises, and bills to carry out these pledges were introduced 
 under the direction of the LaFollette leaders, Hall and 
 Judge E. Ray Stevens, the authority of the primary 
 election bill. These developed the opposition. There were 
 two (alternative) railway tax bills; others to tax other 
 corporations ; and, later, a primary election bill nothing 
 that was not promised by a harmonious party, yet the out- 
 cry was startling and the fight that followed was furious. 
 Why? 
 
 I have seen enough of the System to believe that that 
 is the way it works. Just such opposition, with just such 
 cries of " boss," " dictator," etc., arise against any Gov- 
 ernors who try to govern in the interest of the people. 
 And I believe they will find their Legislatures organ- 
 ized and corrupted against them. But in the case of 
 LaFollette there was a " misunderstanding." In the
 
 106 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 year (1900) when everything was LaFollette, Congress- 
 man Babcock, Postmaster-General Payne, and others 
 sought to bring together the great ruling special interests 
 and the inevitable Governor. Governor LaFollette said, 
 like President Roosevelt, that he would represent the 
 corporations of his State, just as he would represent all 
 other interests and persons; but no more. He would be 
 " fair." Well, that was " all we want," they said, and 
 the way seemed smooth. It was like the incident in St. 
 Louis when Folk told the boodlers he would " do his 
 duty," and the boodlers answered, " Of course, old man." 
 But some railroad men said LaFollette promised in 
 writing to consult with them before bringing in railroad 
 bills; there was a certain famous letter written in the 
 spring of 1900 to Thomas H. Gill, an old friend of the 
 Governor, who is counsel to the Wisconsin Central Rail- 
 road; this letter put the Governor on record. Everywhere 
 I went I heard of this document, and though the noise of 
 it had resounded through the State for four years, it had 
 never been produced. Here it is : 
 
 MADISON, Wis., May 12th, 1900. 
 DEAR TOM: 
 
 You have been my personal and political friend for twenty 
 years. Should I become a candidate for the nomination for 
 Governor, I want your continued support, if you can con- 
 sistently accord it to me. But you are the attorney for the 
 Wisconsin Central R. R. Co., and I am not willing that you 
 should be placed in any position where you could be subjected 
 to any criticism or embarrassment with your employers upon 
 my account. For this reason, I desire to state to you in so
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 107 
 
 far as I am able my position in relation to the question of 
 railway taxation, which has now become one of public interest, 
 and is likely to so continue until rightly settled. This I can 
 do in a very few words. 
 
 Railroad corporations should pay neither more nor less than 
 a justly proportionate share of taxes with the other taxable 
 property of the State. If I were in a position to pass officially 
 upon a bill to change existing law, it would be my first care 
 to know whether the rate therein proposed was just in pro- 
 portion to the property of other corporations and individuals 
 as then taxed, or as therein proposed to be taxed. The de- 
 termination of that question would be controlling. If such 
 rate was less than the justly proportionate share which should 
 be borne by the railroads, then I should favor increasing it 
 to make it justly proportionate. If the proposed rate was more 
 than the justly proportionate share, in comparison with the 
 property of other corporations, and of individuals taxed under 
 the law, then I should favor decreasing to make it justly 
 proportionate. 
 
 In other words, I would favor equal and exact justice to 
 each individual and to every interest, yielding neither to 
 clamor on the one hand, nor being swerved from the straight 
 course by any interest upon the other. This position, I am 
 sure, is the only one which could commend itself to you, and 
 cannot be criticised by any legitimate business honestly 
 managed. 
 
 The Mr. Gill to whom this letter was addressed is one of 
 the most enlightened and fair-minded corporation lawyers 
 that I ever met, even in the West, where corporation men 
 also are enlightened. He convinced me that he and the other 
 railroad men really did expect more consideration than
 
 108 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the Governor gave them, and so there may have been a 
 genuine misunderstanding. But after what I have seen in 
 Chicago, St. Louis, and Pittsburg, and in Missouri and 
 Illinois and the United States, I almost am persuaded that 
 no honest official in power can meet the expectations of 
 great corporations ; they have been spoiled, like bad 
 American children, and are ever ready to resort to corrup- 
 tion and force. That was their recourse now. 
 
 Governor LaFollette says he learned afterward that 
 during the campaign, the old, corrupt ring went about 
 in the legislative districts, picking and " fixing " legis- 
 lators, and that the plan was to discredit him with defeat 
 by organizing the Legislature against him. However this 
 may be, it is certain that when his bills were under way, 
 there was a rush to the lobby at Madison. The regular 
 lobbyists were reinforced with special agents; local Stal- 
 wart leaders were sent for, and federal officeholders ; 
 United States Senators hurried home, and Congressmen ; 
 and boodle, federal patronage, force, and vice were em- 
 ployed to defeat bills promised in the platform. Here is 
 a statement by Irvine L. Lenroot, now the Speaker of the 
 Assembly. He says: 
 
 " From the first day of the session the railroad lobby- 
 ists were on the ground in force, offering courtesies and 
 entertainments of various kinds to the members. Bribery 
 is a hard word, a charge, which never should be made 
 unless it can be substantiated. The writer has no personal 
 knowledge of money being actually offered or received for 
 votes against the bill. It was, however, generally under- 
 stood in the Assembly that any member favoring the bill
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 109 
 
 could better his financial condition if he was willing to 
 vote against it. Members were approached by represen- 
 tatives of the companies and offered lucrative positions. 
 This may not have been done with any idea of influencing 
 votes. 
 
 " The reader will draw his own conclusions. It was a 
 matter of common knowledge that railroad mileage could 
 be procured if a member was * right.' Railroad lands 
 could be purchased very cheaply by members of the Legis- 
 lature. It was said if a member would get into a poker 
 game with a lobbyist, the member was sure to win. Mem- 
 bers opposed to Governor LaFollette were urged to vote 
 against the bill, because he wanted it to pass. A promi- 
 nent member stated that he did not dare to vote for the 
 bill, because he was at the mercy of the railroad companies, 
 and he was afraid they would ruin his business by ad- 
 vancing his rates, if he voted for it." 
 
 I went to Superior and saw Mr. Lenroot, and he told 
 me that one of the " members approached by represen- 
 tatives of the companies and offered positions " was him- 
 self. He gave his bribery stories in detail, and enabled 
 me to run down and verify others ; but the sentence that 
 interested me most in his statement was the last. The 
 member who did not dare vote for the railway tax bill, 
 lest the railways raise the freight on his goods and ruin 
 his business, confessed to Governor LaFollette and others. 
 Another member stated that in return for his treason to 
 his constituents, a railroad quoted him a rate that would 
 give him an advantage over his competitors. 
 
 Well, these methods succeeded. The policy of the ad-
 
 110 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ministration was not carried out. Some good bills passed, 
 but the session was a failure. Not content with this tri- 
 umph, however, the System went to work to beat LaFol- 
 lette, and to accomplish this end, LaFollette's methods 
 were adopted, or, rather, adapted. A systematic appea) 
 was to be made to public opinion. A meeting of the lead- 
 ing Stalwarts was held in the eleventh story of an office 
 building in Milwaukee, and a Permanent Republican 
 League of the State of Wisconsin was organized. This 
 became known as the " Eleventh Story League." A mani- 
 festo was put out " viewing with alarm " the encroach- 
 ments of the executive upon the legislative branch of the 
 government," etc., etc. (The encroachments of boodle 
 business upon all branches of the government is all right.) 
 An army of canvassers was dispatched over the State to 
 interview personally every voter in the State and leave 
 with him books and pamphlets. Now this was democratic 
 and fair, but that League did one thing which is enough 
 alone to condemn the whole movement. It corrupted part 
 of the country press. This is not hearsay. The charge 
 was made at the time these papers swung round suddenly, 
 and the League said it did not bribe the editors ; it " paid 
 for space for League editorial matter, and for copies of 
 the paper to be circulated." This is bribery, as any news- 
 paper man knows. But there was also what even the 
 League business man would call bribery; newspaper men 
 all over the State told me about direct purchase and 
 cheap, too. It is sickening, but, for final evidence, I saw 
 affidavits, published in Wisconsin, by newspaper men, who 
 were approached with offers which they refused, and by
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 111 
 
 others who sold out, then threw up their contracts and re- 
 turned the bribes, for shame or other reasons. 
 
 These " democratic " methods failed. When the time 
 arrived for the next Republican State convention, the 
 Stalwarts found that the people had sent up delegates in- 
 structed for LaFollette, and he was nominated for a 
 second term. What could the Stalwarts do? They weren't 
 even " regular " now. LaFollette had the party, they had 
 only the federal patronage and the Big Business System. 
 But the System had resources. Wherever a municipal re- 
 form movement has hewed to the line, the leaders of it, like 
 Folk and the Chicago reformers, have seen the forces of 
 corruption retire from one party to the other and from 
 the city to the State. This Wisconsin movement for State 
 reform now had a similar experience. The Wisconsin Sys- 
 tem, driven out of the Republican, went over to the Dem- 
 ocratic party ; that had not been reformed ; beaten out 
 of power in the State, it retreated to the towns ; they had 
 not been reformed. 
 
 The System in many of the Wisconsin municipalities 
 was intact. There had been no serious municipal reform 
 movements anywhere, and the citizens of Milwaukee, Osh- 
 kosh, Green Bay, etc., were pretty well satisfied, and they 
 are still, apparently. " We're nothing like Minneapolis, 
 St. Louis, and the rest," they told me with American 
 complacency. Green Bay was exactly like Minneapolis; 
 we know it because the wretched little place has been ex- 
 posed since. And Marinette and Oshkosh, unexposed, are 
 said by insiders to be " just like Green Bay." As for 
 Milwaukee, that is St. Louis all over again.
 
 112 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 District Attorney Bennett has had grand juries at work 
 in Milwaukee since 1901, and he has some forty-two per- 
 sons indicted twelve aldermen, ten supervisors, nine other 
 officials, one State Senator, and ten citizens ; four convic- 
 tions and three pleas of guilty. The grafting so far ex- 
 posed is petty, but the evidence in hand indicates a highly 
 perfected boodle system. The Republicans had the county, 
 the Democrats the city, and both the council and the board 
 of supervisors had combines which grafted on contracts, 
 public institutions, franchises, and other business privileges. 
 The corrupt connection of business and politics was shown ; 
 the informants were merchants and contractors, mostly 
 small men, who confessed to bribery. The biggest caught 
 so far is Colonel Pabst, the brewer, who paid a check of 
 $1,500 for leave to break a building law. But all signs point 
 higher than beer, to more " legitimate " political busi- 
 ness. As in Chicago, a bank is the center of this graft, 2 
 and public utility companies are back of it. The politicians 
 in the boards of management, now or formerly, show that. 
 It is a bipartisan system all through. Henry C. Payne, 
 while chairman of the Republican State Central Com- 
 mittee, and E. C. Wall (the man the Wisconsin Democ- 
 racy offered to the National Democratic Convention for 
 President of the United States), while chairman of the 
 Democratic State Central Committee, engineered a con- 
 solidation of Milwaukee street railway and electric lighting 
 companies, and, when the job was done, Payne became 
 manager of the street railway, Wall of the light company. 
 
 iThe First National Bank, the president of which is now in the 
 penitentiary.
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 113 
 
 But this was " business." There was no scandal about it. 
 The great scandal of Milwaukee was the extension of street 
 railway franchises, and the men who put that through were 
 Charles F. Pfister, the Stalwart Republican boss, and 
 David S. Rose, the Stalwart Democratic Mayor. Money 
 was paid; the extension was boodled through. The Mil- 
 waukee Sentinel reprinted a paragraph saying Pfister, 
 among others, did the bribing, and thus it happened that 
 the Stalwarts got that paper. Pfister sued for libel, but 
 when the editors (now on the Milwaukee Free Press) made 
 answer that their defense would be proof of the charge, 
 the millionaire traction man bought the paper and its 
 evidence, too. It is no more than fair to add as Milwau- 
 kee newspaper men always do (with delight) that the 
 paper had very little evidence, not nearly so much as 
 Pfister seemed to think it had. As for Mayor Rose, his 
 friends declare that he has told them, personally and con- 
 vincingly, that he got not one cent for his service. But 
 that is not the point. Mayor Rose fought to secure for 
 special interests a concession which sacrificed the com- 
 mon interests of his city. I am aware that he defends the 
 terms of the grants as fair, and they would seem so in the 
 East, but the West is intelligent on special privileges, and 
 Mayor Rose lost to Milwaukee the chance Chicago seized 
 to tackle the public utility problem. Moreover, Rose knew 
 that his council was corrupt before it was proven so; he 
 told two business men that they couldn't get a privilege 
 they sought honestly from him without bribing aldermen. 
 Yet he ridiculed as " hot air " an investigation which 
 produced evidence enough to defeat at the polls, in a
 
 114 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 self-respecting city, the head of an administration so be- 
 smirched. Nevertheless, Milwaukee reflected Rose ; good citi- 
 zens say that they gave the man the benefit of the doubt 
 the man, not the city. 
 
 But this is not the only explanation. The System was on 
 trial with Mayor Rose in that election, and the System 
 saved its own. The Republicans, with the Rose administra- 
 tion exposed, had a chance to win, and they nominated 
 a good man, Mr. Guy D. Goff. Pfister, the Stalwart Re- 
 publican boss, seemed to support Goff ; certainly the young 
 candidate had no suspicion to the contrary. He has now, 
 however. When the returns came in showing that he was 
 beaten, Mr. Goff hunted up Mr. Pfister, and he found him. 
 Mr. Goff, the Republican candidate for Mayor, found 
 Charles F. Pfister, the Stalwart Republican boss, rejoicing 
 over the drinks with the elected Democratic Mayor, David 
 S. Rose! 
 
 I guess Mr. Goff knows that a bipartisan System rules 
 Milwaukee, and, by the same token, Governor LaFollette 
 knows that there is a bipartisan System in Wisconsin. 
 For when Governor LaFollette beat the Stalwarts in the 
 Republican State convention of 1902, those same Stalwarts 
 combined with the Democrats. Democrats told me that 
 the Republican Stalwarts dictated the " Democratic " anti- 
 LaFollette platform, and that Pfister, the " Republican " 
 boss, named the " safe man " chosen for the " Demo- 
 cratic " candidate for Governor to run against LaFollette 
 said David S. Rose. 
 
 " They " say in Wisconsin that LaFollette is a Demo- 
 crat ; that " he appeals to Democratic voters." He does.
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 115 
 
 He admits it, but he adds that it is indeed to the Demo- 
 cratic voters that he appeals not to the Democratic 
 machine. And he gets Democratic votes. " They " com- 
 plain that he has split the Republican party ; he has, and 
 he has split the Democratic party, too. When " they " 
 united the two party rings of the bipartisan System 
 against LaFollette in 1902, he went out after the voters 
 of both parties, and those voters combined; they beat 
 Rose, the two rings, and the System. The people of Wis- 
 consin reelected LaFollette, the " unsafe," and that is why 
 the trouble is so great in Wisconsin. The System there is 
 down. 
 
 There is a machine, but it is LaFollette's. When he was 
 reelected, the Governor organized his party, and I think 
 no other of his offenses is quite so heinous in Stalwart 
 eyes. They wanted me to expose him as a boss who had 
 used State patronage to build up an organization. I re- 
 minded " them " that their federal patronage is greater 
 than LaFollette's State patronage, and I explained that 
 my prejudice was not against organization; their kind 
 everywhere had been urging me so long to believe that 
 organization was necessary in politics that I was disposed 
 to denounce only those machines that sold out the party 
 and the people. And as for the " boss " it is not the boss 
 in an elective office where he is responsible that is so bad, 
 but the irresponsible boss back of a safe figurehead; this 
 is the man that is really dangerous. They declared, how- 
 ever, that Governor LaFollette had sacrificed good service 
 to the upbuilding of his machine. This is a serious charge. 
 I did not go thoroughly into it. Cases which I investi-
 
 116 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 gated at Stalwart behest, held, with one exception, very 
 little water, and I put no faith in the rest. But, for the 
 sake of argument, let us admit that the departments are 
 not all that they should be. What then? As in Chicago, 
 the fight in Wisconsin is for self-government, not " good " 
 government ; it is a fight to reestablish a government 
 representative of all the people. Given that; remove from 
 control the Big Business and the Bad Politics that corrupt 
 all branches of the government, and " good " government 
 will come easily enough. But Big Business and Bad Poli- 
 tics are hard to beat. 
 
 The defeat of Rose did not beat them. The Stalwarts 
 still had the Senate, and they manned the lobby to beat the 
 railroad tax and the primary election bills. But Governor 
 LaFollette outplayed them at the great game. He long 
 had been studying the scheme for a State commission to 
 regulate railway freight rates. It was logical. If their 
 taxes were increased the roads could take the difference 
 out of the people by raising freight rates. Other States 
 had such commissions, and in some of them, notably Iowa 
 and Illinois, the rates were lower than in Wisconsin. More- 
 over, we all know railroads give secret rebates and other- 
 wise discriminate in favor of individuals and localities. 
 
 When then, the battle lines were drawn on the old bills in 
 the Legislature of 1903, the Governor threw into the fight 
 a bristling message calling for a commission to regulate 
 railway rates. The effect was startling. " Populism ! " 
 " Socialism ! " " they " cried, and they turned to rend this 
 new bill. They let the tax bill go through to fight this
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 117 
 
 fresh menace to " business." They held out against the 
 primary election bill also, for if that passed they feared 
 the people might keep LaFollette in power forever. Even 
 that, however, they let pass finally, with an amendment 
 for a referendum. Concentrating upon the rate commission 
 bill, Big Business organized business men's mass meetings 
 throughout the State, and with the help of favored or 
 timid shippers, sent committees to Madison to protest to 
 the Legislature. Thus this bill in the interests of fair busi- 
 ness was beaten by business, and, with the primary election 
 referendum, is an issue in this year's campaign (1904). 
 
 As I have tried to show, however, the fundamental issue 
 lies deeper. The people of Wisconsin understand this. The 
 Stalwarts dread the test at the polls. But what other 
 appeal was there? They knew one. When the Republican 
 State convention met this year, the Stalwarts bolted; 
 whatever the result might have been of a fight in the con- 
 vention, they avoided it and held a separate convention in 
 another hall, which, by the way, they had hired in advance. 
 The Halfbreeds renominated LaFollette; the Stalwarts 
 put up another ticket. To the Stalwart convention 
 came Postmaster-General Payne, United States Senators 
 Spooner and Quarles, Stalwart Congressmen and federal 
 officeholders the Federal System. The broken State 
 System was appealing to the United States System, and 
 the Republican National Convention at Chicago was to 
 decide the case. And it did decide for the System. I at- 
 tended that convention, and heard what was said privately 
 and honestly. The Republicans who decided for Payne-
 
 118 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Spooner-Pfister-Babcock, et al., said " LaFollette isn't 
 really a Republican anyhow." 
 
 Isn't he? That is a most important question. True, he 
 is very democratic essentially. He helped to draw the Mc- 
 Kinley tariff law and he is standing now on the national 
 Republican platform ; his democracy consists only in the 
 belief that the citizens elected to represent the people 
 should represent the people, not the corrupt special 
 interests. Both parties should be democratic in that sense. 
 But they aren't. Too often we have found both parties 
 representing graft big business graft. The people, es- 
 pecially in the West, are waking to a realization of this 
 state of things, and (taking a hint from the Big Grafters) 
 they are following leaders who see that the way to restore 
 government representative of the common interests of the 
 city or State, is to restore to public opinion the control 
 of the dominant party. The Democrats of Missouri have 
 made their party democratic; the Republicans of Illinois 
 have made their party democratic. The next to answer 
 should be the people of Wisconsin. The Stalwarts hope 
 the courts will decide. They hope their courts will uphold 
 the decision of the National Republican Party, that they, 
 who represent all that is big and bad in business and poli- 
 tics, are the regular " Republicans." This isn't right. The 
 people of Wisconsin are not radicals ; they are law-abiding, 
 conservative, and fair. They will lay great store by what 
 their courts shall rule, but this is a question that should be 
 left wholly to the people themselves. And they are to be 
 trusted, for no matter how men may differ about Gov- 
 ernor LaFollette otherwise, his long, hard fight has
 
 GOVERNMENT RESTORED 119 
 
 developed citizenship in Wisconsin honest, reasonable, 
 intelligent citizenship. And that is better than " busi- 
 ness " ; that is what business and government are for 
 men. 3 
 
 3 Governor LaFollette was reflected by a large plurality ; he was 
 chosen United States Senator, but he served one year as governor 
 before he accepted his seat in the Senate.
 
 RHODE ISLAND: A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 
 
 SHOWING THAT AMERICAN CITIZENS CAN BE 
 
 BOUGHT (CHEAP) TO SELL OUT THEIR 
 
 CITIES AND STATES 
 
 (February, 1905) 
 
 THE political condition of Rhode Island is notorious, 
 acknowledged, and it is shameful. But the Rhode Islander 
 resents the interest of his neighbors. " Our evils are our 
 troubles," he says ; " they don't concern the rest of you. 
 Why should we be singled out? We are no worse than 
 others. We are better than some; we want to set things 
 right, but can't. Conditions are peculiar." 
 
 This is all wrong. The evils of Rhode Island concern 
 every man, woman, and child in our land. For example : 
 
 The United States Senate is coming more and more to 
 be the actual head of the United States Government. In 
 the Senate there is a small ring (called the Steering Com- 
 mittee) which is coming more and more to be the head of 
 the United States Senate. The head of this committee is 
 Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, who has been described as 
 " the boss of the United States," " the power behind the 
 power behind the throne," " the general manager of the 
 United States." The fitness of these titles is questioned, but 
 it is a question of national politics, and all I know to the 
 point in that field is what everybody knows: that Senator 
 
 120
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 121 
 
 Aldrich, a very rich man and father-in-law of young Mr. 
 Rockefeller, is supposed to represent " Sugar," " Standard 
 Oil," " New York," and, more broadly, " Wall Street " ; our 
 leading legislative authority on protective tariff, he speaks 
 for privileged business ; the chairman of the Senate Finance 
 Committee, he stands for high finance. These facts and 
 suppositions, taken together with the praises I have heard 
 of him in Wall Street and the comfortable faith he seems 
 to inspire in business men all over the country, suggest 
 that we have in Senator Aldrich the commercial ideal of 
 political character, and if not the head at least the 
 political representative of the head of that System which 
 is coming more and more to take the place of the passing 
 paper government of the United States. 
 
 What sort of a man is Senator Aldrich? What school 
 of politics did he attend, what school of business? What 
 kind of a government is it that forms the traditions and 
 perhaps the ideal of the most powerful man in our national 
 legislature? What kind of a government does he give his 
 own people in his own State? In brief, what is the System 
 that he has produced and that has produced him? These 
 are questions of national interest, and Rhode Island can 
 answer them. Mr. Aldrich is the senior Senator for Rhode 
 Island and Providence Plantations. 
 
 And Rhode Island throws light on another national 
 question, a question that is far more important: Aren't 
 the people themselves dishonest? The " grafters " who 
 batten on us say so. Politicians have excused their own 
 corruption to me time and again by declaring that " we're 
 all corrupt," and promoters and swindlers alike describe
 
 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 their victims as " smart folk who think to beat us at our 
 own game." Without going into the cynic's sweeping 
 summary that " man always was and always will be cor- 
 rupt," it is but fair while we are following the trail of the 
 grafters to consider their plea that the corrupt political 
 System they are upbuilding is founded on the dishonesty 
 of the American people. Is it? 
 
 It is in Rhode Island. The System of Rhode Island 
 which has produced the man who is at the head of the 
 political System of the United States is grounded on the 
 lowest layer of corruption that I have found thus far 
 the bribery of voters with cash at the polls. Other States 
 know the practice. In Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, and 
 Pennsylvania " workers " are paid " to get out the vote," 
 but this is only preliminary ; the direct and decisive pur- 
 chase of power comes later, in conventions and legislatures. 
 In these States the corruptionists buy the people's repre- 
 sentatives. In Rhode Island they buy the people them- 
 selves. 
 
 The conditions are peculiar. As the Rhode Islanders 
 say, their State is peculiar in many ways. But it is Amer- 
 ican. The smallest of the States, it is one of the biggest 
 in our history. Poor in soil, it is rich in waterways, and 
 the Rhode Islanders, turning early from agriculture to 
 manufacture, made goods which they sent forth from their 
 magnificent harbor to all the world in ships that brought 
 home cargoes of wealth. One of the New England group 
 of colonies, Rhode Island was founded as a refuge from 
 the Puritan intolerance of Massachusetts. One of the 
 " Original Thirteen States," it was the first (May 4,
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 123 
 
 1776) to declare its independence of Great Britain, and 
 the last (May 29, 1790) to give allegiance to the United 
 States. So the American spirit of commercial enterprise 
 and political independence has burned high in Rhode 
 Island. There is nothing peculiar about that, and there is 
 nothing peculiar about the general result of the corruption 
 of the State. 
 
 Rhode Island is an oligarchy. But so were Wisconsin 
 and Illinois and Missouri, and so are New York, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and New Jersey. The oligarchy is the typical form 
 of the actual government of our States. There is one 
 peculiarity about the Rhode Island oligarchy, however. 
 It is constitutional. The oligarchies of other States were 
 grafted upon constitutional democracies. Rhode Island 
 never was a democracy, and in that peculiarity lies the 
 peculiar significance of this State to the rest of us. 
 
 Rhode Island has a restricted suffrage. Many a good 
 American thinks that if we could " keep the ignorant for- 
 eigner from voting," and otherwise limit the suffrage to 
 persons of property who would have a direct, personal, 
 financial interest in government, we then should have good 
 government. Should we? Rhode Island can answer that 
 question. Again, many " thinkers " have thought that it 
 was the wicked cities with their mixed populations which 
 have degraded and disgraced us, and that if we could but 
 devise some scheme of representation by which the balance 
 of power could be given into the honest hands of the good 
 old American stock out upon the healthy countryside we 
 then should be saved. Rhode Island has such a scheme. 
 The significance to the rest of us of the story of Rhode
 
 124 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Island lies in the fact that its essentially typical condition 
 was reached under extraordinary circumstances, which 
 some " leading citizens " in other States think would cor- 
 rect their evils. 
 
 " Leading citizens " have made Rhode Island what it is. 
 They always have ruled there. I have called the State an 
 oligarchy. It used to be an aristocracy. " Freeholders " 
 and their eldest sons alone participated in the colonial 
 government under the charter of Charles II., and after the 
 Revolution, when all the other States adopted constitu- 
 tions, Rhode Island went on under its royal charter of 
 1663 and an " unwritten constitution " till 1842. I cannot 
 stop to describe this " landed aristocracy " in an American 
 State. It is sufficient that it closed with the Dorr Rebellion. 
 The abuses were so intolerable that the people, the patient 
 American people who have submitted to Croker, Quay, 
 Cox, and other despots, rose in open revolt. 
 
 The next experiment was a " commercial aristocracy." 
 The constitution of 1842 " extended " the suffrage from 
 holders of real to those also possessed of personal property 
 if they were native born. The " foreign vote " was 
 restricted as before to real estate holders till 1888, when 
 personal property qualified a foreign-born as well as a 
 native voter. The " mob," which owned nothing and paid 
 no taxes, was allowed to vote, but only upon registering 
 four months before election and then not " upon any prop- 
 osition to impose a tax or the expenditure of money." 
 These registered voters, for example, cannot vote for mem- 
 bers of city councils. 
 
 The most effective restriction of the suffrage, however,
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 125. 
 
 was established in the constitutional scheme of dispropor- 
 tionate representation. The Governor, elected by a ma- 
 jority (now by a plurality) of the voters of all classes, 
 was made a " pure executive " ; he had no veto. All legisla- 
 tive powers were lodged in the General Assembly of two 
 houses. The lower branch, the House of Representatives, 
 is limited to seventy-two members, no matter what the pop- 
 ulation may be, and while each town shall have at least one 
 representative, no city may have more than one-sixth of 
 the membership. This is undemocratic enough, but the 
 Senate, says the constitution, " shall consist of one Senator 
 from each town and city in the State." 
 
 Here is the crux of the situation. A town in Rhode 
 Island is what is known to most of us as a township. There 
 are thirty-eight " towns and cities " in the State. Their 
 population in 1900 was 428,551. Of this total, 36,027 
 lived in twenty towns. Thus less than one-eleventh of the 
 people of the State elect more than five-tenths a majority 
 of the Senate. Providence, with 29,030 qualified voters, 
 has one Senator; Little Compton elected one, one year, by 
 a unanimous vote of seventy-eight. There are fourteen 
 such " towns " with less than 500 qualified voters ; there 
 are twenty with less than 2,000 each. Thus was the 
 sovereignty of the State put into the hands of the " good 
 old American stock out in the country." 
 
 What happened ? The " best people " continued to rule. 
 The " best people " of the period after the new constitu- 
 tion were manufacturers, but their fine old houses stand 
 to-day as witnesses not only to their wealth, but also to a 
 refined taste. There can be no doubt that they came as
 
 126 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 near forming a real aristocracy as commercialism can 
 produce. They certainly were just the kind of men that 
 many theorists say should have control of government. 
 Well, they got control in Rhode Island. How? With 
 money. Aristocrats though they were, they were business 
 men first, and they went after the key to control in a busi- 
 nesslike way. They bought up the towns. The " best 
 people " sent offers of bribes to the good people of the 
 countryside, and the good people took the bribes and let 
 the best people run the government. It was a commercial 
 aristocracy that corrupted the American stock in Rhode 
 Island and laid the foundation of the present financial and 
 political System of corruption in the State. 
 
 This class ruled till well down into the eighties, and its 
 leader, Senator Henry B. Anthony, " discovered " and 
 promoted Nelson W. Aldrich, his successor, who represents 
 the System, and General Charles R. Brayton, the boss who 
 developed and directs it. Since Anthony's time, the latter- 
 day business man he who makes, not cotton goods, but 
 money the captain of finance, has succeeded to the con- 
 trol, but he has not disturbed the foundation stone of the 
 System. He also rules with money. He, too, sends bribes to 
 the towns of Rhode Island, and to him also the good " coun- 
 try " American has surrendered his sovereignty. There is 
 no doubt about this. The corruption of the voters of the 
 towns of Rhode Island is so ancient and so common that 
 Governor Lucius F. C. Garvin addressed in March, 1903, 
 a " Special Message concerning Bribery in Elections to 
 the Honorable, the General Assembly," etc. :
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 127 
 
 GENTLEMEN: . . . That bribery exists to a great ex- 
 tent in the elections of this State is a matter of common 
 knowledge. No general election passes without, in some 
 sections of the State, the purchase of votes by one or both 
 of the great political parties. It is true that the results of the 
 election may not often be changed, so far as the candidates 
 on the State ticket are concerned, but many Assemblymen 
 occupy the seats they do by means of purchased votes. 
 
 In a considerable number of our towns bribery is so com- 
 mon and has existed for so many years that the awful nature 
 of the crime has ceased to impress. In some towns the bribery 
 takes place openly; is not called bribery, nor considered a 
 serious matter. The money paid to the voter, whether two, 
 five, or twenty dollars, is spoken of as " payment for his 
 time." The claim that the money given to the elector is not 
 for the purpose of influencing his vote, but is compensation 
 for time lost in visiting the polls, is the merest sophistry, and 
 should not deceive any adult citizen of ordinary intelligence. 
 It is well known that in such towns, when one political party 
 is supplied with a corruption fund and the other is without, 
 the party so provided invariably elects its Assembly ticket, 
 thus affording positive proof that the votes are bought and 
 the voters bribed. . . 
 
 This startling official arraignment had no appreciable 
 effect within the State. It was too true. But the message 
 attracted outside attention, and Mr. Edward Lowry, of 
 the New York Evening Post, and Mr. Waldo L. Cook, of 
 the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, made investigations 
 so thorough and reports so complete that, though I went 
 over the same ground with more time and more deliberation,
 
 128 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 I found nothing to correct and little to add to their 
 facts. 
 
 Nine of the towns are absolutely purchasable ; that is to 
 say, they " go the way the money goes." Eleven more can 
 be influenced by the use of money. Many of their voters 
 won't go to the polls at all unless " there is something in 
 it." But there need not be much in it. Governor Garvin 
 quoted a political leader in one town who declared that 
 if neither party had money, but one had a box of cigars, 
 " my town would go for that party if the workers 
 would give up the cigars." In another town one party 
 had but one man in it who did not take money, and he 
 never voted. A campaign marching club organized for 
 a presidential campaign paraded every night with en- 
 thusiasm so great that the leaders thought it would be 
 unnecessary to pay for votes in this town ; few of the mem- 
 bers voted. Another time, when no money turned up at a 
 State election, one town, by way of rebuke to the regular 
 party managers, elected a Prohibition candidate to the 
 Assembly. 
 
 Both parties buy votes, and though the practice seems 
 to have destroyed completely all loyalty to the State, some 
 loyalty to party remains in most of these towns. But even 
 this sentiment is mercenary. The Democratic leader of a 
 Democratic town told me that he has to pay something 
 always. " For instance," he explained, " my town is all 
 right. The Republicans can come in there with more money 
 than I have, and I still can hold it. Suppose they have 
 enough to pay ten dollars a vote and I can give but three ; 
 I tell my fellows to go over and get the ten, then come to
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 129 
 
 me and get my three ; that makes thirteen, but I tell them 
 to vote my way. And they do. And the Republicans do 
 the same in their solid towns when we go in to outbid 
 them." Another instance stated to me by a campaign 
 manager was the experience of a " respectable business 
 man " who lived in a town that usually " went wrong." 
 The manager wanted to carry that town, and he asked 
 the business man to do it. " I offered him a few hundred 
 dollars," he said, " and he wouldn't take the money at 
 first; said it would be of no use among the kind of men 
 he could influence. But I got him to try it, and after 
 election when he came to report he had learned something. 
 He had spent most of the money, and he was astonished 
 at the character of the men who took such money. * Why,' 
 he said, * they took it as easy as you please.' They asked 
 why we hadn't done that before. They said they were will- 
 ing to vote our way if only we would make it inter- 
 esting ! " 
 
 This " respectable business man " discovered the most 
 depressing development of the Rhode Island practices 
 the kind of voters that take bribes. They are Americans ; 
 others, too, but the worst of these rotten boroughs are 
 the " hill towns," so called because they lie back away from 
 the harbor and river and " big cities," up on the hills. 
 There is the American stock pure; too pure, some apolo- 
 gists say; the hill towns are called degenerate. Maybe 
 they are. The population of many of them has decreased 
 slowly, but pretty steadily, for a hundred years. " The 
 most courageous of the people have gone out," you hear, 
 " and little new blood has gone in." But that only proves
 
 130 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the point. These pure Americans are corrupt. Another 
 consideration to be weighed is that the temptation has been 
 severe and long. With so much power to bestow, their 
 votes have been eagerly sought, as very valuable. But 
 this accident only explains, perhaps, why other, more 
 populous, districts elsewhere are not corrupt; they have 
 not been tried. It is cheaper in Providence to bribe the 
 opposition leaders, and in Missouri and Wisconsin to wait 
 and buy the select men of the people, not the people. 
 Where the people are tempted, in the country " towns " 
 of Rhode Island, the people sell out. 
 
 And Rhode Island proves the willingness to buy. The 
 respectable business man, who was astonished at the stand- 
 ing of the men who sold, was ready enough to buy, and he 
 did buy, and he had no astonishment for his own conduct. 
 Bribe-giving is " not so bad." Some men who talked to me 
 of their vote-buying knew and said, and one of them 
 plainly felt, that it was a shameful practice, but they all 
 regarded it as necessary. Governor Garvin referred once 
 publicly to a " district judge " who so regarded it, and 
 so notorious is this case that a dozen men named the judge 
 to me. The Democrats, who, being out of power, stand for 
 reform and a new constitution, do not see how they can 
 get control long enough to make the needed changes with- 
 out more money than they can raise in the State, and the 
 hope of some of the leaders is that an exigency will arise, 
 say in national politics, which will enable them to collect 
 enough " outside capital " to buy up the State for their 
 party. 
 
 Bribery, bribery of the people, is a custom of the coun-
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 131 
 
 try in Rhode Island; it is an institution, and, like the 
 church or property, it is not safe to attack it. This may 
 sound preposterous, and there is a public opinion against 
 the custom, but the country clergy, as Mr. Lowry showed 
 and as Bishop McVickar of the Rhode Island diocese of 
 the Episcopal Church confirmed, do not denounce bribery 
 from their pulpits ; they do not dare. The Bishop declared 
 that the country clergy could not " speak out without 
 coming to financial grief and ruin," and he proposed 
 " doing something, so that no one will dare threaten local 
 ministers with the loss of their positions." What does the 
 Bishop mean by such language? " It is an outrage on our 
 civilization," he added, " that young men of the church 
 with high ideals should be put under the ban of the power 
 of political immoralities and forced to acquiesce in evil 
 for the sake of their families." 
 
 The good Bishop was pointing, when he spoke thus, at 
 the System, of which this bribery institution is the corner- 
 stone. Back of the vote-buyers are the most powerful 
 interests of the State, the friends of " all that is," and 
 even Bishop McVickar has been unable to do the " some- 
 thing " to free the clergy. The head men in the churches, 
 the leading citizens in th State, the captains of finance 
 and industry, won't let the clergy " preach politics " ; they 
 may preach the Gospel, not morality, not practical 
 morality. 
 
 What is this precious System that can compel the re- 
 spect, of silence at least, even from the Church? It is just 
 such a typical financial political organization as we have 
 seen in other States, only plainer ; as General Brayton, the
 
 132 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 boss, says : " Bad, but not a bit worse than in many other 
 States. Because Rhode Island is small, you can see things 
 better; that's what makes the difference." But that is a 
 most encouraging difference to those who want to see 
 things better. Business men are back of the politicians 
 that rule most corrupt States ; in Rhode Island they are in 
 plain sight, and everybody knows them and their opera- 
 tions. Here, also, there are politicians to " do the dirty 
 work," but the very politicians in this State are not of the 
 " low-down " sort. They are not " Irish immigrants " ; 
 the Irish are in opposition here. Nor are they saloon- 
 keepers and keepers of disorderly houses, gamblers, and 
 the " scum of the earth." So purely a business govern- 
 ment is this that the officers and legislators, the bosses and 
 the leaders, are typically native-born citizens of profes- 
 sional and business occupations. General Brayton himself 
 comes of a fine old Rhode Island family, with a revolu- 
 tionary record and a line of sons reaching from the 
 Supreme Court bench to Congress ; the boss went to Brown 
 University and served with credit in the Civil War. Though 
 he had himself admitted to the bar apparently only to 
 enable him, as a St. Louis grafter put it, " to take fees, 
 not bribes," none the less the boss is a lawyer. 
 
 And he is a " character." He is old now, blind, and 
 some of his political friends said he was mentally weak- 
 ened. I think they feared his candor; though, when I 
 called, his relatives, after consulting with him, and report- 
 ing that he felt he had better not talk, they put the refusal 
 on other grounds. It is better so, for whereas I make it a 
 rule to treat such interviews as confidential, Mr. Lowry had
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 133 
 
 his for publication, and here it is, a remarkable outline of 
 the Rhode Island government by General Brayton himself : 
 
 " There is a lot of talk of bribery here, but ... I 
 don't think there is much outright vote-buying done; the 
 voters are paid for their time, because they have to leave 
 their work and come down to the polls. Sometimes that 
 takes all day. The Republican party shouldn't be blamed 
 for the present state of affairs. The Democrats are just 
 as bad, or would be if they had the money. 
 
 " The manufacturers in the State are really to blame for 
 present conditions. If they would only hang together and 
 wanted to do it, they could clean out the State in no time 
 at all. They give to the Republican campaign fund in 
 Presidential years, but usually when you go to them to 
 get money for State elections they say : ' Oh ! we'll take 
 care of our town ' ; so in that way all of the towns in the 
 State are peddled around, each manufacturer caring for 
 his own town. Some of them haven't treated the party just 
 right. The Republicans have never passed any legislation 
 that would bother them, like the ten-hour law and things 
 like that, until there was such a strong demand from 
 the labor people and the citizens that the party had to 
 do it." 
 
 " What is your share in the forming of legislation and 
 the passage of bills? " 
 
 " I am an attorney for certain clients and look out for 
 their interests before the Legislature. I am retained annu- 
 ally by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad 
 Company, and am usually spoken of as ' of counsel ' for 
 that road. Of course, I don't have anything to do with
 
 134 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 damage suits or matters in relation to grade crossing. As 
 everyone knows, I act for the Rhode Island Company 
 (street-railway interests), and I have been retained in cer- 
 tain cases by the Providence Telephone Company. In 
 addition to these I have had connections, not permanent, 
 with various companies desiring franchises, charters, and 
 things of that sort from the Legislature. I never solicit 
 any business," added General Brayton, without a smile. 
 " It all comes to me unsought, and if I can handle it I 
 accept the retainer." 
 
 " What is your power in the Legislature that enables 
 you to serve your clients ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, in managing the campaign every year 
 I am in a position to be of service to men all over the State. 
 I help them to get elected, and, naturally, many warm 
 friendships result, then when they are in a position to 
 repay me they are glad to do it." 
 
 The elected Governors of Rhode Island are called " ad- 
 ministrative mummies." They have sat for years without 
 power and without homage in the State House, while across 
 the hall, in the office of the High Sheriff, Boss Brayton 
 was the State. He directed the General Assembly. His 
 word was law. He did not have to " dicker, trade, and 
 buy," there was no " addition, division, and silence " for 
 him. He handled the campaign funds of " the party," 
 and with them the voters were bought at the polls. The 
 legislator returned by the electors came bought. When 
 the time for local caucuses was approaching, the party 
 leaders came down to Providence to get money for ex- 
 penses from Brayton.
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 135 
 
 " How much do you think you will need? " he would 
 ask. 
 
 " Oh, say $500." 
 
 '* Five hundred dollars to carry that town ! Who's your 
 man for Senator? " 
 
 The leader would tell him. If the local candidate suited 
 Brayton, a bargain was struck as to the amount; if not, 
 he would say pointedly : " I guess there isn't any money 
 for you this year." 
 
 The leader then had to go back and pick out another 
 candidate, or, perhaps, Brayton would give him a sugges- 
 tion which the " other fellows " would have to " agree 
 upon." 'At any rate, Brayton had to be satisfied or the 
 party got no money for expenses. 
 
 When the General Assembly met he directed its labors, 
 and his masterfulness is unprecedented. A good-natured, 
 generous man, he adopted a cross, surly tone, which, alter- 
 nating with kindness, made men fear and like him, too. 
 Not at all vindictive, he punished severely as a matter of 
 policy. If a member of the Legislature disobeyed him, he 
 would say, " That man shan't come back," and that man 
 rarely could be renominated and reflected. He was very 
 open, and hundreds of anecdotes are told to illustrate his 
 methods. 
 
 The Springfield Republican reported two, which are 
 well known. Once, when the House of Representatives was 
 
 in prolonged session, Brayton became hungry. *' D 
 
 it ! " he exclaimed, " who is that fool talking in the House? 
 It's lunch time and past. Sheriff, go in and see that the 
 House adjourns." The House adjourned. Another time,
 
 136 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 this conversation was overheard between the angry boss 
 and a most humble Republican floor leader : 
 
 " D it, can't I have a little bill passed when I want 
 
 it? " said the boss. 
 
 " But, General, I didn't know you were interested in 
 that bill." 
 
 " Well, I am, and I want it passed right away." 
 
 That little bill was passed right away. 
 
 " Where's Senator ? " said the boss in his blindness 
 
 one morning when he arrived in the State House. 
 
 " In the Senate," said someone. 
 
 " Get him," said Brayton. " Bring him here. I want 
 him to lead me out to [let us say] drink." 
 
 Such was the discipline of a coarse man made peevish 
 by too much power. The only wonder is that men put up 
 with it. But Brayton could reward, too. He had " suc- 
 cess " as well as " failure " to bestow. The General As- 
 sembly " elects " judges, sheriffs, and fills most of the 
 offices in between. It is the road to success, and Brayton 
 has made it a rule to send on to these higher offices, even to 
 the Supreme Court of the State, men who have served him 
 in the General Assembly, thus controlled and thus disci- 
 plined. The law allows legislators to serve as district 
 judges while sitting in the Legislature, and they do. The 
 effect on the courts of all this is not for me to discuss 
 (it is said to be " not so bad as you would think "). The 
 effect on the Legislature is to make it absolutely subserv- 
 ient to the boss, who really appoints to all these offices, 
 and thus controls all the patronage of the State. More 
 than that, he has business to give business that is not
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 137 
 
 political. It puzzled me at first to find that there was so 
 little bribery in a Legislature so corruptly devised. The 
 pay of Senators and Representatives was small, and some 
 of them served for years without the reward of promotion 
 to the bench or any other office. The chairman of a most 
 important committee explained it all frankly to me. There 
 was some bribery, he said, but it wasn't typical. When 
 he first opened his law office, a small corporation offered 
 him $5,000, besides his fee, if he could put through the 
 Legislature an amendment to their charter. William G. 
 Roelker, the Senator at the head of the committee that 
 would decide, said it should not pass. The young lawyer 
 did not know Brayton, but he went to him and told him 
 all about his business. 
 
 "I told Brayton," he said, "just how it was; that I 
 wanted that $5,000, and after talking a long time to me, 
 the General said he'd see about it ; for me to come the 
 next day. I went at the appointed time and Brayton was 
 out. I was * hot, 5 till a friend of mine came up and said 
 my bill was through. Brayton had done it before he said 
 he would, and when I offered to divide the five thousand 
 with him, he nearly threw me out of his office. But he 
 threw me into politics all right. He knew he was putting 
 me under obligations forever ; oh, he was shrewd all right. 
 But wouldn't you go the limit for a man that gave you 
 your first lift like that? " 
 
 I have heard thoughtful Rhode Islanders say that by 
 such methods, by a cynical tone with young men and 
 sneers at their college education and high ideals, by 
 assisting them in " crooked business " and getting his
 
 138 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 corporations to employ the " good fellows " and ignore 
 the " fools," General Brayton has corrupted more of the 
 youth of the State than any man that ever lived in it 
 Brayton and his business backers the men and interests 
 he says he represents. 
 
 For Brayton was the front, not the head, of the Sys- 
 tem. Say what you will about the " boss," no one man 
 can do what any American boss has done without the 
 powerful backing of the " vested interests " of a com- 
 munity. Brayton had great personal power ; he " organ- 
 ized " the Republican party ; he systematized the corrup- 
 tion of voters ; he chose legislators ; he organized the Gen- 
 eral Assembly and ran it; he has gradually altered the 
 government of the State. But he did not do this for his 
 own uses. Brayton is not rich. He says himself that he 
 took " fees " for legislation, but they were fees, not for- 
 tunes. The New Haven Railroad's annual retainer was 
 only $10,000. His fee for an ordinary bill was $500. I 
 know of one company that paid him as high as $1,000, 
 but that was for a piece of legislation worth, in Missouri, 
 for instance, at least $25,000. Like the voters of Rhode 
 Island, like the local leaders, like the legislators, the boss 
 of Rhode Island was cheap. " I often told him that," 
 said one of his lieutenants to me when I had expressed this 
 opinion, " and now that he is getting out, we'll raise some 
 prices." Brayton was a bad and an able man, but he 
 was a tool, and he realizes it now : " I have been the scape- 
 goat of the party for twenty years." 
 
 Who are " the party " in Rhode Island ? As I have said 
 above, they are and they always have been the " leading
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 139 
 
 business men " of the State. First the old aristocracy, 
 then the old manufacturers, and Brayton's growl because 
 they would not let him spend their bribery funds in their 
 own towns is an echo of a past relationship. Then came 
 the railroads, and the annual retainer of $10,000 is what 
 the scientists would call a rudimentary vestige of their 
 interest. After steam comes electricity, and it is the elec- 
 tric railway men who are at the head of the government 
 now. For, as General Brayton explained to Mr. Lowry, 
 he serves others with " the understanding that when their 
 interests conflict with those of the Rhode Island (street- 
 railway) Company, the street-railway people are to have 
 first call." So the Brayton government is a business gov- 
 ernment. The cost to the character of the people of the 
 State is heavy, but never mind; Rhode Island has what 
 honest business men of this country have long honestly 
 said we ought to have in all States and all cities in the 
 United States, a business government of the business 
 men, by the business men, and for the business men. What 
 have the Rhode Island business men done with it? 
 
 The old aristocracy, we have seen, drove the people to 
 revolt. The old manufacturers sought a high protective 
 tariff, and they got it. The railroads sought rights, privi- 
 leges, and property, and they got them in the way they 
 preferred, by bribery, not by a fair contract with the 
 State. This is what Rhode Island's older business rulers 
 did with political power. Now for the " trolley crowd"; 
 what have they done with it? 
 
 They financed it. They organized it into a company 
 which they are selling to outside capitalists.
 
 140 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 " They " are Marsden J. Perry, William G. Roelker, 
 and the Hon. Nelson W. Aldrich. Perry is the business 
 man. He began life a poor boy, had some sort of connec- 
 tion with a theatrical show, till, entering the chattel mort- 
 gage business, he made himself a banker, promoter, and 
 finally Rhode Island's first captain of finance. He is 
 really an able man, dangerous, but only because he is 
 spoiled by power. Roelker is the lawyer. Counsel to cor- 
 porations, he was after money, and when they all got that 
 he retired to play at Newport. Aldrich is the politician of 
 the group. He also began life humbly, as a clerk and 
 bookkeeper, first in a market, then in a wholesale gro- 
 cery business, and in this he worked up to a partner- 
 ship. Thus he was a business man originally he is yet, 
 for that matter but business men in Rhode Island do not 
 neglect politics, and Aldrich became alderman, legislator, 
 Speaker of the House, Congressman, and, finally, Senator. 
 Having served it step by step, this leader of the United 
 States Senate may truly be said to be a product, as he 
 is now the supreme head, of the Rhode Island System. 
 
 There were others concerned with these three men, but 
 they, representing the business, the law, and the politics 
 of the State, conceived and carried to success a scheme 
 to buy up, equip with electricity, and not only run, but 
 finance, the old horse-car lines of Providence, Pawtucket, 
 and, later, of the State. The first steps were taken in 
 secret, but I understand that the plan originated with 
 Perry. He was getting interested in public utilities and 
 had put a lighting deal through the (business men's) city 
 council of Providence. While he was thus in touch both
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 141 
 
 with finance and politics, he had neither the capital, credit, 
 nor political power needed for such a scheme as this. 
 You don't have to have money for big as you do for small 
 business ; influence will do, financial and political " pull.'* 
 Aldrich had both. As the highest representative of polit- 
 ical power in the State, its senior Senator should have been 
 the man most to be avoided and feared. His duty, if he 
 took any part at all, was to see that the interests of the 
 State were protected. But that is a moral, not a practical, 
 view to take of business and politics. Aldrich, as the Sen- 
 ator for Rhode Island, had gone to Congress as the 
 representative of protected, that is to say, privileged, 
 business. Indeed, it was as the representative of manufac- 
 turers of his State that he felt bound to make himself an 
 authority on tariff legislation. And it was as such that the 
 chairman of the Senate Finance Committee came in touch 
 with Wall Street, the trusts, and the so-called moneyed 
 interests. It was natural for a Rhode Islander to think of 
 him for such business as Perry had before him. And 
 Aldrich joined Perry; he became a partner in his scheme; 
 he delivered Brayton and Brayton's System; and, besides 
 the actual government of his State, Senator Aldrich 
 brought to back the scheme capital from out of the State. 
 One of the explicit charges against Senator Aldrich 
 was offered as an explanation of the scandalous campaign 
 to elect about this time (1892) a Legislature to return him 
 to the United States Senate. It was repeatedly made by 
 Colonel A. K. McClure, the editor of the Philadelphia 
 Times, and never denied by Mr. Aldrich, who, however, 
 says he never denies such things. Colonel McClure de-
 
 142 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 clared that Aldrich, as chairman of the Finance Committee 
 of the Senate, added to the House tariff schedules one mill 
 worth $3,000,000 a year to the Trust to the duty on 
 Sugar. " When this bill came to the Senate," said Colonel 
 McClure in his Boston speech, " there was no open demand 
 for an increase, but Senator Aldrich had a battle in Rhode 
 Island,, and it was a battle royal for cash. He had to be 
 reflected to the Senate, and he gave an additional one- 
 tenth of one per cent, to the sugar men, and the sugar 
 men fought that battle in Rhode Island and reflected 
 him." 
 
 Just as Providence people were wondering where the 
 money for that campaign came from, so they wondered 
 who the men were in the railway deal and where that 
 money came from. The street-car stock was bought up 
 at advancing prices, and Brayton's Legislature was turn- 
 ing out bills to enable willing councils to grant franchises. 
 Evidently they were powerful men, but all was a mystery 
 till in 1893 the United Traction and Electric Company 
 was organized. Then Senator Aldrich appeared as presi- 
 dent; John E. Searles (sugar) as vice-president; F. P. 
 Olcott (Central Trust Company), treasurer; and Perry 
 and Roelker as officers, directors, or stockholders in the 
 subordinate companies ; and the money proved to have 
 been loaned by what is known in New York as the (Cen- 
 tral) " trust company of the sugar crowd." The pro- 
 moters issued $8,000,000 of bonds to pay for the property 
 they bought and to equip it with electricity, and $8,000,000 
 of stock, which they divided among themselves, they and 
 their outside backers, eight in all.
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 143 
 
 But they were not yet through. Considering their inex- 
 perience in such business, Aldrich, Perry & Co. displayed 
 unusual foresight. The scheme, still to be executed, was 
 to gather practically all the public utility companies in 
 and around Providence into one great parcel, " The Rhode 
 Island Company," and, way back in 1891, their first legis- 
 lation was a general act providing that any town or city 
 might grant exclusive franchises. In 1892 the General 
 Assembly passed special acts for such exclusive franchises 
 to the street-railway, gas, and electric light companies. 
 These franchises were to be for twenty years ; they might 
 just as well have had them for ninety-nine years, but it is 
 amazing to see how often these public utility political 
 business men all over the country have been satisfied with 
 short-term grants. Apparently they thought only of a 
 quick turn for cash. Perry, Aldrich & Co. made this mis- 
 take. It is said that they discovered it when they began 
 to approach Philadelphia capital to sell out. Down there 
 the captains of political industry had grants for 999 
 years, and they pointed out the defect in the Rhode Island 
 charters. By that time it was almost too late. 
 
 Opposition was developing to this abuse of the powers 
 of the State for private exploitation. The public, espe- 
 cially in Providence, began to ask questions and make 
 demands. These demands were very moderate, and they 
 seem finally to have resolved themselves into one for a 
 transfer system. Now, any expert street-railway man 
 knows that transfer tickets wisely given increase traffic 
 and profits, but President Aldrich was not such an expert. 
 He was a " power behind a power," and he declared that
 
 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the company could not pay interest on the bonds and 
 dividends on its (watered) stock if the transfer privilege 
 were granted. The absurd public continued, none the less, 
 to regard this private business as a public convenience, 
 and the cry was still for transfers. The company, which 
 had got so much for little or nothing (a graduated tax 
 of from three to five per cent, of the gross receipts), see- 
 ing that it might have to yield, looked about for something 
 to get out of the public for the transfer privilege. Why 
 not an extension of its twenty-year franchise? A bill was 
 put through the ever-ready General Assembly providing 
 that a new contract, for transfers, etc., might be entered 
 into by the companies and the City of Providence " for 
 a term of not more than twenty-five years from the date 
 of such contracts." Thus was the franchise to be ex- 
 tended. The trick was seen, and the public, having no 
 effective representation in any branch of the government, 
 resorted to mass meetings to prevent the city council from 
 entering into the new agreement. The city council, com- 
 posed, mind you, of business men, not of typical aldermen, 
 and elected by a restricted suffrage, was a part of the 
 State System; it had been put up to ask for this bill; it 
 had asked for it ; and now failed to clinch the bargain only 
 through fear of the extra-legal expression of the public will. 
 The next scheme appeared in an act (General Assembly, 
 1896) which provided for transfers at certain valuable 
 central sites, which the city was to give to the company. 
 This was no more preposterous than giving away miles of 
 streets, but the public, again by sheer indignation, beat 
 its own government. The transfer controversy went on
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 145 
 
 for years, till 1902, and then the Legislature required the 
 company to give transfers, but only so long as five-cent 
 fares were paid. The agitation for three-cent fares had 
 arisen in other places, and the Rhode Island Company, 
 under the guise of giving " free transfers," fixed the 
 fare at a nickel forever. That was the purpose of the act. 
 And the effect of the " free transfers " was a sudden up- 
 ward leap of earnings ! 
 
 Meanwhile the company had been extending its lines, 
 procuring franchises, privileges and unlimited rights in 
 all the cities and towns that it cared to " tap." I know no 
 councils so " respectable " and I know few grants more 
 ridiculous in their terms. That of Bristol, which is typical, 
 gives the company every license, excepting that it is sub- 
 ject to police and health regulations which the town au- 
 thorities shall prescribe. This sounds almost " socialistic " 
 in Rhode Island, but a characteristic clause is added: 
 " with the consent of the company." 
 
 But Aldrich, Perry & Co. were in this business to sell 
 out, and they had to have a perpetual franchise. They 
 got it, and the act by which they got it is the " smartest " 
 piece of legislation that I know of anywhere. " An act 
 to increase the revenues of the State," is the title. The 
 company, having failed to pay to the City of Providence 
 the increased tax due, was being annoyed by public 
 clamor, and irresponsible persons were beginning to take 
 up the franchise tax notion. To head off all such danger- 
 ous radicalism once and forever, the company's Legisla- 
 ture put a State tax of one per cent, on the gross earnings 
 of all street-railway companies, this to be " in lieu and
 
 146 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 satisfaction of all other taxes, excises, burthens, or impo- 
 sitions by or under the authority of the State." As in the 
 Bristol franchises, as in the Providence transfer act, as in 
 practically all such corporation legislation in this State, 
 the law, however, was to become binding only when each 
 company had given its consent. 
 
 But all this is by the way. The masterpiece of legisla- 
 tive treason for it is no less in this act, is the rest of 
 this consent clause; which says that when the company 
 has agreed, the act " shall be binding and in full force 
 between the State and such assenting company, and shall 
 not be altered or amended without the consent of both 
 parties." Governor Garvin characterized this as an " irre- 
 pealable law." It is a contract between United States 
 Senator Aldrich as the State and President Nelson W. 
 Aldrich of the street railway company, by which, with- 
 out the consent of his company, his State cannot tax his 
 company or alter or take back its franchise. It passed, 
 and is believed by the company to be what Boss Brayton 
 calls it, a " perpetual franchise." 
 
 With this legislation, these remarkable men passed for 
 themselves also a charter, a sort of omnibus grant to lease, 
 buy, etc., etc., all gas, electric light, street-railway, etc., 
 etc., corporations in the State. This also was irrepealablc, 
 unlimited, etc., etc. ; it was for a company to " hold " the 
 public utilities in the State, and the name thereof was, 
 fittingly, The Rhode Island Company. Even Pennsylvania 
 capital could ask no more than the Rhode Island captains 
 of industry, politics, and law had to offer, and the deal 
 was going through when a gross error was made.
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 147 
 
 There had been some outcry at the doings of the Legis- 
 lature of 1902, and to pacify the workingman a ten-hour 
 law was enacted for street-railway . conductors and motor- 
 men. The company consented and notice was posted on 
 the car barns. Suddenly the notice came down, and Aldrich 
 resigned the presidency of the company. It is understood 
 that the " Philadelphia folks kicked ; said they'd agreed 
 to buy an eleven-hour road, and they wouldn't take a ten- 
 hour road." The law was mandatory, but that didn't mat- 
 ter to the Rhode Island Company. They refused to obey 
 the law. 
 
 There was a strike. The men " had recourse to lawless- 
 ness," especially in Pawtucket. This was anarchy. The 
 company was breaking a law itself, but that wasn't an- 
 archy. Anarchy arises where other people break laws and 
 injure my property. The company demanded police protec- 
 tion, such police protection as it had in Providence, where 
 the State controlled the city police. Not satisfied with the 
 conduct of the Pawtucket police, they had deputy sheriffs 
 appointed and the militia called out to enforce the law 
 (against the men). Thus the company won the strike, 
 but the law that caused it stood. The courts were asked 
 to declare it unconstitutional, but the courts could not see 
 it so, and the company was in a bad fix. It was not with- 
 out resources, however. Rhode Island has among its other 
 preposterous institutions a post-election session of the 
 Legislature. The General Assembly meets in the winter, 
 and having done all it dares, adjourns till after election 
 day in the fall ; then the expiring body, no longer answer- 
 able at the polls, does what the " power behind the power "
 
 148 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 directs. After the election of 1902 the General Assembly 
 which had passed it unanimously killed that ten-hour law 
 and threatened to take from the city and give to the 
 State the control of the Pawtucket police ! 
 
 Aldrich, Perry & Co. were in a position now to proceed 
 with their business, and they moved fast. We need not 
 follow them. It was all a matter of high finance. By a 
 complicated process of stock transfers, leases (for 999 
 years) , and " sales," all among themselves, but through 
 the medium of several underlying operating and holding 
 companies, they managed to develop a total capitalization 
 of $39,160,200, while they stiU left the control of the 
 property in the Rhode Island Company, with a capital of 
 $2,000,000. Perry is president of this company, but the 
 famous U. G. I. (the United Gas Improvement Co.) of 
 Philadelphia owns it. What the promoter's profits are I 
 can't reckon, and the brokers to whom I applied in Provi- 
 dence declared they couldn't ; they said they didn't under- 
 stand it all. This much is certain, however: Aldrich, 
 Perry, and Roelker made fortunes out of it. 
 
 They made these fortunes out of their political power, 
 but, as one of their defenders said, they did it without 
 breaking a law or committing a crime. But how could 
 they commit a crime? They were above the law. It was 
 their law; they made it. True, they disobeyed the ten- 
 hour law, but that was " necessary," and exceptional. As 
 in Philadelphia and Pittsburg, the System was so perfect 
 that all they had to do, if they wished to commit a wrong, 
 was to pass a law to make it right. This might take time, 
 but wherever they could afford the time, they were pa-
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 149 
 
 tient. See how they waited, three or four years, for the 
 irrepealable law that gave them their perpetual franchises ! 
 
 Of course, they abused the law ; they abused their legis- 
 lative powers in the General Assembly, but they did this 
 in the interest of business. " This is a business country, 
 and the government is there to help business." Is it? An 
 ex^official of the United State Treasury Department, who 
 now is a prominent banker, said that to me once, and it is 
 a common view taken by business men of the corruption of 
 government in the interest of business. But is that what 
 " the government is there for " ? I think not. I think that 
 it is this legitimate, business graft, not police blackmail, 
 which is the chief cause of our political corruption, but 
 this is no place for " academic " reflections. The point is 
 that this must be the view taken of political power by 
 Marsden J. Perry, one of the typical captains of in- 
 dustry of the United States, and by Nelson W. Aldrich, 
 the head of a State and of the United States Senate. Let 
 us say, however, that because the chosen people of Rhode 
 Island sold out at from $5 to $25 a vote the sovereign 
 power of the State, their financial and political repre- 
 sentative had a right to sell a part of that power to out- 
 side capital for some $40,000,000. 
 
 The next question is, what did they do with the rest of 
 their power? They ruled ; how did they rule? Suppose that 
 it was right for them to rule and, ruling, to grant them- 
 selves extraordinary privileges. We hear that we cannot 
 have the services in politics and government of able busi- 
 ness men without paying for it. Let us put this forty mil- 
 lions down as fair pay for the privilege Rhode Island
 
 150 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 had of being governed by the ablest business men in the 
 State. What have the business rulers of Rhode Island 
 given in return? 
 
 The old manufacturers, having got what they wanted, a 
 protective tariff, gave loyal allegiance to what? To the 
 State, to the United States? No, to "the party," to the 
 Republican party. They let Brayton do as he pleased 
 with the State. So with the railroad. The New York, 
 New Haven and Hartford has " about all that it wants," 
 but for " protection " in those bribe-bought rights, for 
 license to break or " beat the law," it supports the System. 
 That is the way it continues to pay the people of the State, 
 by helping to keep the State corrupt. 
 
 And as for the Aldrich-Perry trolley crowd their 
 wants were very large and they were so exacting and so 
 jealous that General Brayton often complained to his 
 lieutenants about them; some people declare that the 
 eleven-hour labor law was due to one of his revolts. And 
 we have seen that he had to condition all his contracts for 
 legislation with the understanding that the street-railway 
 had first call. However, the street-railway did not want 
 everything. What of the rest? 
 
 Boss Brayton could do what he would with what was left. 
 They didn't care apparently. And that was Brayton's busi- 
 ness, to sell the rest. A man could go to Rhode Island and, 
 if he respected the rights of the trolley crowd, he needn't 
 pay any attention to the rights of the people of the State. 
 Rhode Island was, and it is, a State for sale. In other 
 words, these business men's business government was a gov- 
 ernment of boodle. Having their " legitimate graft," they
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 151 
 
 let the rest be held for sale to other business men who ap- 
 plied with fees. Incredible? What else did General Bray- 
 ton mean when he said that in addition to his regular 
 retainment by the steam and electric railways, he had 
 " connections, not permanent, with various companies de- 
 siring franchises, charters, and things of that sort from 
 the Legislature " ? 
 
 Senator Aldrich declared to me, in the face of all this, 
 that his government of Rhode Island was " good govern- 
 ment." Now, he means what men of his class usually mean 
 by the term: an administration, convenient and liberal to 
 business, but strict with vice and disorder, and free from 
 scandals and petty police graft. The Senator does not 
 know whether this is true or not, nor does he care enough 
 to inform himself. He is an inordinately selfish man, so 
 selfish that in all the time I spent in his State I did not 
 find, even among his associates, a single warm personal 
 friend of the man. And as for the government of Rhode 
 Island, General Brayton summed up the Senator's attitude 
 toward that when he told Mr. Lowry that Aldrich took 
 no active part until " about a year or two before it comes 
 time for him to be elected again ; then he gets active." 
 
 It is true that in some of the cities and towns of Rhode 
 Island petty graft has been neglected. At one time or 
 another this evil has appeared among them, but the small 
 business men selected for the council of Providence, for 
 example, by a restricted suffrage, have offended chiefly 
 on the side of supine indulgence toward larger business 
 graft. Just now, however, the trains are laid for the de- 
 velopment of this wretched political-vice business there,
 
 152 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and a man who has the confidence of Mr. Perry, and is 
 in the pay of Senator Aldrich, is at the head of it; his 
 patrons may not know it, but I believe they don't care, for 
 the same man is corrupting Democratic leaders and wreck- 
 ing the opposition organization ; getting it to put up 
 tickets so bad that the Republicans can win. The Demo- 
 cratic city of Pawtucket is subject to the corrupt control 
 of the Third Ward Democratic gang in combination with 
 one branch of the local Republican organization, and 
 when a Republican leader of another branch pleaded last 
 fall with the State organization to cut loose from this 
 connection, the answer he received was " not this year." 
 " This year " a Legislature was to be elected to return 
 Aldrich to the Senate. 
 
 The worst case of " good government," however, is that 
 of Block Island. This ocean community has a population 
 of 1,396, almost all descended from the sixteen original 
 families that settled there. They always have had what 
 they call a " king." The reigning king is Christopher E. 
 Champlin, State Senator and a " Democrat." But Champ- 
 lin " stood in " with Brayton, and this is what Brayton's 
 business system permitted Champlin to do to his own peo- 
 ple in his own town : 
 
 The chief business of the Block Islanders is that of 
 hotel keeping. Champlin owns one of the largest hotels. 
 Most of the traffic and most of the hostelries are at the 
 eastern end of the island ; Champlin's hotel is at the other 
 end. Near it is the " Great Salt Pond," which the Senator 
 proposed to make a harbor of by opening a breach to the 
 ocean. The United States Government said it was not a
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 153 
 
 feasible scheme; the channel could be made, but the sand 
 drift of the seashore would close it. The State authorized 
 the town to undertake the work, the State to pay part, 
 the town the rest with money loaned by the State from 
 school funds. Year by year, fresh appropriations had to 
 be made to keep open the breach, till the State had spent 
 $129,123.90, the town $52,000. Mr. Edward M. Sullivan, 
 a young lawyer whom Governor Garvin appointed a com- 
 missioner to investigate the situation, reported that " the 
 harbor is used exclusively by excursion steamboats and 
 island craft," for which there was already a haven. 
 " Some local interest more influential than the demands 
 of coastwise commerce . . . actuated those appropri- 
 ations. The opening of Great Salt Pond was manifestly 
 designed by its promoters, who are the principal owners of 
 the land and its vicinity, to transfer the business center 
 ... to the head of Great Salt Pond. . . . Each 
 of these appropriations was made in the closing hours of 
 the session . . . and were not included in the appro- 
 priation bill of the committee of finance of any year. No 
 report of the expenditure was made by the town council 
 or the State committee . . . There has been no public 
 bidding or competition for the work, which has been done 
 throughout by one contractor," etc., etc. 
 
 Besides this work, Champlin received State authority 
 to build an electric railway line between the two ends of 
 the island. Champlin made the town borrow at four per 
 cent, the money on which the road was to pay four per 
 cent. The town pays its interest ; but the horse-cars, which 
 are all there is of the electric railway company, have never
 
 154 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 made any accounting. Also, in much the same way, he 
 had the town vote a steamboat, which he ordered of such a 
 draft that it could enter his but not the town harbor. The 
 town passed the legal limit of indebtedness, and the citizens 
 were worried, but Champlin " owns " the council of five 
 members his brother, his father-in-law, another relative, 
 and two loyal followers of his. The " town " voted his 
 measure, and it might as well, for if it failed to the Legis- 
 lature would. Brayton's General Assembly enacts special 
 legislation so freely that I had almost forgotten to men- 
 tion this absurdity explicitly. Besides the police of Provi- 
 dence and Newport, the State has taken the election ma- 
 chinery . and many other local offices and functions from 
 municipalities that have " gone Democratic," and where 
 it has set up bipartisan boards, Republicans select the 
 Democrats and thus use this power to corrupt the minority 
 organization. The General Assembly, corrupt itself, is a 
 corrupting upper council for every municipality in the 
 State, as Block Island illustrates: A majority of the voters 
 then declared, six years or so ago, under the local option 
 law, for absolute prohibition on the island, but Champlin 
 put through the General Assembly a special act permitting 
 the sale of liquor on Block Island. Again, the Society for 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals arrested a street-car 
 driver for driving the pitiful horses that draw the miserable 
 cars of the Champlin line. The General Assembly passed 
 a special act which prevented such interference by the 
 society in this one town ! 
 
 They will tell you in Rhode Island that Block Island 
 is an exceptional case. It isn't. It is typical; on a small
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 155 
 
 scale it is like the case of Providence. But suppose we 
 grant that it is extraordinary it happened, it was pos- 
 sible. Doesn't it show that if you or I should go to a small 
 town of Rhode Island, get political control, and send our- 
 selves to the General Assembly, we could do what we would 
 to our town ? If we delivered to Aldrich, Perry, and Bray- 
 ton the things that are Caesar's, couldn't we have our Salt 
 Pond, our poor little street-car line, and our great public 
 debt? "Ah, but," they told me at first, " Champlin is a 
 Democrat, and the Republican party cannot be blamed 
 for his misdeeds." Champlin, the Democrat, was repudi- 
 ated by his own party, and the Republican party took him 
 up. He fought for his place in his party, and while he 
 was making the contest for his " good Democratic stand- 
 ing," with a group of his own party for him, this man 
 was the regular Republican leader in the Republican State 
 Senate ! 
 
 Both parties betrayed the common interests of this 
 State. Political-financial, the System is bipartisan, too, 
 especially in the Democratic municipalities where, as in 
 Providence, certain Democratic leaders sell outright to 
 the Republicans ; or where, as in Pawtucket, the worst 
 elements in both parties combine to graft upon the city ; 
 or as in Bristol, where they trade, the Democrats sharing 
 the council and giving the Republicans the legislative 
 delegation. Colonel Colt, 1 the great manufacturer and 
 financier, controls Bristol, and when he ran on the Re- 
 publican ticket for Governor a year ago the Democrats, 
 
 i Colonel Colt is a candidate now (1906) for the junior United 
 States Senatorship for Rhode Island.
 
 156 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 who used to carry the town, put up no legislative ticket. 
 There are many exceptions among both " organizations " 
 and leaders, but they are indeed exceptions. Generally 
 speaking, the people of Rhode Island are represented only 
 by individuals and they can do nothing but protest. One 
 of these protestants was Dr. Garvin, but he was Governor 
 of the State and powerless. 
 
 This country doctor is the most singular figure in 
 American politics. A New Englander reared down South, 
 he attended a Friends' school, and traces of all these in- 
 fluences are marked in his character. A single-taxer, an 
 individualist, an advocate of the " popular initiative for 
 constitutional amendments " this sweet-tempered radical 
 who has stood for every reform that looked in the direc- 
 tion of democracy, marched, unmoved by ridicule, abuse, 
 or defeat, without a sign of anger or of pain, straight 
 into the confidence of a majority of the voters of this con- 
 servative New England community. 
 
 When the slowly rising discontent in the State ap- 
 proached the height of a majority, the Democratic party 
 nominated Dr. Garvin, and his party, with help from in- 
 dependent Republicans, Prohibitionists, Socialists all the 
 opposition to the System that usually scatters, voted for 
 him. He was elected in 1902 and again in 1903. He was 
 elected as a protest, however, and that is all he has been. 
 He could not be Governor in fact; General Brayton was 
 that. As we have seen, the gubernatorial chair never had 
 amounted to much more than an empty honor for " safe 
 men." No veto power went with it, and the appointive 
 power was really wielded by Brayton in the interest of the
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 157 
 
 macliine of the System. A Governor like Dr. Garvin would 
 have made his own appointments, but Brayton and the 
 System had seen Governor Garvin coming. They rifled the 
 office before he got into it. When this Aldrich-Perry- 
 Brayton company foresaw that the people might elect a 
 Governor to represent the common interests of the State, 
 they had the appointive power transferred to the Senate. 
 They left it so that a " safe " Republican Governor, obedi- 
 ent to them, might seem to appoint, but not a " danger- 
 ous " Democrat like Dr. Garvin. The Governor's nomina- 
 tions go to the Senate, which may confirm or reject or 
 ignore them; and, if it ignores them for three days, this 
 Senate, constituted as we have seen, may proceed to make 
 its own appointments. The United States Senate in its 
 dignity is sensitive about the independence of the (upper) 
 legislative branch of the government, and it is jealous of 
 any encroachment by the executive. Its leader, Mr. Al*- 
 drich, comes honestly by his senatorial sensitiveness ; where 
 he comes from, the executive, representing a majority of 
 all the voters, is something which the Senate, representing 
 the System, ignores, overrides, and insults, and, as for 
 encroachment, that is a sacred prerogative of the legisla- 
 tive branch. 
 
 Such, then, is the government of Rhode Island. Such is 
 the System that has developed with a restricted suffrage, 
 with the balance of power against the cities, with business 
 men conducting both politics and government. What is 
 the matter? What is the cure? The local reformers think 
 that these very features which other reformers yearn 
 for are the cause of the Rhode Island troubles, and that
 
 158 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the constitution, " which did it," must be changed. A new 
 constitution is indispensable to Rhode Island. Theoreti- 
 cally it is unjust, in practice it is tyranny, to maintain 
 a government controlled by the purchase of twenty country 
 districts which poll less than one-eleventh of the vote of 
 the State. But the old constitution did not " do it." This 
 instrument facilitated, it did not produce, the System, and 
 a new constitution will not destroy it. Other States, with 
 constitutions as ingenious as the best that the reformers 
 in Rhode Island can hope for, have developed essentially 
 the same System. The Enemies of the Republic will over- 
 come any obstacle that is merely constitutional, legal, or 
 mechanical. 
 
 The trouble lies deeper, and the cure must cut deeper. 
 We have blamed our laws and our constitution long 
 enough, and in turn we have charged our disgrace to 
 our foreign population, to the riffraff of the cities, to our 
 politicians, to our business men. And now, in Rhode 
 Island, the American farmer is the guilty fool and his 
 fellow-culprits are American captains of finance, law, and 
 politics. Are they alone at fault? I cannot see it so. It 
 seems to me that, in one way or another, we all are at 
 fault. The provision of the Rhode Island constitution 
 which lodged the dominant power out in the country, 
 simply pointed to the farmer as the first man to corrupt ; 
 and he proved corruptible only because the strain came 
 hardest upon him. His power should be spread out over 
 the whole population, but then the pressure will bear 
 hardest upon the political representatives of the people, 
 and we know from other States that the representatives
 
 A CORRUPTED PEOPLE 159 
 
 will sell, if there are offers to buy ; and we know that the 
 business representatives will offer to buy. And we know 
 that we all will condone or submit, for some consideration 
 cash or protection, office or friendship, party loyalty 
 or comfort. The best hope of Rhode Island, for example, 
 should be in the leadership of the old manufacturing 
 families, and the best of this aristocratic class have voted 
 for Dr. Garvin. But would they if his office were not pow- 
 erless? They told me, these gentlemen, that Aldrich did 
 not represent them or their State. " He may represent 
 our corrupt towns and your own New York," they said, 
 " but he doesn't represent Rhode Island ! " Yet Governor 
 Garvin was defeated this year (by some 500 votes) be- 
 cause a Republican President had to be elected, and a 
 Legislature to return to the United States Senate the 
 arch-representative of protected, privileged business. 2 
 
 Aldrich does represent Rhode Island, and that is what 
 is the matter with Rhode Island, and that is what is the 
 matter with Aldrich. And he represents the rest of us, 
 and that is what is the matter with all of us. Rhode 
 Island will have reform when we all have reform; when 
 we are all willing to make sacrifices for the sake of our 
 country and our self-respect ; when the American farmer 
 will give up his two or thirty dollars " pay for time lost 
 in voting " ; when the business man will be content to do 
 a little less " business " ; when the manufacturer will risk 
 his unnecessary protective tariff (the graft, not the pro- 
 
 2 Dr. Garvin was renominated for Governor in 1905 at the head of 
 a fusion ticket, and he and his ticket were defeated by an increased 
 majority for the System's ticket.
 
 160 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 tection) ; when the captains of finance will be content with 
 honest profit ; when the clergy will face " the loss of their 
 position," and " financial grief and ruin," rather than 
 " be put under the ban of political immorality, and forced 
 to acquiesce in evil." The Republican hope of compelling 
 the other fellow to quit " within the party," is stupid ; re- 
 form within a party so degraded and so happy as " the 
 party " in Rhode Island is impossible. The Democratic 
 party may prove a good engine for the work ahead, but 
 the notion of those of its leaders who think to restore pure, 
 representative democracy by buying up the people for a 
 year or two, is American corruption carried to the limit 
 of Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy. There is no reform but re- 
 form, and reform begins at home with all of us.
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 
 
 SHOWING BUSINESS RULERS OF A STATE RESORTING 
 TO ANARCHY TO CHECK MUNICIPAL REFORM 
 
 THE story of the latter-day politics of Ohio, as I under- 
 stand the State, can best be told as a tale of two of her 
 cities: Cleveland and Cincinnati; Cleveland, the metrop- 
 olis of her Northeast, Cincinnati, the metropolis of her 
 Southwest ; Cleveland, the best governed city in the United 
 States, Cincinnati, the worst. 
 
 Cleveland is, and except during one short period, always 
 has been a business man's government. The New York 
 Sun wondered once how it happened so often that in Ohio 
 men who had spent the better part of their lives in busi- 
 ness could step into politics up near the top and prove 
 themselves first-rate politicians from the start. The ex- 
 planation is simple. Those Ohio men came from Cleveland. 
 If I remember aright, the Sun had in mind the sudden 
 appearance of the late Mr. Hanna in national politics 
 with the nomination of Mr. McKinley for President. Mr. 
 Hanna had been in politics for years. Mr. Hanna is one 
 type of the business men who have ruled the City of Cleve- 
 land. There are other types, as we shall see, but we must 
 begin with Marcus A. Hanna. He is dead. I don't be- 
 lieve in "nothing but good of the dead "; I believe that 
 true obituaries of our great men would do the living good. 
 
 161
 
 162 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 But I hoped to be able to tell about Ohio without saying 
 much about Mr. Hanna. That is impossible. You can't 
 understand Cleveland, and you can't understand Ohio, 
 without understanding Mark Hanna. And you can't 
 understand the American people and the United States 
 without seeing Hanna, as he was good and bad, a delight 
 and a danger, a business man in politics, a business man 
 who dominated a city, became United States Senator and 
 the boss of a State, became national head of the dominant 
 national party and was the choice of big business and bad 
 machine politics for President of the United States. 
 
 What sort of man was this? He was "our sort." 
 Hanna was American. There are traits American which 
 he lacked, but taken as he stood there was not a fiber of his 
 make-up, not a fault, not a virtue, that is not of us. Of 
 Quaker stock from the Virginias, he was born near Ohio's 
 Western Reserve and the West made him ripe and rich. 
 Hanna described himself once. In the campaign against 
 Mayor Jones, who was running for Governor, he got 
 into a hall full of Welshmen. Jones was Welsh, and 
 the crowd jeered at Hanna so that he could not go on with 
 his speech. " There's a lot of American in me," he shouted. 
 " There's some Scotch. Somewheres 'way back, there is 
 
 Irish blood. But by , there's no Welsh. If there was, 
 
 I'd go down there and lick the whole lot of you." That 
 won the Welshmen. They cheered and they listened while 
 Hanna gave Jones and the Welsh fits. 
 
 That was Hanna, mixed, but well mixed, and, as the 
 politicians say, a " good mixer." He was the fighter who 
 can laugh in his wrath, but won't compromise. " Well,
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 
 
 what is your bill? " he was heard to demand of two lobby- 
 ists in the Marble Room of the United States Senate one 
 day. They murmured some reply. " Well, he don't deserve 
 it and he don't get it," said Hanna aloud, and he stumped 
 off to leave them. Then he stopped. " Say, have you two 
 
 cusses had your lunch? No? Well, I'll give ye a 
 
 good lunch, but that's all you do get." 
 
 Intimate, even familiar, Hanna was always Hanna, in 
 all places, to all men. It is related that at the first inaug- 
 uration of President McKinley, when he and Hanna rode 
 together from the Capitol to the White House, Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley pointed out of the carriage to the Post Office Build- 
 ing and admired it. " Well, that shows how little you 
 know about architecture," said Hanna. 
 
 The dominant trait of Hanna's character was domina- 
 tion. He was our aggressive type of the egotist. He may 
 not have meant to be selfish. Hanna was our man of brains, 
 not of mind. When he was a boy he showed some inclina- 
 tion to read books, but his father, Dr. Leonard Hanna, 
 a sturdy man, noticed it. " Mark," he would call up the 
 stairs, " what are you doing up there ? Reading, eh ? 
 Well, you come down here, and saw wood." So the boy 
 was cured of this taste ; the man hardly read at all. When 
 he wasn't sawing wood, he was playing cards. He played 
 in the daytime, and in the evening it was his favorite 
 form of amusement to play a game with as many of his 
 friends as he could get around him, and if no friends 
 came, Mr. Hanna played solitaire. 
 
 We admire self-sufficiency, we Americans, and no mat- 
 ter if they do trample upon us, we want to see the strong
 
 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 men win. We are like the American parent, who, because 
 the baby is lusty and big, lets it pull off the table-cloth 
 and break the dishes. Well, our young male was strong, 
 and he began early to grab. When the family moved to 
 Cleveland (in 1852) the father founded the wholesale 
 grocery firm of Hanna, Garretson & Co. Mark went to 
 school for a while, then he worked in the store, then he 
 served as clerk in a Lake Superior carrying vessel. The 
 Superior iron regions were opening and the Hannas saw 
 things. They went into iron and steel and ships, as well 
 as groceries and supplies. Mark married (in 1862) a 
 daughter of D. P. Rhodes, fondly known as " Old Dan 
 Rhodes," a pioneer grown rich in the iron and coal trade. 
 Mark joined the firm of D. P. Rhodes & Co. There were 
 other sons and partners in the business, but by 1885 they 
 all were out or reduced to M. A. Hanna & Co., mines, 
 ships, coal, oil, iron-ore, and pig-iron. Then M. A. Hanna 
 got into a stove company, other mining companies, banks, 
 and shipbuilding, a newspaper, a theater. It's a long 
 story ; it's the good old story, oft told and never explained. 
 I heard, from men with feelings sore after all these years, 
 of quick turns, hard fights, and brutal force. But that 
 was Mark having his way, and, I guess, that is the way 
 of success. Certainly Hanna was the true type of our 
 successful men of big business. They are men in whom a 
 want is, not like yours, perhaps, or mine, humble, hope- 
 ful, and capable of dismissal unsatisfied; a want with the 
 Hannas is a lust ; no matter how big or how little, no mat- 
 ter how vicious or how innocent, it is Hanna's want; it 
 must be sated, and it must be sated now.
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 165 
 
 One of Hanna's young wants was a street railway. He 
 had largely of the earth, and of the waters under the 
 earth ; he had reached out far beyond Cleveland and Ohio 
 for possessions, into Minnesota and New York, Michigan 
 and Pennsylvania; and his hands were full. But he had 
 no street railway. Of course, he got one. He was let into 
 the West Side Company of Cleveland, Elias Sims, presi- 
 dent, and two years later (in 1882) Sims resigned and M. 
 A. Hanna became president. And that's how Hanna hap- 
 pened to go into politics. 
 
 Mr. Hanna did not want to go into politics. He had to. 
 It was necessary to his business that he should, and it was 
 for the sake of his business that he did ; not for the party, 
 not for the city, not to better things, not even for the sport 
 of it. As a young fellow, he had " batted around " some 
 in his ward, for fun; but there was nothing in that for 
 him, so he wasn't regular about it. I inquired closely 
 into this, for I wanted to be sure that I wasn't on another 
 " low down politician's " trail. Mr. Hanna went into 
 politics as a business man, and he always called himself 
 a business man in politics. 
 
 And, as a business man in politics he corrupted politics. 
 Mr. Hanna boodled. He degraded the municipal legis- 
 lature of Cleveland. I don't say he did it alone; I don't 
 say he started it; I don't say he wanted to do that. All 
 Mr. Hanna wanted was that horse-car line, and then some 
 extensions, and then some more franchises. But these he 
 did want, these and other valuable privileges. Since he 
 wanted them, he must have them, and since the business 
 way to get a thing is to go and pay for it and get it, Mr.
 
 166 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Hanna went and got his privileges. He bought and paid 
 for them. I don't say he paid all this in bribes, nor do I 
 say that he paid bribes with his own hands. That isn't 
 the way a Big Business man does big business. That isn't 
 the System. 
 
 The System in Cleveland at that time was simple and im- 
 perfect. Business men supported it. There was no boss, 
 and such leading politicians as the city boasted were 
 nothing but business men's political agents. They de- 
 pended largely upon the campaign funds contributed by 
 the business men. In return the business men could get 
 what they wanted out of the city, and they let the poli- 
 ticians do about as they pleased with the rest. The street 
 railways and the other public utility companies which 
 had the most to ask, attended to this political business. 
 Not all of them. Cleveland is in many respects an ex- 
 ceptional community. There are, and there seem always 
 to have been, men of business there who disapprove of 
 boodling and corruption, and one of the street-railway 
 presidents, Mr. Horace E. Andrews, has refused always 
 to aid corruption in any disguise. But Hanna and two 
 others have had no such scruples. They kept men to do 
 " dirty business " for them, and these men were the 
 " bosses " for many years. Hanna's man was George 
 Mulhern, an employee of the West Side Company. Hanna 
 sometimes served as treasurer of the campaign fund, and, 
 in hot fights, often directed the politics of the West Side 
 and, indeed, of the whole city. 
 
 All he wanted, however, was the right kind of a Mayor, 
 and his share of the councilmen. These he secured, he or
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 167 
 
 Mulhern or both, by supervising nominations and paying 
 individual campaign expenses. Other street railways did 
 much the same. Usually they had among them enough 
 councilmen to form a combine which controlled legisla- 
 tion. If they lacked some, if they hadn't bought sufficiently 
 in advance, or if an unexpected emergency arose, they 
 bought more. They didn't always use cash bribery. Mul- 
 hern, who picked the president and organized councils, 
 came to control more and more departments, and he had 
 the patronage of these to dispense to the friends and 
 followers of pliable councilmen. But this was making the 
 city pay for its own corruption, and it not only saved 
 Hanna and the company some costs, it strengthened the 
 machine. 
 
 This was a government by the public utility companies. 
 These councilmen, elected as representatives of the whole 
 community, represented in fact Mr. Hanna and the other 
 holders of public franchises. Of course there was other 
 " business " to be done. Mulhern with the other railway 
 politicians handled it. They let privileges, legitimate and 
 illegitimate, to their friends and Hanna's friends, and after 
 these, to all comers. Citizens have told me how they were 
 referred from the City Hall to the West Side Company 
 offices, when they called on business. There was the head 
 of the government, and it was not a very bad government, 
 not in the Tammany sense. There was not much police 
 blackmail, for example; it was financial, respectable cor- 
 ruption that prevailed, and " good citizens " do not resent 
 that so much. It is quiet, it is convenient; it is theirs; it 
 is the System. Hanna's government of Cleveland was a
 
 168 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 government of the people by politicians hired to represent 
 the privileged class. 
 
 This is the most dangerous form of our corruption ; the 
 most dangerous for this class as well. And yet the political 
 greatness of Mr. Hanna was rooted in such corruption, 
 and his political hopes were the hopes of this class. Hanna 
 may not have thought so. Hanna wasn't a thinker, he 
 was a man of instinct and action, and his unconscious 
 selfishness hurt his effectiveness. The fate of his primitive 
 machine shows that. He did not keep it up regularly. 
 When he wanted something, he worked hard at the organ- 
 ization; when he wanted nothing in particular, he was 
 slack about it. A business man in politics, he ran 
 politics for business, not for political ends. Some political 
 honors came to him. He went to conventions. He saw how 
 Governors were made, and Presidents. A delegate to the 
 National Republican Convention of 1888, he was for John 
 Sherman, and he missed a hand In the making of Presi- 
 dent Harrison. Whether that humble failure suggested 
 it or not, I do not know, but all the world knows that 
 Hanna came to have a great ambition that was political. 
 He wanted to have a President. He chose William Mc- 
 Kinley, and he planned for years his nomination in 
 1896. That he succeeded, everybody knows. Hanna often 
 laughed, in his merry way, at the " spontaneous demand " 
 for McKinley, which swept over the country at just the 
 right time. There was such a demand, and much of it 
 was spontaneous, but Hanna organized it. He dotted the 
 country with men primed to shout at a signal, and when
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 169 
 
 he gave the word, the wave rose and rolled in upon the 
 convention where Hanna was dickering for its enthusiastic 
 reception. 
 
 And Hanna won with McKinley and money, Hanna and 
 the System in the United States. What of Ohio? "What 
 of Cleveland? When the organizer of the National Re- 
 publican machine came home, he had no organization. 
 Having wanted very little from the State, he had neglected 
 the State machine, and it was in the control of the Cox- 
 Foraker wing of the party. And he had lost also his own 
 city. A group of common politicians, weary of the selfish- 
 ness of his street-railway government, had set out the year 
 before (1895) to organize the party along political, not 
 business, lines. They made Hanna and the street railways 
 the issue and, nominating an obscure young lawyer, Robert 
 E. McKisson, for Mayor, they beat easily Hanna's lop- 
 sided old occasional machine. McKisson, dismissing his 
 creators, built for himself; but he built on politics and 
 political graft, and the McKisson organization was the 
 best machine the Republicans have ever had in Cleveland. 
 But it was an anti-Hanna machine. 
 
 And thus began the making of the Ohio of Hanna, which 
 is the Ohio of to-day. Whenever the forces of corruption 
 are beaten in a city, they retreat to the State. Hanna had 
 two wants which Cleveland could not or would not satisfy. 
 He wanted to be a United States Senator and he wanted 
 an extension of certain of his street-railway franchises. 
 All the traction interests of Cleveland had been combined 
 into two consolidations, the " Big Con," Horace Andrews,
 
 170 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 president ; and the " Little Con," Mark Hanna, president. 
 Both had franchises expiring in the near future, and the 
 State Legislature had just enacted the Rogers law, which 
 permitted cities to grant extensions for fifty years. This 
 law was passed by the Cox-Foraker crowd for the Cin- 
 cinnati traction interest, but it was good in Cleveland 
 while it lasted. There was the rub, however. The people 
 were indignant at this piece of legislation ; it might be re- 
 pealed. Hanna and his associates had to hurry; and that 
 politician, " Bob " McKisson, would not hurry. He would 
 negotiate, however, and there was some dickering. Just 
 what the dealing was I do not know, of course. The Mc- 
 Kissonites say a big offer was made to the Mayor and that 
 he refused it. The Hanna people say the Mayor asked 
 for money and that they refused it. This much is certain : 
 Mr. Andrews was asked to meet Mayor McKisson at the 
 Hollenden Hotel ; telling some of his associates about it, he 
 went there; when he returned he reported that he had 
 entered the appointed room, and that there, in the dark, 
 Mr. McKisson began talking about land to be had out 
 near Andrews's country place. Mr. Andrews may have 
 been mistaken, but he understood this to have been an 
 approach, and he left the Mayor abruptly. Soon there- 
 after a definite proposition of corruption was made, not, 
 however, by the Mayor, but the railway people certainly 
 believed it was authoritative. The associates of Mr. 
 Andrews wanted to accept it, and the Hanna people were 
 eager for the deal. And when Mr. Andrews refused to 
 countenance it, there was trouble in his board and he re- 
 signed. Why the subsequent negotiation fell through, I
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 171 
 
 do not fully understand. James Parmelee, the president, 
 now, of the lighting company, who was to take Mr. An- 
 drews's place, considered making the deal; but, upon the 
 advice of friends that it would be suicidal to put such 
 business through with the whole city looking on and sus- 
 pecting the purpose of his succession to Mr. Andrews, Mr. 
 Parmelee decided against the job, and Mr. Andrews re- 
 sumed his office. As for the other company, I was told 
 that the McKissonites would not do business with the 
 " Little Con " alone. However that may be, from that time 
 on the Hanna Republicans cursed for a " Corruptionist " 
 " Bob " McKisson, who prevented Hanna from getting 
 his franchise extensions from his own city. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Hanna had been making mad rushes 
 for his senatorship. There was no vacancy in the Senate 
 from Ohio, but that did not matter. One was created. The 
 President took John Sherman, the senior Ohio Senator, into 
 the cabinet. Poor old John Sherman! He didn't want to 
 be Secretary of State ; his mind was failing and he wanted 
 only to be let alone. But there was Hanna with a Hanna 
 want ; it must be satisfied, so Sherman was moved and the 
 next thing was to get Hanna appointed. It was rather 
 late to set about arranging this detail, but Hanna crossed 
 bridges when he came to them. Governor Bushnell hated 
 Hanna. Bushnell was a friend of the junior Ohio Senator, 
 Joseph B. Foraker, who hated Hanna who hated him. If 
 Hanna had had control in Cleveland he might have forced 
 terms, but he was powerful only at Washington. He had 
 to go to Cincinnati, and Hanna went to Cincinnati. He 
 appealed from Bushnell and Foraker to the strong man
 
 172 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 behind both of them ; with Federal patronage in his hand, 
 he went to George B. Cox, the laconic boss of Cincinnati, 
 who, tradition has it, passed to the Governor two words: 
 " Name Hanna." And Hanna was named. 
 
 And thus it happened that Hanna first went to Cin- 
 cinnati; thus was begun, in an emergency, the alliance of 
 Hanna, the Cleveland business man, with Cox, the Cin- 
 cinnati politician an alliance full of portent for the 
 State of Ohio. Hanna was building his system. Not that 
 he knew it. Reputed great as an organizer, Hanna worked 
 like a bird; all he knew was that he needed a straw; his 
 genius lay in the sure instinct with which he found his 
 straw. The nest happened. Cincinnati was a branch to 
 build on, Cox a straw. So far as I can make out, when 
 Hanna had his senatorship, he gave Cox some of the 
 President's patronage and flitted off to Washington satis- 
 fied. But he had descended to Cincinnati and to Cox, and 
 he was to go there again. Let us go there and see what 
 it means to go to Cox and Cincinnati. 
 
 I shall never forget my first visit. Cities and city bosses 
 were my subject then, and I thought I knew something 
 about such things. I didn't know the worst. The train ran 
 through the early morning sunshine up to a bank of mist 
 and smoke, paused, as every train since has done, then 
 slowly tunneled its way into the cul de sac, where the Queen 
 City broods in gloom. I wanted to see Cox. The etiquette 
 of my work seems to me to require that I shall call first 
 everywhere on the ruler of the people ; if he is the Mayor, 
 I call first on him ; if the mayor is a figurehead, I call first 
 on the boss. Sometimes one is in doubt. In Cincinnati,
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 173 
 
 immediately after breakfast, I sought out the sign of the 
 " Mecca " saloon, went up one flight to a mean, little 
 front hall-room. A great hulk of a man sat there alone, 
 poring over a newspaper, with his back to the door. He 
 did not look up. 
 
 " Mr. Cox? " I said. 
 
 There was a grunt ; that was all. 
 
 " Mr. Cox," I said, " I understand that you are the boss 
 of Cincinnati." 
 
 His feet slowly moved his chair about, and a stolid face 
 turned to mine. Two dark, sharp eyes studied me, and 
 while they measured, I explained that I was a student of 
 " politics, corrupt politics, and bosses." I repeated that 
 I had heard he was the boss of Cincinnati. " Are you? " 
 I concluded. 
 
 " I am," he grumbled in his hoarse, throaty voice. 
 
 " Of course, you have a Mayor, and a council, and 
 judges?" 
 
 " Yes," he admitted ; " but " he pointed with his 
 
 thumb back over his shoulder to the desk " I have a 
 telephone, too." 
 
 " And you have citizens, too ? American men and 
 women ? " 
 
 He stared a moment, silent, then turned heavily around 
 back to his paper. Well, I feel the same way now about 
 the citizenship of this city; Cox, their ruler, and I have 
 had several talks since; he doesn't say much, but I am 
 sure he and I agree perfectly about them. But this, also, 
 I never forgot, and let no one else forget it: Cincinnati is 
 an American city, and her citizens are American citizens.
 
 174 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Therefore, what has happened in Cincinnati can happen 
 in American cities. What had happened there? 
 
 We need not go into details. We know Philadelphia, 
 and that is to know most of the truth about Cincinnati. 
 An aristocracy once, the best people were decent about the 
 graft, but selfish, and the criminal classes took over the 
 government. Tom Campbell, a criminal lawyer, led the 
 Republicans, and John R. McLean, the son of " Wash " 
 McLean, also a sort of boss, led the Democrats ; but there 
 was no politics. The good people knew parties, not the 
 party politicians. John R. McLean and Tom Campbell 
 were great friends, and they ruled by buying votes and 
 indulging vice and crime. Campbell controlled the criminal 
 bench. He defended criminals, out of the ring and in it; 
 there was brawling, robbery, murder; and, in open court, 
 over evidence which the public was reading in McLean's 
 newspaper, The Enquirer over evidence which convinced 
 all but the corrupt judges and the " fixed " juries, this 
 politician-lawyer got his clients off, till, in 1884, upon the 
 acquittal of two murderers who killed a man for a very 
 small sum of money, the town revolted. A mob burned the 
 criminal court-house. The McLean-Campbell regime of 
 Cincinnati, which corresponded to the Tweed days of 
 New York and the McManes-Gas-Ring rule of Phila- 
 delphia, closed with the famous Cincinnati riots of 1881. 
 
 Tom Campbell moved to New York, and McLean soon 
 took up a residence in Washington, D. C., but "better 
 citizens " did not step into their places. The " best citi- 
 zens " who led the " better citizens " were in gas and other 
 public utilities ; they were " apathetic," so other Repub-
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 175 
 
 lican grafters held down the Republican party while Mc- 
 Lean, the Democrat, with his " independent " Enquirer 
 and his contributions, kept a paralyzing hand on the Demo- 
 cratic machine. Since McLean was " active " only when 
 he wanted something himself or when he wanted to keep 
 anybody else from getting anything, this dog-in-the- 
 manger weakened the Democracy, even as a graft 
 organization ; and gradually the " grand old party " 
 established itself. Among the Republican leaders of this 
 period the only one we need to know is Joseph B. Foraker. 
 He is the senior United States Senator from Ohio now, and 
 we are asking what " our " Senators represent at home. 
 Mr. Foraker represented the Young Republicans of his 
 day. Enthusiastic over his party, passionate in the defense 
 of the Union soldier, eloquent upon the rights of the people, 
 this young orator was dubbed the " Fire Alarm," because 
 of the courage with which he fought corporate greed and 
 corruption. The people of this country need, and they 
 are forever looking for a leader who is not a boss, and 
 Foraker is no boss. He is a politician ; he must have been 
 almost a demagogue once ; certainly he raised the hopes 
 and won the hearts of a majority of Ohioans, for they 
 elected him Governor of their State, twice. What did he 
 do for these, his own people ? 
 
 Governor Foraker " discovered " Cox. A saloon-keeper 
 and councilman at the time, Cox ruled his own ward and 
 was distinguished in his corrupt city as an honest poli- 
 tician ; if there was boodle to divide Cox divided it " on 
 the square," and if he gave his word, he kept it. Where- 
 fore the world of graft trusted Cox. Governor Foraker,
 
 176 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 needing a boss for Cincinnati, made Cox an oil inspector 
 and the dispenser of patronage in Hamilton County (Cin- 
 cinnati). An oil inspectorship in Ohio is "good money " 
 and, better still, brings a man into confidential relations 
 with one of the deep sources of corruption in the State, 
 Standard Oil. Foraker and Cox soon got in touch with 
 other such interests. There are several instances to cite; 
 one will do. 
 
 A while ago we spoke of the Rogers Law. Cox and 
 Foraker managed that. The Cincinnati traction interests 
 wanted a fifty-year five-cent-fare franchise in Cincinnati. 
 Foraker wanted to go to the United States Senate. Public 
 opinion out West is against long franchises, but the " Fire 
 Alarm " expressed public opinion. It was charged in the 
 public prints of Chicago and Ohio that Foraker was paid 
 an enormous "fee" (ranging from $100,000 to $250,- 
 000) for his services as a lawyer. He did not sue for 
 libel, but he denied the charge; he said all he got was a 
 present of $5,000 from an officer of the company. I say 
 it doesn't matter whether Foraker took a bribe, or a fee, 
 or a present, or nothing at all. His firm has been ever since 
 counsel for the traction company, and his son became an 
 officer thereof, but that doesn't matter. And it doesn't 
 matter whether the Legislature that made Foraker a Sena- 
 tor belonged to the company, or whether the Legislature 
 that passed the Rogers traction bill belonged to Foraker. 
 The plain, undeniable, open facts are that the Legislature 
 of 1896 which elected Foraker to the United States Senate 
 was led by the Senator, a popular leader, to pass in the in- 
 terest of the traction company a bill which granted privi-
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 177 
 
 leges so unpopular that public opinion required a repeal in 
 the next Legislature of 1898. In other words, this man, 
 who by his eloquence won the faith of his people, betrayed 
 them for some reason to those interests which were cor- 
 rupting the government in order to get privileges from 
 it. That's all any electors need to know about Joseph B. 
 Foraker, that and the report that he hopes some day to 
 be President of the United States. 
 
 Let's turn to an honest grafter. Cox made the councils 
 of Cincinnati act for the traction company under the 
 Rogers Law, but he doesn't pretend to represent the peo- 
 ple. That isn't his business. Cox's business is to rule the 
 people, and he does it. Cincinnati was enraged, and Cin- 
 cinnati rose against Cox for this act. Cox was for licking 
 them into obedience, but Hanna was back in Cincinnati 
 again. Hanna had to be elected, in 1898, to the seat he 
 had been appointed to. He wanted " harmony " in Cin- 
 cinnati. He wanted Cox to hide and let some business men, 
 such as used to rule Cleveland, run the 1897 campaign 
 which was to elect his (Hanna's) Legislature. It was selfish 
 of Hanna, but Cox was willing. He told me about it. 
 
 " Wanted good men nominated," he said. " Wanted 
 business men. Wanted business men to name the ticket 
 and run the machine. Come to me, a committee of them, 
 bankers and all like that. Said they'd name twelve men, 
 and I was to name twelve. I was to pick six off their list, 
 and they were to pick six off mine. Showed me their twelve 
 and I took 'em all, all twelve, all business men, good people. 
 Called 'em the dozen raw. Let 'em name the ticket and 
 lent 'em the machine to run." He paused. " Who do you
 
 178 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 think they nominated?" he asked, and he answered: 
 " They nominated fellers they met at lunch." 
 
 Cox's scorn of " good business men " reminds me of 
 Croker. Croker has never been able to understand just 
 how " bad " he was ; he really was puzzled as to himself. 
 " But," he said one day with assurance, " I know I'm 
 better than them " ; and he pointed off downtown toward 
 Wall Street, where his business backers and clients were. 
 And it is so with Cox. He doesn't understand the stand- 
 ards of his critics, but he knows he is better than " them." 
 
 " Them," in Cincinnati, were beaten. The " dozen raw " 
 who, largely for Hanna's sake, tried to give " front " to 
 the Republican party, and save it with a respectable busi- 
 ness man's ticket, failed. McLean wanted to go to the 
 United States Senate, so he lent the Democratic machine 
 to the Democrats, who combined with the independents, and 
 together they elected an anti-machine ticket. It looked 
 so bad for Cox that he announced his retirement from 
 politics, but the amiable old gentleman who was Mayor 
 proved so weak and the " Democrats " and " independ- 
 ents " such poor stuff that Cox recovered his courage. 
 He bought some members of the administration, fooled 
 others, and with the help of these set the rest to fighting 
 among themselves. Cox so disgusted the town with " re- 
 form " that it came back to him, laid itself at his feet, and 
 he proceeded at his leisure to, what a judge called, the 
 " Russianization " of Cincinnati. 
 
 What that means we shall see when it is done. Hanna 
 waits, his present want, the senatorship, unsatisfied. He 
 thought he had it fixed ; though the McKisson anti-Hanna
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 179 
 
 Republicans had elected to the Legislature part of the 
 delegation from Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), and the 
 anti-Cox movement had sent up independent Republicans 
 from Hamilton County (Cincinnati), Hanna and his State 
 manager, Major Charles F. Dick, assumed that all " Re- 
 publicans " would be loyal to " the party." Loyalty to 
 party means, to a boss, loyalty to the boss. Now Hanna 
 wasn't yet the boss of Ohio, but he wanted to be, so he 
 assumed that no one would oppose him. The capital was 
 full of his enemies, Governor Bushnell, Senator Foraker, 
 Mayor McKisson, Charles Kurtz, etc., but Hanna flitted 
 off to Washington, and Major Dick " sat with his feet 
 up on a table cracking jokes." 
 
 Secretly, those Republican enemies of Hanna formed a 
 combination with Democrats to beat Hanna. They could 
 do it. They had the votes. This they proved by smash- 
 ing Hanna's legislative slate, and Ohio and Washington 
 were thrown into a state of excited dismay. Hanna flew 
 to Columbus and took personal charge of his own fight. 
 With him came money, lots of money, and with this money 
 came the influence of the President, of the railroads, the 
 banks, Federal officeholders. Mass meetings were organ- 
 ized at the homes of lost or doubtful legislators, speeches 
 were made, addresses drawn, and committees with petitions 
 were hurled by special trains to the capitol. Columbus was 
 a wonderful scene. The hotels were packed, crowds surged 
 up and down the halls and lobbies. Wine flowed and there 
 were loud rows and fist fights. Legislators were kidnaped, 
 made drunk, and held prisoners. The wife of one member, 
 sent for because of her influence over her husband, was
 
 180 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 held by one side while the other kept him hidden away in 
 a room. Men carried revolvers and showed them, and wit- 
 nesses tell me there was really a fear of sudden death. 
 But under all this money was whispering; both sides used 
 it. Hanna always denied that he spent any. The anti- 
 Hanna combine settled finally on McKisson as their candi- 
 date, and McKisson says he hadn't any money. But these 
 are technical denials. I don't know who handled the little 
 money the McKissonites had, but after Hanna won (for, 
 of course Hanna won) by one vote, specific charges of 
 bribery were made. A committee took evidence on one case 
 and reported (1) that " on or about Jan. 9, 1898, an at- 
 tempt was made to bribe John C. Otis, a member of the 
 House ... to vote for Marcus A. Hanna"; (2) "that 
 Major E. G. Rathbone and Major Charles F. Dick were 
 agents of Marcus A. Hanna, and procured, aided, and 
 abetted the crime." 
 
 The report, sent to the United States Senate, was not 
 credited there, but that means nothing ; it means no more 
 than the report of a board of aldermen would mean of an 
 investigation of graft charges against some fellow-mem- 
 ber. " Senatorial courtesy " seated Mr. Hanna. But if 
 bribery ever was proved, it was on that investigation. The 
 bribe agent, now dead, was followed step by step; he re- 
 ported by telephone to " Dick," " Major Dick," and to 
 others at Hanna's headquarters everything that he did; 
 and these frequent telephonic communications were over- 
 heard by witnesses, with stenographers by to take them 
 down. Hanna's declaration of personal innocence was borne 
 out ; the witnesses said the agent said he represented East-
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 181 
 
 em men and Eastern money ; but " Dick " was certainly 
 Hanna's State manager, and Hanna wasn't the sort of 
 man such a lieutenant would be afraid to report to on the 
 use of money. But waive all that. 
 
 Hanna rewarded with offices in the State and the United 
 States service the legislators and agents who " stood by 
 him." Hanna said on the stump afterward that he did 
 this. That is enough. As we have noted before, people 
 are often incensed over cash bribery, but bribery with 
 offices is worse ; to pay men who betray us by giving them 
 salaries at our cost in our public service is the worst form 
 of bribery; that is systematic corruption; that is the 
 System. For instance, Major E. G. Rathbone, afterward 
 involved in irregularities in the Cuban postal service, was 
 sent down there by Hanna because he had proven his 
 character by helping Hanna in this senatorial fight. And 
 there are others : When Mark Hanna died, the System 
 decreed that Ohio should send his faithful lieutenant, 
 Major Dick, to the Senate, and thus, by the way, another 
 of " our " United States Senators is accounted for. 
 
 But never mind; Hanna had his senatorship. There 
 remained unsatisfied but one great want of this spoiled 
 child of the American business-political system. That 
 Legislature of 1898, which gave Hanna " so much trouble," 
 as he expressed it, repealed the Rogers Law, and he had 
 to begin all over again to get the extensions he wanted for 
 his street-railway franchises. But he began right this 
 time, at home. He went to Cleveland. 
 
 McKisson, beaten for the senatorship, was weakened, 
 but he controlled the Republican party, so Hanna did
 
 182 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 what good people are so reluctant, what the politicians 
 and bosses are so ready to do when " the " party fails 
 to represent them Hanna backed the other party. Yes, 
 this same Republican leader who had -pleaded so hard for 
 " harmony " in Cincinnati where harmony was in his 
 interest, now supported in Cleveland the Democratic party. 
 The Democratic party in Ohio (and in many other States) 
 is cursed by " Democrats " of the John R. McLean type, 
 who believe in " protection," privileges, and big business 
 graft generally just as much as Republicans of the Al- 
 drich stamp do. John Farley is such a " Democrat." I had 
 a talk with him once, and it was like talking to Aldrich; 
 he is candid, able, and a cynic about America and its 
 democratic Republic. Farley was nominated by the Dem- 
 ocratic Party ; he was called a Hanna Democrat and the 
 Hanna Republicans helped the Democrats elect him. And 
 he was elected to help the street railways get their 
 franchises. Horace Andrews was out of the " Big Con " 
 presidency and Henry Everett of the Everett-Moore Syn- 
 dicate was in ; and the two " Cons " came pretty near 
 getting what they wanted. Farley, the Democrat, stood 
 ready to do his part, the traction people to do theirs ; but 
 the business fell through, beaten by Cleveland, by the 
 citizens of Cleveland. 
 
 Cheerful idiots who think themselves optimists often 
 ask me why I don't find something good now and then, 
 somebody to praise. I do. I found good in Chicago; I 
 praised Folk and LaFollette, A. R. Hall, and Governor 
 Garvin, and Oliver McClintock; everywhere I have been 
 I have found something good and somebody to praise.
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 183 
 
 I notice, however, that while my evil reports seldom cause 
 resentment, the moment I begin to speak well either of 
 men or of conditions, my mail roars with rage and burns 
 with sarcasm or sorrow. Then I am a fool or a liar. 
 Naturally, therefore, it is with fear and trembling that I 
 approach Cleveland now. There is something good there. 
 The citizens of Cleveland know how to vote; they have a 
 public opinion, and they make it count; they have two 
 truly independent newspapers, and this free press speaks 
 for them, with effect. Nominally Republican, when this 
 city had by sheer force of public opinion stopped the 
 trolley grabs, it turned around and elected to succeed 
 Farley, " Democrat," not a " Republican," but Tom John- 
 son, a Democrat. Now this was the most terrible disap-: 
 pointment in the whole business-political career of Mr. 
 Hanna. And Johnson's administration has hurt " busi- 
 ness " generally ; it is a sore trial to-day to a certain kind 
 of business men in Cleveland ; and the results of the 
 fight against this this " socialist-anarchist-nihilist " (as 
 Hanna called Johnson) has upset the charters of all the 
 cities in Ohio and reversed the judicial policy of the State 
 courts. Next to the " wants " of Mr. Hanna, nothing has 
 had such an influence on the politics, government, and 
 " business " interests of Ohio as the policy of the Mayor 
 of Cleveland. Yet Cleveland reflected Mayor Johnson. 
 There is something good in Cleveland and Tom L. Johnson. 
 Good? It seems to me that Tom Johnson is the best 
 Mayor of the best-governed city in the United States. 
 This is no snap judgment. The first time I went to Cleve- 
 land, on the same trip that took me to Cox and Cincinnati,
 
 184 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 I knew all about Tom Johnson. He was a dangerous 
 theorist with a dangerous ambition; that was the im- 
 pression the System had spread of him in New York ; and 
 all I had to do was to prove it. Since, though Mayor, he 
 was the head of the actual government of the city, I 
 called on him. His office was full, and it was a shock to 
 my prejudice to watch this big jolly man do business 
 attention, reflection, and a question; a decision, a laugh; 
 next. And so it went. But I wasn't to be fooled. When 
 my turn came, I asked him what his ambition was? He 
 laughed. 
 
 " My ambition," he said " is to make Cleveland the first 
 American city to get good government." That was amus- 
 ing, and he saw my skepticism, and it amused him. " And 
 not only that," he added, with a sober impulse of his tre- 
 mendous energy. " I'd like to make it not only the first 
 to get good government ; I'd like to make it prove things, 
 prove good government possible, prove municipal owner- 
 ship possible, prove anything is possible that any com- 
 munity of American citizens cares to try to do." 
 
 There was something interesting and intelligent about 
 that. I often had wondered why all our leading citizens 
 sought the same thing, money-power ; why didn't some of 
 them pursue some other end; why didn't someone seek 
 the everlasting fame that would come to the man who first 
 should achieve good municipal government? But I knew 
 Johnson too well to be taken in by his " ambition." I 
 pried around a little. If a city is corrupt, there are signs 
 of graft about it. The pavements show it and the police 
 on patrol ; reporters and certain kinds of business men will
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 185 
 
 give you the rumors of it. Cleveland showed none of these 
 signs, so I went away baffled to give Tom Johnson time 
 to show what he was after. And, sure enough, the next 
 time I visited Cleveland the Mayor whose ambition it was 
 to give his city good government was running for Gov- 
 ernor of Ohio! Unfortunately for my prejudice, however, 
 my experience with Folk in St. Louis, with the reformers 
 in Chicago, with reform in all cities, had taught me that 
 no man can finish a municipal reform job without going 
 to the State. Moreover, I had come to regard office-seeking 
 as no worse a crime in a reformer than in a grafter; on 
 the contrary it had occurred to me that one way to beat 
 the grafting system was to promote honest men for giving 
 good government, as the System (Hanna's, for instance) 
 promotes corrupt men for corrupting government. The 
 question still was as to the goodness of Tom Johnson's 
 government. A year ago last winter, after a month of 
 search, I was convinced that there was no graft worth 
 speaking of in Cleveland ; certainly if I had tried to make 
 out a case of bad government against Tom Johnson, I 
 should have made myself ridiculous. But how, in a brief 
 space, is one to prove good government? 
 
 The best department in this best government is that 
 of the law. Newton D. Baker, the head of it, is clear, able, 
 and, best of all, fair. He has directed all the many obnox- 
 ious litigations for the city against " business," and yet 
 " business-men " who sneer at Johnson and all his men, 
 except Baker, because while he fights for the city he 
 " fights fair," they say. But how is this to be shown? All 
 I can say is : Ask any Clevelander about Newton D. Baker.
 
 186 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Mayor Johnson wanted to make his water-works prove 
 that municipal operation was good. It was a political 
 dive when he was elected, and the contractors for a water 
 tunnel to reach far out into the lake had wrecked the job 
 at both ends and given it up as hopeless. The Mayor ap- 
 pointed Professor Edward W. Bemis superintendent. 
 There was a howl from the party, for Bemis hailed from 
 another State and had no politics, but Johnson stood his 
 ground while the " foreigner " threw out Republicans and 
 Democrats alike, Protestants and Catholics ; put in men 
 without regard to politics ; reorganized the department on 
 a business basis; installed meters against another outcry ; 
 saved waste ; reduced expenses, to city and consumer alike, 
 and altogether established a system that did prove things. 
 Furthermore, the city completed that water tunnel. My 
 colleague, Mr. Adams, said Cleveland water was not pure, 
 but that meant either that the tunnel should reach farther 
 out in the lake or that a filtration plant is needed. The 
 Waterworks Department certainly proves that a man like 
 Bemis, backed by a man like Johnson, backed by a citizen- 
 ship like Cleveland's, can run its waterworks better than 
 a private company. But this is only my assertion ; ask any 
 Clevelander if it isn't true. 
 
 The Police Department caused trouble at first. Tom 
 Johnson is not interested in the police as a New York 
 reformer would be, but there is but one man in this country 
 who has solved the police problem more satisfactorily. 
 The Mayor, after some patient experiments, found on the 
 force a junior officer who struck him as honest, able, and 
 full of nerve. He made him chief of police. That caused
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 187 
 
 more bitter feeling, for Chief Kohler is a Republican. 
 Kohler cared, Johnson didn't. Kohler declared he " wasn't 
 looking for trouble " ^and didn't want the place. " I 
 wouldn't have given it to you, if you did," said the Mayor, 
 and he gave commands. Chief Kohler obeyed the Mayor's 
 orders. There is absolutely no graft among the Cleveland 
 police that I could find, and, without any alliance with 
 criminals, this young man handles his criminal problem. 
 Mayor Johnson is a good judge of men, and Cleveland 
 has the best chief of police that I have met so far. 
 
 One day a builder stopped me in the street to complain 
 about the Building Department. Certain plans had been 
 held up for three days, he said. That sounded like New 
 York.' " What for graft? " I asked. " Oh, no," he said; 
 " they excused the delay by saying that the head of the 
 department had bought a pair of shoes that hurt his feet. 
 But the man isn't up to his work, and Johnson won't do 
 anything about it." Think of a complaint like that in 
 your city. This builder was perfectly right ; but before I 
 left the town he said he and a committee had gone to the 
 Mayor, and I happened to hear several cabinet discussions 
 of a rather thorough-going reorganization. 
 
 Mr. Adams says the Health Department is weak, and 
 a remark of the Mayor to me confirmed this criticism, and, 
 perhaps, explained the condition. Mr. Johnson said he 
 never had been able to understand the workings of the 
 Health Department; he was an ex officio member of the 
 board, but couldn't get interested in its doings. He has to 
 be interested to do good work, and his interests are pretty 
 wide; but sanitary science marks one of his limitations.
 
 188 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Stealing is within his limits. A paving-brick combine that 
 interested him when he came into office was broken up in a 
 clever way, and the Public Works Department was turned 
 over to a Republican, W. J. Springborn, who had proved 
 his honesty and capacity in the city council. The efficiency 
 and correctness of Mr. Springborn I never heard disputed. 
 And the kindness and humanity of Harris R. Cooley, the 
 director of charities and correction, will not be denied. 
 The really remarkable results achieved under this gentle 
 clergyman at the city prison and at Cleveland's Boyville, 
 a farm in the country where " bad boys " are proved to be 
 the best boys in the slums these works certainly are of 
 good government. So with the parks. The rich men of the 
 city had provided, a beautiful, though broken, circle of 
 parks, but they were only decorative till Johnson threw 
 them open to the public. He ordered away the " Keep off 
 the grass " signs, and the Park Department, by games and 
 competitions for prizes, by winter sports and summer 
 music, has taught the people of Cleveland to go out and 
 use their parks. There has been some protest at this 
 policy, but a sight of those parks in use makes the oppo- 
 sition seem mean. Moreover, the city has established play- 
 grounds, and skating-rinks on public ground and in va- 
 cant private lots, and the police say these sports lighten 
 police work in their neighborhood. 
 
 But this is not a third of the " proof " I gathered of 
 good government in Cleveland, and it isn't the best proof, 
 either. The best evidence of the " goodness " of this 
 government is the spirit of the men in it. They like their 
 work; they like to talk about their work; theirs is a sense
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 189 
 
 of pride and preoccupation such as I have never felt in 
 any other American municipal government. The members 
 of the administration are of all classes, but they get 
 together, they and their wives, and they talk shop, shop, 
 shop. The Mayor's levees are the most popular. Every- 
 body goes there, evenings and Sundays, and it is Cleveland, 
 Cleveland, Cleveland, till an outsider is bored to death. 
 Say what you will, pick flaws as you may and as I could, 
 Tom Johnson has proved what I never heard him say he 
 hoped to prove: He has proved that it can be made a joy 
 to serve one's city. 
 
 Isn't this good? Isn't this what we mean by " good 
 government " ? There are men in Cleveland, and in Ohio, 
 and in the United States, who say it is not good. They 
 hate and they fear Tom Johnson and all his works. Why ? 
 They say he is a politician. I don't think he is, not a good 
 one, but I don't care. And neither do his critics care: 
 Hanna was a politician, and so are Cox and Foraker, and 
 Johnson's critics do not mind that in them. But they say 
 he is not sincere, that he does the good he does to serve his 
 own selfish ends. Hanna did the evil he did for selfish ends, 
 and Tom Johnson's enemies were Mark Hanna's friends. 
 Would they ask if Hanna was sincere, and Cox, and For- 
 aker? But Johnson was a business man, and his old busi- 
 ness associates say that while he was in business he was a 
 corrupter of politics. This is true. Mr. Johnson denies 
 it, but let us examine the facts and the denial. 
 
 Tom Johnson was a big business man ; there is no deny- 
 ing that ; he succeeded ; he is rich. And his business was 
 big business, street railways and steel. He was in street
 
 190 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 railways before he was twenty-one, and he operated in 
 many parts of the country, Indianapolis, Cleveland, De- 
 troit, Brooklyn. In Cleveland he measured himself with 
 Hanna and beat him. I said earlier in this sketch that 
 Hanna was our man of brains, not mind. Johnson has a 
 mind; his brain is no mere muscle; it thinks. He discov- 
 ered at Indianapolis a principle of street-railway opera- 
 tion. Most street-car lines run from the business center of 
 the city out to the residence districts. They follow the 
 heavy traffic, downtown to work in the morning, uptown 
 home in the evening. Mr. Johnson believed that if he could 
 run a continuous line across town he would catch not only 
 the morning and evening crowds, but the all-day cross-town 
 traffic. He did. This may seem a simple, obvious observa- 
 tion, but as we have noted so often, business men are not 
 so great as they think they are, even at business. They 
 are more often smart and knowing than wise and intelli- 
 gent, and well, it was the application of this simple 
 principle that enabled Tom Johnson to come into Cleve- 
 land on a little jerk-water horse-car line and go out on the 
 " Big Con," while Mark Hanna was struggling behind 
 with his " Little Con." 
 
 But, because Hanna was so simply instinctive, we can 
 excuse many of his evil practices ; he didn't know any bet- 
 ter. And because Tom Johnson understands things, we 
 can pin him to facts. What are the facts? He says he 
 bought his franchises, not from councils, but from private 
 and corporate owners of them. Yes, but he got extensions 
 and other privileges from cities. How? He declares that 
 he never bribed anybody, directly or indirectly. Very
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 191 
 
 well, but Mr. Johnson says that he contributed to cam- 
 paign funds, that he contributed to the funds of both 
 parties when he had business to do, and he admits that he 
 did this to influence votes on his business. And he adds, 
 with a candor as honest as Hanna's ever was, " I under- 
 stand now that that is just as corrupt and dangerous as 
 cash bribery." It is worse. It is systematic. And Mr. 
 Johnson understands what I mean by that. Mr. Johnson 
 understands what perfect honesty is. He says Horace 
 Andrews has it, and to prove it he told me once a story 
 which illustrates perfectly the difference between himself 
 and Hanna and Andrews. Both street-railway combina- 
 tions wanted something from the city. Hanna went ahead 
 and bought it; the cost was $40,000. Then Hanna 
 thought the " Big Con " ought to pay its share, and the 
 " Big Con " directors, Johnson included, were willing. 
 But Andrews refused absolutely, as his custom was. 
 " Then," said Mr. Johnson, " I discovered that about 
 $20,000 of that $40,000 was for legitimate expenses, so 
 I said to Andrews : ' Here, Horace, is a way out of this. 
 We can pay the honest half of that bill and let Hanna 
 foot the other half.' But Andrews said that that was a 
 flimsy subterfuge, and, of course, he was right." So I 
 concluded that while Mr. Johnson had scruples unknown 
 to the Hannas, he was willing to do things that Horace 
 Andrews wouldn't do. In brief, Tom Johnson, in business, 
 did what was necessary to the furtherance of his business. 
 But the men who wanted to make Hanna President, and 
 who deal now with Cox and Foraker, Murphy and Platt 
 and Aldrich the clients and friends of such as these
 
 192 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 cannot tell me that they hate Johnson for the evil he may 
 have done as a business man in politics. There is some- 
 thing back of all their charges. What is it? I think we 
 are close now to a truth that we must see plainly if we are 
 to understand why our governments, city, State, and na- 
 tional, are corrupt, and, also, why our reforms fail so 
 regularly. 
 
 Tom Johnson is the " business man for Mayor " that 
 business men have been prophesying so long must come 
 along some day to give us a " good business administra- 
 tion of a city government," and, now that he has come, 
 Business hates him because he has given Cleveland not 
 only good government, but representative government; 
 not only clean streets, but clean tax lists ; he has stopped 
 not only blackmail, but bribery ; he tackled not only low- 
 down petty police and political graft, but high-toned, big, 
 respectable, business graft, both legitimate and illegiti- 
 mate. Tom Johnson is a reformed business man. His 
 reform began at home; he reformed himself first, then he 
 undertook political reform ; and his political reform began 
 with the reform of his own class. And that is Tom John- 
 son's sin. 
 
 One day, at the height of his money-making career, 
 the newsboy on a train offered him a copy of Henry 
 George's " Social Problems." He was pushing it away, 
 when the conductor, happening to pass, said : " That's a 
 book you ought to read, Mr. Johnson." So he took it, 
 read it ; it threw a flood of light, especially upon his busi- 
 ness ; and he read more of Henry George, met the man, 
 became a disciple, and managed one of the great Single-
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 193 
 
 Taxer's political campaigns. Convinced of the injustice 
 of privileges, Mr. Johnson did not quit turning privileges 
 into money; he was twitted on the point while he was a 
 member of Congress in 1891 ; and his answer shows how he 
 excused himself. Mr. Johnson moved that the duty on 
 steel rails be removed. Mr. Dalzell, the Republican leader, 
 interrupted Johnson to ask him if he, a manufacturer of 
 steel rails, was not a beneficiary of the duty on them. 
 Johnson said he was ; that he got a higher price for his 
 rails because of that duty ; but that, as a member of Con- 
 gress, he represented not himself, nor his mill, nor his 
 stockholders, but his constituents ; and that as a free 
 trader he wished to commence his reforms along the line 
 in which he was interested. So he continued his motion to 
 put steel rails on the free list. In other words his position 
 was that, while as a business man he would take advantage 
 of the favoritism of his government, as a citizen and as a 
 politician he would fight all privileges as economically 
 unjust. Another amusing incident occurred at Detroit. 
 As the manager of the street-car system, Johnson was 
 seeking from the city a double-track privilege. Mayor 
 Pingree was against the grant, " but," said Mr. Johnson, 
 " Pingree didn't know why ; he came to me and said he 
 knew there was something the matter with the ordinance, 
 and wouldn't I tell him what it was that was wrong? I 
 laughed. I said I wouldn't tell him what he wanted to 
 know, but I would tell him this much : ' If,' I said, * I had 
 the say for the city in this thing, I'd see Tom Johnson in 
 hell before I'd let him have it.' ' When the hearing was 
 held, Pingree couldn't make his position very clear; he
 
 194 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 tried to, hesitated, and then he blurted out that he didn't 
 understand the ordinance, but he pointed at Johnson and 
 he said : " But I can tell you this. Tom Johnson there 
 told me that if he was in our places he'd see Tom Johnson 
 in hell before he'd grant it." Everybody looked at John- 
 son, who laughed heartily. " Yes, I did say that," he 
 admitted, " but it is a dirty trick to tell it on me." 
 
 So he knew what he was about in business, but he kept 
 at it till he had made his money. Then, when some men 
 go in for yachting, or the Senate, and give money to 
 charity and churches, colleges and libraries, Tom Johnson 
 gave himself and his money to politics, to municipal re- 
 form as the Mayor of Cleveland. And as a Mayor he knew 
 what he was about. 
 
 His platform as a candidate was equal taxation and 
 " three-cent fares with universal transfers " on the street 
 railways ; " good " government was a side issue ; he threw 
 that in. His idea was to make that city government repre- 
 sent and serve all its people. That doesn't sound bad, but 
 applied by an expert big business man, who knew just 
 where the System lay and who reached for it with ability 
 and humor, Mayor Johnson's simple idea had mixed and 
 terrible consequences. 
 
 His first move was at the inequalities and favoritism 
 of the tax lists. He had Peter Witt organize a Tax 
 School. Peter Witt loved the work. It consisted in finding 
 out the assessments of real estate, block by block, or ward 
 by ward. Great maps were made, and on these each piece 
 of property was plotted, and in each plot Peter Witt 
 wrote the assessment on it. You can imagine the result.
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 195 
 
 But when this was done, Peter Witt asked all the property 
 owners to come together to see that result, and you can 
 imagine the effect of this " first view." There were ine- 
 qualities, and, with the property owners by to agree, they 
 were straightened out against the next year. Now wasn't 
 that a good thing to do? No. The System got out an 
 injunction and stopped the " unlawful " expenditures on 
 the Tax School. 
 
 The next reach, at about the same time, was for the 
 undervaluation of steam railroads. Now the railroads in 
 Ohio had long since got through corrupting the State. 
 As we have seen everywhere, when the railroads have had all 
 they want out of the State in the way of privileges they 
 keep up only enough steam to keep the government cor- 
 rupt. They are there, though you can't always see them. 
 Mayor Johnson could see them. He, Professor Bemis 
 and, later, Carl Nau, an expert accountant, produced 
 figures showing the gross and ridiculous undervalua- 
 tion of railroad property as compared with other 
 property in the State and with railroad property in other 
 States. These figures, laid before the auditors by the 
 Mayor and his assistant, produced no results. Railroads 
 owned the boards. Detectives who shadowed the audi- 
 tors found that all the auditors traveled on passes and 
 wined and dined with the railway counsel. Mr. Johnson 
 appealed from the local to the State Board of Equali- 
 zation, but that board also refused to act. Mayor John- 
 son appealed next to the Supreme Court to compel the 
 State board to act; the court held that the Legislature 
 alone could remedy the evil. Mayor Johnson went to the
 
 196 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Legislature of 1902, and the Legislature adjourned with- 
 out action. It was not till 1903 that the State tax on 
 railroads was increased from one-half of one to one per 
 cent, on the gross receipts, just about doubling the tax, 
 and then only with railroad consent and in fear of " social- 
 istic " agitation. 
 
 Another simultaneous move was " against " the local pub- 
 lic utilities companies. The Mayor appoints the City Board 
 of Equalization; and Johnson's board added $18,000,000 
 to the tax valuation of the street-railway and lighting 
 companies. Now it was the System's turn to appeal. They 
 went to the State auditor, and they did not go in vain. 
 The State Board of Tax Remission remitted, without any 
 given reason, the entire increase, and the Legislature 
 empowered the Republican county auditor of Cuyahoga 
 County (Cleveland) to destroy the City Board. Johnson 
 appealed to the Common Pleas Court to restore his board's 
 valuation ; denied ; to the Circuit Court ; denied. Mean- 
 while, however, the citizens were interested, and they 
 elected Robert C. Wright (Dem.) county auditor over 
 Craig (Rep.). Now the biggest item in this fight was a 
 claim by Johnson for $2,000,000 back taxes from the 
 public service corporations, and Wright was to collect it. 
 When he entered his office he found Craig had settled 
 secretly with the companies for $113,000. And when 
 Wright began to investigate the returns the State auditor 
 ordered him off. Wright proceeded, nevertheless ; he added 
 back values amounting to $1,858,000; the State board 
 remitted them, and the case was taken into court, where 
 it still is pending. As in the case of the railroads, in spite
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 197 
 
 of this succession of defeats, the public service people 
 have consented to increased assessments from $3,520,245, 
 in 1900, to $7,814,120, in 1904. 
 
 All these, however, were mere skirmishes around the 
 great central fight which raged over " three-cent fares 
 and universal transfers." The street railways wouldn't 
 hear of it. Horace Andrews said they couldn't live ; John- 
 son said they could ; Hanna, who had been calling Johnson 
 a socialist, now added " anarchist-nihilist." I believe 
 Horace Andrews has proved to Johnson since that uni- 
 versal transfers are not practicable in so large a city, 
 but the Mayor still believes in three-cent fares, and when 
 the railways showed no disposition to budge, he and the 
 city council established routes for competing three-cent 
 lines and, advertising for bids, induced street-railway men 
 from out of town to bid. Now, business men apply such 
 methods to one another, and they are all right then ; but. 
 when this ex-street-railway magnate used them in the inter- 
 est of a city, Big Business went mad. The first move 
 was made by Johnson on December 9, 1901. Two days 
 later, the State System, through Attorney General Sheets, 
 brought an ouster suit against the City of Cleveland, a 
 suit, that is, to oust the whole administration. This sounds 
 " socialistic-anarchistic-nihilistic," but it wasn't ; it was 
 Systematic. There was a run on Hanna's " Savings 
 Bank," as he called his street railway, and something had 
 to be done to save it. And something was done. On June 
 26 the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio ousted the 
 Board of Control of Cleveland. Why? It had been cre- 
 ated by special legislation. But all the charters of all the
 
 198 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 cities in Ohio were creations of special legislation, and 
 the same court had upheld such special legislation from 
 time immemorial. No matter. Special legislation was un- 
 constitutional ; the Supreme Court would have to reverse 
 itself some time, and what was a better time than now, 
 when a Big Business man was running a city on Big Busi- 
 ness lines? But by this decision all the city charters of all 
 the cities in the State would fall. No matter. That court, to 
 check Tom Johnson and help the Hannas, did declare un- 
 constitutional all the city charters in Ohio. Oh, it was ar- 
 ranged so that the cities could do business, all but one ; but 
 that exception points the whole purpose of this supreme 
 act of the corrupt, misrepresentative system that rules 
 the United States to-day. The exception was Cleveland ; 
 Cleveland could not grant, or consider granting, any more 
 franchises. 
 
 But " they " were not through, not yet. Having torn 
 down, they and by " they " I mean the Hannas, the pub- 
 lic-service corporations and their political machinery, 
 their banks and their courts they had to build up some- 
 thing in the place of the ruin. They had to pass a general 
 act giving one and the same city charter to all the cities 
 in Ohio. Where did they go for a model? They went to 
 Cincinnati. 
 
 Let's run down there again to see what Cox has done 
 since 1898 to make Cincinnati the model Ohio city. He 
 has "Russianized" it. His voting subjects are all down 
 on a card catalogue, they and their children and all their 
 business, and he lets them know it. The Democratic Party 
 is gone. Cox has all the patronage, city, county, State
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 199 
 
 and federal, so the Democratic grafters are in Cox's Re- 
 publican Club. That club contains so many former Demo- 
 crats that " Lewie " Bernard, John R. McLean's political 
 agent, says, happily, that he is waiting for a majority, to 
 turn it into a Democratic club. And " Lewie " Bernard's 
 machine remnant is in touch with Cox when " John," as 
 Cox calls McLean, doesn't want anything, either office or 
 revenge. Conventions are held, and Cox plans them in 
 detail. If he has been hearing mutterings among his peo- 
 ple about the boss, he is very ostentatious in dictation ; 
 otherwise he sits in his favorite beer hall and sends in to 
 those of his delegates whom he wishes to honor slips con- 
 taining the motions and nominations each is to make. But 
 there must be no nominating speeches. " Takes time ; all 
 foolishness ; obey orders and get done." He picks ward 
 leaders, and they deliver the votes. The citizens have no 
 choice of parties, but they must get out and vote. Cox 
 is good to some of them. If they knuckle under, he puts 
 respectable men up for the school board. He has little 
 use for schools ; not much graft in them ; except to cut 
 down their appropriations in favor of fatter departments, 
 and as a place to try respectable men. If these take orders 
 on the school board, Cox tries them higher up, and he has 
 a-plenty. The press is not free. The Post and the Citizens 9 
 Bulletin, the last a weekly organ of the smallest but one 
 of the most enduring groups of reformers in America 
 these are the only papers that speak out honestly for the 
 public interest. Official advertising, offices for the editors, 
 public-service stock and political prospects for the own- 
 ers, hold down the rest. It is terrible. The city is all one
 
 200 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 great graft; Cox's System is the most perfect thing of 
 the kind in this country, and he is proud of it. 
 
 " What you think of it ? " he asked, when I had finished 
 and was taking leave. 
 
 " Pretty good," I said. 
 
 " Pretty ! " He was too disgusted to finish. " Best 
 
 you ever saw," he retorted, firmly. 
 
 " Well, I can't tell," I said. " My criterion for a graft 
 organization is, How few divide the graft. Plow many 
 divide it here? " 
 
 " Ain't no graft," he grumbled. 
 
 " Then it's a mighty poor thing." 
 
 He pondered a moment. Then, " How many do you say 
 divides up here? " 
 
 " Three at least," I said. " You and Garry Herman and 
 Rud Hynicka." 
 
 " Ugh ! " he grunted, scornfully, and, wagging one fin- 
 ger slowly before my face, he said : " There's only one 
 divides up here." 
 
 Of course, that isn't true. He must mean only political 
 graft, the campaign fund, police blackmail, contracts, etc., 
 etc., and even that goes partly to others. Cox admits own- 
 ing two millions, but some of his followers are very rich 
 also. Cox wouldn't lie about a point like that; but he is 
 growing vain and hates to see other men stand up like men 
 and to hear them admired. They tell how once, in a beer 
 hall, when Herman and Hynicka, his two chief lieutenants, 
 and some others, were talking to some outsiders quite like 
 free, independent men, Cox, who had been poring over his 
 beer, broke in hoarsely, " But when I whistle, you dogs
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 201 
 
 come out of your holes, don't you?" They were still. 
 "Don't you, Garry?" the master repeated. "That's 
 right," said Garry. 
 
 But there is lots of graft besides political graft in Cin- 
 cinnati, bankers' and business men's graft. Cox is reaching 
 for that, too. Some Cleveland and Cincinnati financiers 
 organized a trust company in Cincinnati, and they took 
 Cox in for his pull and the public moneys he could have 
 deposited there. A quarrel arose, and Cox, taking one side, 
 told the others to buy or sell. They sold, of course, and 
 Cox, becoming president, wrote a letter to officeholders, 
 inviting them to use his bank ; the letter to school teachers 
 was published. Certain financiers of Cleveland and Cin- 
 cinnati got up a scheme to take over the Miami and Erie 
 Canal. They gave Cox stock for Cox's pull on the Legisla- 
 ture, and his letter to the legislators was published. The 
 bill was beaten ; business men all along the canal were 
 grafting the water for power, and they fought for their 
 graft. The company had floated its stock and bonds, and 
 the failure of the Legislature threw the " canal scandal " 
 into a receivership. Some of the financiers are in trouble, 
 but Cox is safe, and the scheme was to go through next 
 year. Cox was in the scheme to sell or " lease " the Cin- 
 cinnati Southern, the only steam railroad under municipal 
 ownership. Leading citizens of Cincinnati concocted this 
 grab, but the Germans beat it ; and, though it went through 
 later, the city got much better terms. 
 
 So, when Cox says only one divides the graft in Cin- 
 cinnati he probably means that one man can dispose as he 
 will of all of it, police, political, and financial, as the
 
 202 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 examples cited indicate, but he has to let all sorts of men 
 in on it. And he does. And that is his best hold on the 
 graft. They talk in Cincinnati, as they do in Philadelphia, 
 of apathy. Apathy ! Apathy is corruption. Cincinnati 
 and Philadelphia are not asleep; they are awake, alive. 
 The life is like that in a dead horse, but it is busy and it is 
 contented. If the commanding men, of all the natural 
 groupings of society, were not interested in graft, no city 
 would put up with what satisfies Cincinnati. For Cincinnati 
 is not unhappy. Men like Elliot H. Pendleton, Rufus B. 
 Smith, and a dozen others, are eating their hearts out with 
 
 impotent rage, but as for the rest 
 
 The rest are in it for profit or fear. The bums get 
 free soup ; the petty criminals " get off " in court ; the 
 plain people or their relatives get jobs or a picnic or a 
 friendly greeting; the Germans get their beer whenever 
 they want it; the neighborhood and ward leaders get 
 offices and graft ; " good " Democrats get their share of 
 both ; shopkeepers sell to the city or to politicians or they 
 break petty ordinances ; the lawyers get cases, and they 
 tell me that the reputation of the bench is such that clients 
 seek lawyers for their standing, not at the bar, but with 
 the ring; the banks get public deposits and license to do 
 business; the public utility companies get franchises and 
 " no regulation " ; financiers get canals etc., they " get 
 blackmailed," too, but they can do " business " by " divid- 
 ing up " ; property owners get low assessments, or high ; 
 anybody can get anything in reason, by standing in. And 
 anybody who doesn't " stand in," or " stand by," gets 
 " nothing but trouble." And there is the point that pricks
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 203 
 
 deepest in Cincinnati. Cox can punish; he does punish, 
 not with physical cruelty, as a Czar may, but by petty 
 annoyances and " trouble," and political and business 
 ostracism. The reign of Cox is a reign of fear. The expe- 
 rience that made my visits there a personal humiliation 
 was the spectacle I saw of men who were being punished ; 
 who wanted to cry out; who sent for me to tell me facts 
 that they knew and suffered and hated; and these men, 
 after leading me into their back offices and closing the 
 door, dared not speak. It was rumored that I was 
 shadowed, and that made them afraid. Afraid of what? 
 They were afraid of their government, of their Czar, of 
 George Cox, who is not afraid of them, or of you, or of me. 
 Cox is a man, we are American citizens, and Cincinnati 
 has proved to Cox that Americans can be reduced to craven 
 cowards. 
 
 And Ohio proves that the kind of men that rule us would 
 be willing to see us all Russianized like this. When, in the 
 fall of 1902, the Legislature of Ohio met in special session 
 to adopt one uniform municipal code for all the cities of 
 the State, the men who dominated that State and its Legis- 
 lature Hanna, Foraker, Cox, Dick, and the rest sent to 
 Cincinnati for their bill. Now, I don't believe that charters 
 make governments good or bad ; I believe the character of 
 the people of Cincinnati makes Cincinnati what it is ; and 
 I believe the citizenship of Cleveland makes Cleveland what 
 it is. But the Federal plan of concentrated power and 
 responsibility, on which the charter of Cleveland was 
 drawn, helped her citizens to rule themselves, and the so- 
 called board plan of scattered irresponsibility which has
 
 204 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 been built up in Cincinnati helped Cox to rule Cincinnati. 
 At any rate, the citizens of each place think so, and so 
 do the grafters, big and little. And, with the citizens of 
 both these cities and of the other cities protesting, the big 
 grafters who ruled Ohio took from Cox's men, who drew 
 it, a code modeled on the Cincinnati board plan ; and they 
 made their Legislature adopt it for Cleveland and Ohio ! 
 
 For the Cleveland of Tom Johnson and the Ohio of 
 Hanna. What does it all mean? It means what Hanna 
 means. Hanna is dead, but the spirit of Hanna lives. 
 What does Hanna mean? Unless I have failed to do that 
 man full justice, I have shown that Hanna meant no evil. 
 He was not a bad man. He was the kind of American we all 
 like, the kind that, wanting something, goes after it, fight- 
 ing, destroying, hurting other men, and, if necessary, cor- 
 rupting and undermining the government and American 
 institutions, but winning. They do not mean to do harm. 
 Hanna did not mean to injure the government. When he 
 attended that special session he was there not to make the 
 men of Cleveland what the men of Cincinnati are, not to 
 make the government of Cleveland as bad as the govern- 
 ment of Cincinnati. He wanted a street-railway franchise ; 
 the Cleveland of Tom Johnson wouldn't give him one. He 
 tried to get one from that special session; his control was 
 so absolute that his friends say they had a hard time 
 making the old man understand why a special Legislature, 
 called for another purpose, could not give him a perpetual 
 grant to the streets in Cleveland! No, Hanna saw only 
 that down in Cincinnati a business man who wanted a fran- 
 chise could have one; he might have to pay Cox, but he
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 205 
 
 would get what he wanted in his business. People called 
 Cox a boss, but what of that ? He wasn't a " socialist- 
 anarchist-nihilist " like Tom Johnson. Mark Hanna was a 
 good man spoiled by the privileges our government let him 
 steal; he came to think that, not only his franchises were 
 his very own private property, but our government, also. 
 
 Now, is it clear why Mayor Johnson came to run for 
 Governor of Ohio? He had to. The System, beaten in 
 Cleveland, had retreated to the State, and there, with its 
 Legislature, its courts, and its other cities, it was prepar- 
 ing to crush him and conquer Cleveland. Hanna, Cox, and 
 the Cox-McLean Cincinnati " Democrats " beat Johnson 
 that time. They elected a " good " banker, Myron T. 
 Herrick. Poor Governor Herrick ! I saw him soon after he 
 entered office. He is affable, but weak; everybody spoke 
 well of him then, and he would have done very well, but 
 they gave him the veto, and then his boss died. Banker- 
 fashion, he tried to please everybody, made incompatible 
 promises, tried to escape, but was caught naked in his 
 weakness, and now everybody is too hard on him except 
 the System. The System leaders make a wry face, but 
 they found him " safe." He carried out a bargain Hanna 
 had made with the brewers. Without knowing that there 
 was a System, he signed a bill to transfer city elections 
 from the spring to the fall; after telling me that he be- 
 lieved the Cleveland School System was the best in the 
 country, he signed, against the protest of all the earnest 
 educators in the State, a bill which put upon Cleveland 
 and all the other cities Cincinnati's plan, modified a little, 
 but making possible a big, irresponsible board. Herrick
 
 206 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 was to be renominated, therefore, and he may be reflected. 
 The System has a strong hold on Ohio. " We have the 
 farmers always," said one of its leaders. But Ohio will 
 escape. 
 
 The signs of promise? The boss is dead, the throne is 
 empty, and there is no heir in sight. The people are begin- 
 ning to see things. Even in Cincinnati (Cox scoffed when 
 I told him so) there is some discontent, and the nucleus of 
 veteran reformers are finding recruits willing to line up 
 against Cox, " just Cox," for a fight, not to throw out the 
 slot machines, not to ameliorate particular evils, but to 
 restore representative government and be free, wholly free. 
 Dayton is bad and glad of it ; " we hope to be as ' good ' 
 as Cincinnati some day," one of its rulers told me. Southern 
 Ohio is pretty low. But the spirit of the late Mayor Jones 
 lives in Toledo, and though its citizens have to present 
 " petitions in boots " to get it, they do get representative 
 government. And in Cleveland we have, as I write, this 
 spectacle : Two street-railway men, Mayor Johnson, repre- 
 senting the city, President Andrews for his stockholders, 
 negotiating in public for the disposition of the street-rail- 
 way system. There is no excitement, no bad feeling, no 
 suspicion of boodle or corruption. Some franchises have 
 expired, others are falling in ; all must be renewed. Mayor 
 Johnson opposes any renewal except upon terms which will 
 bring to the city two things: First, the removal of the 
 street railways out of politics ; second, the benefit, in the 
 form of reduced fares, improved service, or profits, of all 
 that increase of earnings which will come with the natural 
 growth of the city. Mr. Andrews says this is fair, so it is
 
 OHIO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES 207 
 
 all a question of terms. Mr. Andrews wants par for his 
 stock. Mr. Johnson points to the market price, 78, and 
 offers more to be fair. But he will not close a deal with- 
 out a vote of the people. 
 
 " And they will be fair," Mayor Johnson told me, and 
 Mr. Andrews said : " Oh, they will be fair." 
 
 So the cynics lie who say that capital has to corrupt a 
 democratic government to get a " square deal " from the 
 people. Such men as Horace Andrews, an honest conserva- 
 tive, and Tom Johnson, a patient liberal, could settle 
 Cleveland's street-railway problem, they and the people 
 they both trust. But will they? Their spirit would settle 
 all our political problems. But will it? See now the 
 other side of the picture: Back of Johnson lurk the red 
 radicals, sneering, eager to throw a brick; and back of 
 Andrews sneaks his big stockholder, who also sneers, and, 
 like the anarchist that he is, stands ready to throw a 
 bribe. And this other spirit, the spirit of the Hannas, who 
 cried " down with the nihilist-anarchist-socialist," and 
 annihilating all city charters, waded through municipal 
 anarchy to the class socialism of Cincinnati, this same 
 spirit was corrupting councilmen in the interest of the 
 lighting company while I was in Cleveland, and it was 
 holding at the State capital a bill to take away from the 
 cities, and give to a State board, the power to deal with all 
 the franchise questions in Ohio, State and country, too. 
 
 The forces of evil, beaten in the city, hold the State. 
 The forces of good, winning in Cleveland, fighting in 
 Toledo, hopeful in Cincinnati, to hold their own, must carry 
 Ohio. Ohio the whole State has to make the choice, the
 
 208 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 choice we all have to make: Cleveland or Cincinnati. The 
 Herricks and Dicks and false " Fire Alarms " won't do ; 
 we cannot " stand pat." It is the square deal, or bribes 
 and brickbats ; Horace Andrews or Mark Hanna ; Tom 
 Johnson or George Cox, all over the United States. 1 
 
 i Ohio went Democratic in 1905 with an astonishing majority of 
 some 50,000 for Pattison, the Democratic nominee for Governor. 
 Cincinnati rose and, overthrowing Cox, elected Judge Dempsey 
 Mayor on a fusion ticket. Toledo, beating both the old parties, 
 elected for Mayor, Brand Whitlock as the successor of Sam Jones, 
 and, as for Cleveland Cleveland reflected Tom Johnson with an 
 increased majority.
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 
 
 PART I. THE CONQUEST, SHOWING HOW THE PENN- 
 SYLVANIA RAILROAD SEIZED THE GOVERNMENT 
 
 EVERY loyal citizen of the United States owes New Jer- 
 sey a grudge. The State is corrupt; so are certain other 
 States. That the corruption of those other States hurts us 
 all I have tried to indicate by tracing the corrupt origin 
 of the Senators they send to Washington to dominate our 
 national legislation ; and there is nothing very exceptional 
 about the Senators from New Jersey. But this State 
 doubly betrays us. The corrupt government of Illinois 
 sold out its people to its own grafters; the organized 
 grafters of Missouri, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island sold, 
 or are selling, out their States to bigger grafters outside. 
 Jersey has been bought and sold both at home and abroad ; 
 the State is owned and governed to-day by a syndicate 
 representing capitalists of Newark, Philadelphia, New 
 York, London, and Amsterdam. The offense which com- 
 mands our special attention, however, and lifts this State 
 into national distinction, is this : New Jersey is selling out 
 the rest of us. 
 
 New Jersey charters the trusts. Now, I am not " anti- 
 trust," and I have no words to waste upon an economic 
 discussion of the charter-granting function of govern- 
 ment, State or National. Citizenship is my theme, the 
 
 209
 
 210 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 character of a " sovereign people " and the effect on the 
 nation as a whole of the failure of any part ward, town, 
 county, or State to do its full duty. And the point to fix 
 in mind at present is that when, a few years ago, the 
 American people were disposed to take up deliberately 
 and solve intelligently the common great trust problem, 
 some of the American people seized it and settled it alone ; 
 when the States united were considering whether to main- 
 tain the system of competition, which was called the " life 
 of trade," some of the States declared for monopolies ; 
 when the United States was contriving to curb the growth 
 of overwhelming combinations of capital, New Jersey, for 
 one, sold to the corporations a general law which was a 
 general license to grow, combine, and overwhelm as they 
 would, not in Jersey alone, but anywhere in the United 
 States. Maybe this was wise, but that isn't why Jersey did 
 it. She not only licensed companies to do in other States 
 what those States would not license ; she licensed them to 
 do in those other States what she would not let them do in 
 Jersey. No, our sister State was not prompted by any 
 abstract consideration of right and wisdom. New Jersey 
 sold us out for money. She passed her miscellaneous incor- 
 poration acts for revenue. And she gets the revenue. Her 
 citizens pay no direct State tax. The corporations pay all 
 the expenses of the State, and more. It was " good busi- 
 ness." But it was bribery, the bribery of a whole State; 
 and it was treason. If there is such a thing as treason by 
 a State, then New Jersey is a traitor State. 
 
 Nor is this the first time she has appeared in that char- 
 acter. 'Way back in the middle of the last century public
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 
 
 opinion in the other States was declaring Jersey a " for- 
 eign country," " out of the Union." In New York they 
 spoke of " the United States and New Jersey," and Phila- 
 delphia sang a street song calling her " Spain." The 
 grudge of those olden days was the grudge of our day: 
 her " liberal policy " toward corporations. She main- 
 tained a railroad monopoly which exploited interstate com- 
 merce. It exploited her also, as we shall see, but her chief 
 loss was her good name, and she was paid for that. States, 
 like cities, have specialties. When I was studying munici- 
 pal corruption I found that most of the big cities had near 
 them lesser towns, to which the vicious could retreat when, 
 during " reform " or other emergencies, the cities had to 
 be " good." St. Louis had its East St. Louis ; Pittsburg, 
 its Allegheny ; Philadelphia, its Camden ; and New York 
 has had Greenwich, Hoboken, Jersey City, and now Brook- 
 lyn may play the part. What these retreats are to the 
 vices of their cities, New Jersey is to the vicious business 
 of the States a resort, a commercial road house, a finan- 
 cial pirate's haven. New Jersey is the business Tenderloin 
 of the United States. 
 
 And that is her history. From the moment the family 
 of States was formed, the fathers have gone there to do 
 things they dared not do at home; beginning with Alex- 
 ander Hamilton. Every American child knows how this 
 great statesman stole off to Jersey Heights to fight his 
 fatal duel with Aaron Burr. He had gone there before. 
 He had gone there on business before. He was the founder 
 of the first great Jersey corporations, and his charters 
 initiated the liberal policy of the State toward corporate
 
 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 business. It was Alexander Hamilton who discovered the 
 uses of New Jersey. 
 
 Lying undeveloped between two thriving cities, New 
 York and Philadelphia, New Jersey, in the early part of 
 the last century, was a barrier between the East and the 
 South and West. How to get over or around Jersey was 
 a national problem ; as it still is. Geographical then, it is 
 political now, and it has come down to us political and 
 unsolved because the old solution was political. The geo- 
 graphical barrier was turned to commercial advantage by 
 political power under the lead of Hamilton. He foresaw 
 that the State was to be a national highway, and that the 
 key to its control was the Hudson shore opposite New 
 York. So he interested the Governor, and ex-Governor, a 
 future Governor, and other leading citizens of New Jersey, 
 and they formed, in 1804, The Associates of the Jersey 
 Company to protect the public interest? Not at all. 
 
 Hamilton had a theory. He honestly believed that the 
 people could not govern themselves. Thomas Jefferson be- 
 lieved they could, and he organized the Democratic party, 
 which stood, for a while, for a representative democracy, 
 a government representing the common interests of all the 
 people, with special privileges for none. Hamilton, who 
 led the Federalist party, held that, since there was no king 
 and no nobility, the Republic must be built upon the grate- 
 ful loyalty of a specially interested business class. Hamil- 
 ton's theory has prevailed. It is a condition now in every 
 State that I have studied. The Jeffersonian idea still lives 
 here and there, as in President Roosevelt's platform, a 
 " square deal," but wherever it is revived in Wisconsin,
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 213 
 
 Missouri, Illinois, or in the Congress there is trouble. 
 There is no trouble in New Jersey. Hamilton himself 
 nursed the infancy of that State. 
 
 The great Federalist from New York and the leading 
 citizens of New Jersey combined to have and to hold " the 
 gateway of the continent " as private property, and Ham- 
 ilton's charter not only gave his company governmental 
 powers and rights and privileges, troublesome to the com- 
 monwealth down to to-day, it taught the " best people " 
 to rule and, ruling, to use the State for private business 
 purposes. The lesson was well learned. In 1830, when a 
 railroad was projected from Camden to Amboy, the pro- 
 moters, being pioneer railroad men, were doubtful of the 
 success of the scheme ; but they were leading citizens of the 
 State, and they went to the State for aid and easy terms. 
 Though the route chosen was the shortest way through 
 Jersey from Philadelphia waters to a water connection 
 with New York, they talked in modern terms of " develop- 
 ing the resources of the State," and the Legislature of 
 1830, to which they applied, met full of popular enthusiasm 
 to grant all that the company might ask. And this is all 
 that it asked : a monopoly forever of the New York-Phila- 
 delphia traffic; exemption in perpetuity from taxation; a 
 State subscription to thsir stock; and plenty of time to 
 build. And they got all this. 
 
 What return did they make, these leading Jerseymen, 
 for the generosity of their own people and the substantial 
 aid of their own State? Gratitude? Loyalty? Hamilton's 
 theory is a modern theory; this question is a modern 
 question ; only the answer is old. These men made the same
 
 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 return to their State that such men so favored have made 
 in our other States : political corruption. So far as I can 
 make out, our privileged classes are not grateful ; they are 
 disloyal. The very favors granted them make our leading 
 men enemies of the Republic. 
 
 The promoters of the Camden and Amboy foresaw what 
 the people did not, that their monopoly was against public 
 interest ; that their exemption would become a public bur- 
 den; that their success would tempt rivals into the field; 
 and that the development of the resources of the State, 
 which they promised, would make more railways necessary. 
 To protect their precious privileges, therefore, they set 
 deliberately about corrupting the State. And how they 
 did corrupt it ! Like the " best people " of Rhode Island, 
 they bought the voters with cash at the polls ; they bought 
 the political parties with contributions to the campaign 
 funds ; they organized machines and reorganized the gov- 
 ernment, county by county, town by town, Legislature after 
 Legislature. They nominated their men for office, petty and 
 important, made themselves and their kind Governors and 
 United States Senators ; they ruled the State. They put 
 the railroad above the State. With the fat profits of their 
 State-granted privileges, they so corrupted the State that 
 the government represented, not the people of New Jersey, 
 but its railroad. It was a national scandal. 
 
 New Jersey became known as the State of Camden and 
 Amboy, and that is what she was ; and as such she was exe- 
 crated and ridiculed throughout the Union. The railroad 
 monopoly charged excessive rates, but it was a monopoly ; 
 there was no way around it. Canals and waterways were
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 215 
 
 used ; the Camden and Amboy fought, then bought them. 
 Other railroads over better land routes were pro j ected, one 
 to Jersey City. When these were forced through, the Cam- 
 den and Amboy forced leases and combinations, and with 
 one of them acquired the majority stock of Hamilton's 
 old associates of Jersey. Since the associates held the ex- 
 clusive ferry privilege from all the available shore, the 
 political monopoly was made physical ; no other roads could 
 have a New York terminal in Jersey, except by " making 
 land " at inconvenient places. 
 
 The period that followed, down to 1873, was one of the 
 most disgraceful in the history of the commercial cor- 
 ruption of American politics. The United States was grow- 
 ing, business was increasing, and the traffic had to pass 
 over " the highway of the continent." Other roads had to 
 come, and they did come. The new companies " made land," 
 dug tunnels, crossed mountains the physical difficulties 
 were overcome in time; it was the political monopoly, the 
 highwayman State itself, that held up the business enter- 
 prise of the whole country. Not that these new promoters 
 were not willing to pay. They, also, were great captains 
 of industry, and they went to Trenton with their pockets 
 full of bribe money. Ask an aged Jersey grafter for the 
 traditions of that time, and a lascivious expression of 
 greedy contemplation will come over his face. " Those were 
 the days ! " The new roads paid cheerful blackmail to the 
 Jersey Legislature, and the Jersey legislators took money 
 from " the foreigners," but they stood by the Camden and 
 Amboy, which paid more. And the people of the State 
 were with the monopoly. The people of the United States
 
 216 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 were back of the new roads, and public opinion ran high, 
 but Jersey was grateful and loyal to the railroad that 
 " made the State." Jersey had " State pride." She was 
 a " State's rights " State. She had a few slaves, and leaned 
 to the South ; she is the one Northern State that refused, 
 during the war, to let her soldiers vote in the field, and so 
 cast her electoral vote against Lincoln. The State that 
 lets trusts do in other States what those States won't per- 
 mit, and what Jersey won't permit in Jersey, was ever for 
 herself and her own ; and in the great " National Railway 
 fight " you find her legislative (Camden and Amboy) ora- 
 tors appealing to the local sentiment against " foreign rail- 
 road companies which propose to use the State only as a 
 convenience," and a " corporation chartered by Pennsyl- 
 vania in which the State of New Jersey has no particular 
 interest." 
 
 What " particular interest " had the State in the Camden 
 and Amboy ? Indignant public opinion in the nation asked 
 and the newspapers found out. In lieu of all taxes, the 
 Camden and Amboy Railroad had arranged with the Cam- 
 den and Amboy Legislature in its charters that the State 
 was to collect so much a head on passengers, and so much a 
 ton on freight carried across the State on the road. In 
 other words, besides the onerous charges for transporta- 
 tion, the railroad was to collect what was called a " transit 
 duty " for the State. It was this discovery that finally en- 
 raged the national mind and brought down upon Jersey the 
 old charge of treason referred to above. The " transit 
 duty " was called by the press of New York and Philadel- 
 phia an " import duty." Jerseymen to this day are sensi-
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 217 
 
 tive on the point. They declare, as Governorjlandolph put 
 it in a special message to the Legislature of 1869, that the 
 transit duty system was " either persistently misunderstood 
 or willfully misrepresented by the citizens of other States." 
 The Jersey reasoning is that any tax on a railroad is 
 borne by the traffic, and, of course, this is sound. None 
 the less the " misrepresentation " by the other States was 
 just: the obvious intention of that transit duty, levied only 
 on through freight and through passengers, was to relieve 
 the road of a tax, and let the State take it out of the 
 country at large! 
 
 That is New Jersey. That was the spirit of those old 
 transit duties, that is the spirit of her modern corporation 
 policy. Being that, however, being what she was to the 
 Camden and Amboy, Jersey was sure, sooner or later, to 
 let others in unto her. The business which builds a mo- 
 nopoly on political corruption, prepares the way for its 
 own undoing. One by one, the Delaware, Lackawanna and 
 Western, the Erie, the Jersey Central, etc., famous bribers 
 all, bribed their way in, fighting the Camden, fighting one 
 another, till, being in, they joined together to fight with 
 bribery belated newcomers who came with fresh bribes. 
 None of these roads, however, could compete for the New 
 York-Philadelphia traffic. The Camden, reorganized as the 
 United Railroads of New Jersey, held that fast, and a 
 National Railroad Company which proposed to parallel the 
 monopoly was held at bay, session after session, by the 
 State of Camden and Amboy. And to what end? 
 
 In 1871 the Cstmden and Amboy was " leased " to the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad. The " leading citizens " of Jersey,
 
 218 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 a " specially interested business class," if there ever was 
 one had not only not been made " gratefully loyal," they 
 had developed in the State a loyalty to their company, cor- 
 rupt and sordid, but none the less grateful, and then they 
 turned their favored Jersey railroad over to a foreign cor- 
 poration, owned in Philadelphia, New York, London, and 
 Amsterdam. Like the Rhode Island captains of industry 
 and politics, those of New Jersey financed their political 
 power and sold it sacred charters, rights, privileges, 
 property, exemptions, and all to Pennsylvania capital, 
 whither, apparently, all our curses flow. 
 
 New Jersey, dumfounded, turned to rend the now 
 " foreign " monopoly. The lease was attacked and a just 
 tax was proposed for the road. The National and other 
 railway promoters who rushed with fresh hope to Trenton, 
 were cheered on by the State, and a general railway law 
 to permit anybody to build a railway anywhere was 
 broached. It looked as though Jersey meant to be free. 
 But the " leading Jerseymen," who had delivered over the 
 great Jersey railroad, threw into the bargain their old 
 Camden and Amboy political organization. In other words, 
 with the monopoly, they sold also their people, their State, 
 or, the political machinery which held the sovereignty of 
 the State! This machinery was somewhat run down and 
 the sale had given it a bad jar, but the buyers were men 
 who knew their business. Heavily owned though it is 
 abroad, the Pennsylvania has always been managed by 
 American captains of industry, and they know how to pro- 
 tect their stockholders against the American people ; other 
 American businesses have beaten them at times ; the govern-
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 219 
 
 ment very seldom. They are, and they always have been, 
 masters of American politics. When the Pennsylvania went 
 into Jersey, it went in with eyes wide open. It knew it had 
 to conquer the State, and it did conquer it. The Pennsyl- 
 vania Railroad completed the corruption of that State, 
 perfected the present Jersey government, and, as we shall 
 see, adopted for purposes of its own the charter-granting 
 system which has produced, for example, the Shipbuilding 
 Trust. 
 
 The conquest of New Jersey by the Pennsylvania was 
 slow but exciting, and to a people once so swollen with State 
 pride, now so meek under their State's humiliation, the 
 story must be fascinating. Politically speaking, the State 
 was Democratic. Now it is Republican. It was Democratic 
 before and during the war. The soldiers returning home 
 in 1866 made the Legislature Republican for two years, 
 but the State was only going back to its own when, in 1869 
 and 1870, the Democrats carried both houses of the Legis- 
 lature. The preparation for the " lease " was begun in 
 1870, and the Legislature reflected the popular feeling, 
 which was intense, against the " foreign monopoly." There 
 was nothing for it, therefore, but to take control, and that 
 is the settled Pennsylvania policy: not to buy legislators, 
 but to own the Legislature; not to corrupt government, 
 but to be the State. So, while the Jerseymen in the pro- 
 posed National Company were charging up to Trenton to 
 get their charter, the foreign conquerors laid a plan to 
 get New Jersey. 
 
 The first step toward getting a government to represent 
 you (whether you are a grafter or a good citizen) is to get
 
 220 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 a party to represent you. The Pennsylvania plan was to 
 buy at the polls the election of a Republican Legislature, 
 for 1871, to represent the Pennsylvania. That Legislature 
 would have to reapportion the State upon the basis of the 
 census of 1870, and it could gerrymander the districts so 
 as to hold the Assembly for years. The Democrats nearly 
 spoiled the scheme. Getting wind of it, they and the 
 National undertook to anticipate the gerrymander with 
 one of their own. This was " unprecedented " ; but a bill 
 was drawn and the Pennsylvania had to fight it with fire. 
 The Camden machine owned some Democrats along the 
 line of the road, and they bought enough more to beat that 
 Democratic gerrymander in that Democratic Legislature, 
 even though the Democrats knew it might mean the loss 
 of their power for ten years. 
 
 The campaign that followed was one of those tests of 
 democratic government which go to show that the cynics 
 may be right when they say the people can't govern them- 
 selves. The issue was plain monopoly vs. competition 
 and popular sentiment was strong and all one way. Money 
 was spent by both sides in immense sums at the polls, 
 and voters took money from both sides. No one knows, of 
 course, which party put up the greater amount, but here 
 is the result : the anti-monopoly voters threw out the " anti- 
 monopoly party," and elected a Republican majority to 
 both houses. 
 
 The monopoly victory was so decisive that the National 
 made no open fight in the next session. The Republicans 
 had little else to do but to reapportion the State ; and they 
 did indeed reapportion it ! I have come upon some interest-
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 221 
 
 ing gerrymanders in the course of my investigations, never 
 one like this. It amounted to a reorganization of govern- 
 ment. Jersey City was a Democratic stronghold. This 
 Republican Legislature drew a district shaped like a horse- 
 shoe to contain almost all the Democratic voters, made that 
 one assembly district, and divided up the rest of the city 
 so that the Republican minority could easily elect all the 
 other assemblymen. This is but a sample of what was done 
 all over the State. That gerrymander made Jersey a 
 national scandal again, but it " worked " ; the Democrats 
 could roll up a majority of 10,000 for a Governor without 
 budging the Republicans from the Legislature. Nor is 
 that all that was accomplished. The (Pennsylvania) Re- 
 publicans legislated Democrats out of office, even down into 
 cities and counties, turned local elective officers into com- 
 missions appointed by the Legislature, transferred purely 
 municipal functions over to Republican boards and so 
 fastened the hold of rings upon cities, towns, and counties 
 that stealing was overdone. Two cities, Rahway and Eliza- 
 beth, were run into bankruptcy. One Senator who legislated 
 himself into power robbed himself into prison. The ring 
 treasurer of a third, Jersey City, had to flee with $60,000 
 to Mexico, where bandits robbed him. The evils were so 
 great, indeed, that the next Legislature (1872) had to 
 send a committee to " investigate " Jersey City. The ring 
 wined and dined and otherwise so entertained the com- 
 mittee that their report was a " whitewash," and, mean- 
 while, the riot of special legislation went on at Trenton. 
 Governor Joel Parker in his message of 1873 said: " The 
 general laws passed at the last session are contained in
 
 222 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 about one hundred pages of the Session Laws, while the 
 special and private laws occupy over 1,450 pages of the 
 same book." The constitutional amendment, forbidding 
 special and private legislation, which the Governor pro- 
 posed, was finally forced through by public clamor, and a 
 timely church raid (which I cannot stop to describe) upon 
 the public treasury. 
 
 We must not blame the Pennsylvania for all this, nor the 
 Republicans. The Democrats were " just as bad." The 
 Governor of New Jersey appoints all but two State officers, 
 all law judges, and all county prosecutors of pleas, so that 
 even when the corrupted people elected corrupted Republi- 
 cans to the Legislature, the corrupt Democratic " State 
 Ring " had the State graft ; and that was rich and exhaus- 
 tive. The Republicans were compelled to resort to the local 
 graft, and the Pennsylvania had to let them have it. As 
 representatives of our ruling special interests have often 
 explained to me, they have no time to rule well ; they can- 
 not be bothered giving us good government; it is all they 
 can do to protect themselves. And certainly the Penn- 
 sylvania was fully occupied at this period. The National 
 Railway people returned to the charge in 1873, with boodle 
 in their hands, and public opinion at their backs. Both 
 houses were Republican, but the Pennslyvania's system was 
 not perfected and the Republican legislators were untried ; 
 corruption was at that low stage where " money talks " 
 not the campaign fund, but cash bribery. So you find the 
 press of the day asking, " Do the Pennsylvania people own 
 the Legislature, or must they buy it? " The answer was 
 that they owned it, but it was so corrupt that they had to
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 223 
 
 buy it over again. They organized the Senate, but the 
 opposition showed strong in the Assembly. 
 
 When the Assembly took up and advanced a National 
 Railway bill, the State was in a passion of delight. The 
 promoters had filled up their directorate with well-known 
 Jersey names, and Jersey turned out to help these honest 
 Jerseymen break the corrupt foreign monopoly. The 
 monopoly men had a chance to deliver a crushing blow to 
 this provincialism. Through the Legislature of 1872, some- 
 body had " sneaked " an act ostensibly for a small ore rail- 
 road up in Morris County. After it was passed somebody 
 else had bought the ore franchise, and had begun to con- 
 nect a lot of small railroads to make a continuous line from 
 Jersey City to Philadelphia. A section of the act per- 
 mitted this. The railroad Republicans, " called down " to 
 Philadelphia, declared that that section was inserted after 
 passage. Ordered to prove it, they produced evidence that 
 a certain official had received $162,800 to put through the 
 job, and that the money came from the National. The 
 Pennsylvania cried " Fraud," but public opinion would not 
 credit such trickery in honest Jersey directors till the 
 Pennsylvania took the matter to court. Just when every- 
 body was rejoicing over the progress of the National's 
 charter bill, a decision was handed down declaring in effect 
 that there was indeed fraud, and that the National's fran- 
 chise steal should not succeed. 
 
 The Jersey public was prepared now to turn in disgust 
 from the National, but, after all, as one Senator put it, 
 " while some of that crowd should be in State's prison, 
 some of the Pennsylvania men deserve as richly to be there."
 
 224 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 So the fight went on. The Assembly passed the National 
 bill up to the Senate. There a Pennsylvania bill, author- 
 izing that company to occupy the disputed territory, was 
 introduced. Thirty days' notice was required for such a 
 bill, but the Pennsylvania appropriated a notice published 
 for another bill. Senator Sewell (Rep.) confessed the 
 trick; Senator McPherson (Dem.), besought his col- 
 leagues not to entertain such a suspicion. The Pennsyl- 
 vania already was getting representatives in the Dem- 
 ocratic party as well as in its own, and these two Senators 
 were for " the road " ; they advanced " the Pennsy's " bill. 
 There was no expectation of passing it ; it was meant only 
 to block the game. And it did, for a few days. Then a 
 belief spread that the National's bill could be passed. 
 Between bribery and the pressure of public opinion, cer- 
 tain doubtful members were " fixed to vote right." But 
 where was the bill? The Senate called for it; it was not 
 forthcoming. The committee was asked to report. But the 
 committeeman who had it was missing, too. There was 
 an uproar, and the Senate demanded a report. Senators 
 Sewell and McPherson, in defense of the committee, be- 
 sought their colleagues to modify their tone, and " de- 
 mand " was amended to " request." Then the secretary 
 of the Senate produced the bill from his pocket, saying 
 the absent committeeman had ordered him " not to let it 
 get out." Why? The Pennsylvania had bought back 
 those doubtful Senators, but hoped to save them the ex- 
 posure of a vote. They did their best, but when the lobby- 
 ists saw that the roll must be called they stood behind 
 pillars grinning. They foresaw the howl that would rise
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 225 
 
 from the Jersey crowd, but they did not foresee the full 
 force of the rage. The bill was beaten. There was a pause, 
 then the crowd, yelling " Kill him ! " rushed at one Sena- 
 tor, and he had to be rescued and escorted to his hotel by 
 a bodyguard of lobbyists. 
 
 Thus again the Pennsylvania was victorious, but the 
 triumph this time was short-lived. The public was in- 
 censed, and the crowd at Trenton was reckless. The old 
 cry for a general railway law was taken up. The sentiment 
 for such a law had been so strong that the Pennslyvania's 
 orators in the Legislature had been using it all through 
 the session, not because " the " road wanted to throw the 
 State open, but to divide the National's forces. Now the 
 National's legislators saw their chance to get even and 
 to win. A general railway bill had been introduced early 
 in the session ; it had come from an obscure member and 
 been consigned to obscurity in a " safe " committee. In 
 the heat of defeat, the National legislators called for that 
 bill. " The Pennsylvania want a general railroad bill ; 
 here they have one." So, with the sullen citizens looking 
 on, this bill was passed. Some say the Pennsylvania had 
 surrendered in a deal with its rivals; others that the road 
 " couldn't make its legislators stand up." At any rate, it 
 was without any open opposition from this quarter that 
 the present general railway law of New Jersey was en- 
 acted amid cheers, speeches, and the firing of cannon. 
 Jersey was a free State ! 
 
 Was she? Eternal vigilance, they say, is the price of 
 liberty. It is, and the corruptionists pay it. When the 
 good citizens of Jersey went home, the Pennsylvania went
 
 226 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 to work. Hence, the Pennsylvania came to rule again. 
 When the people separated, having beaten one bribing 
 railroad with another and opened the way to all bribing 
 railroads, all the railroads got together to beat all the 
 people. They had to. They had privileges and exemptions 
 which were valuable, and against the public interest. 
 Hence Jersey became, not free, but common free only 
 to the railroads, which had to control the government. 
 
 The Pennsylvania took the lead. Being a non-resident 
 ruler, the company must depend upon the loyalty (to it) 
 of citizens of the State. The long monopoly fight had 
 served to test men, and the road used all its machinery, 
 political and financial, to reward and advance those who 
 had stayed bought, or, for any reason, had stood by it, 
 and to punish and retire those who, for any reason, had 
 stood up for the public. General William J. Sewell, the 
 Republican State Senator whom we have had a glimpse 
 of speaking openly for the monopoly, was made " the " 
 man. He was a " good fellow." An Irishman, unlettered, 
 but able; generous, but firm; unscrupulous, but magnifi- 
 cently candid, he never made any bones about the fact 
 that he represented " the road." He was an officer of the 
 company. The head of a lot of subsidiary Camden and 
 Amboy companies, he was the boss of the old South Jer- 
 sey Tammany-Republican political machine, and under 
 the eye of the " head offices " of the Pennsylvania Com- 
 pany at Philadelphia he extended his power until he be- 
 came the recognized Republican boss of the State. 
 
 General Sewell was more than that. As the repre- 
 sentative of that railroad which was the chief source of
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 227 
 
 corruption, he was a power in both parties. His policy 
 was broad. He furthered business, especially privileged 
 business; he encouraged all industry and enterprise, but 
 his chief care was for those that wanted things, favors or 
 protection, and were willing to help bear the expense of 
 corrupting the State. All the railroads were in this govern- 
 ing class, and, though some of them were Democrats, they 
 had so much in common that they exercised eternal vigi- 
 lance together, i. e., let their lobbies and legislators labor 
 together. For example, Miles Ross, the Democratic boss 
 of Middlesex County, who represented the Lehigh Valley 
 Railroad both in his county and in the Legislature (till 
 he went to Congress), was practically a lieutenant of Sew- 
 ell, and politicians and newspaper men told me that most 
 of the time the election of a Democratic Governor and a 
 Republican Senate was the result of an understanding 
 between the parties. They fought for the Assembly, but 
 even that was to be always " railroad." So Sewell be- 
 came in time a bipartisan boss and the actual head of the 
 State. That is to say, he, with United States Senator John 
 R. McPherson, a Democrat, but also a " Penn. man," ruled 
 New Jersey in the interest of the Pennsylvania and the 
 other railroads and " business." 
 
 Under Sewell's guidance all went well in Jersey for a 
 while. There were troubles, but they were purely political 
 troubles, and we have little to do with " pure politics " 
 in this State. Business prospered, and every American 
 knowns that business prosperity is all that men and gov- 
 ernment exist for. The Democratic State House ring was 
 grafting on the State, and the county rings were graft-
 
 228 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ing on their counties. Miles Ross was financiering his 
 Middlesex; David Baird, Sewell's Camden lieutenant, was 
 making his county pay ; Garret A. Hobart was getting 
 control of water, both for power and for life, up in 
 Passaic, etc., etc. The railroads were grabbing water 
 fronts down around Jersey City ; the Lehigh had bought 
 and was running down its cheap competitor, the Morris 
 Canal, which the road and the politicians were turning, 
 without a license, into a water supply for towns and 
 factories. I cannot go into all the " enterprises " of this 
 kind that show the beneficence of Jersey's business gov- 
 ernment in that period of prosperity and no trouble. One 
 will have to do, an incident that illustrates the most points 
 and leads us up to the second pitched battle between Jersey 
 and her foreign conquerors. 
 
 By 1880, Sewell's government was so entrenched that 
 both parties represented the railroads, to which both 
 looked for campaign funds, patronage, and other favors. 
 Some of the Democratic leaders showed a dangerous lean- 
 ing to public opinion, however, and it was decided that 
 the time had about come to elect a Republican Governor, 
 and make everything " safe and solid." This would take 
 lots of money, so Sewell and his company looked around 
 for a rich candidate. They chose a suburbanite, Frederic 
 A. Potts, a " coal king " of New York City, with many 
 corporation connections, and a director of the Jersey 
 Central. To bring in the rest of the railroads, and to 
 finance the campaign, Hobart was made chairman of the 
 Republican State committee. 
 
 This was a combination of sovereigns, and the Dem-
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 229 
 
 ocrats in alarm put up to break it a candidate who was 
 expected to draw Pennsylvania railroad support George 
 C. Ludlow, a State Senator who was a local attorney for 
 " the " road. His nomination was forced, the campaign was 
 a scandal, and there was fraud at the polls, but Ludlow was 
 elected. Mr. Potts declared that the Pennsylvania did 
 go back on him, and when Ludlow's majority proved to 
 be only 251, innocent Republican partisans cried " Fraud," 
 and demanded an investigation. Their managers sup- 
 pressed this move. The Republicans were in no position 
 to investigate, and besides, the Legislature was Republi- 
 can, and the Governor, though a Democrat, was a Penn- 
 sylvania railroad man. " Business " would be " safe." 
 
 Much stress has been laid in these articles upon the 
 number of corporation men who are promoted to high 
 places in our government, and the regularity with which 
 they represent their clients is significant. But the ex- 
 ceptions are also significant, and Governor Ludlow was an 
 exception. When he became Governor of New Jersey he 
 represented New Jersey. His Republican Legislature, with 
 Hobart president of the Senate, represented the railroads 
 and the joint session, with " Gardner of Atlantic " in the 
 chair, sent General Sewell to the United States Senate to 
 help do to the rest of us what he was doing to Jersey. 
 A flood of railroad and other business bills were passed, 
 and Governor Ludlow could not stop them. He could 
 speak for the common interest of the State, however, and 
 he did, and in 1882 the Assembly turned up Democratic 
 to support him. The Senate, made up, like Rhode Island, 
 of twenty-one Senators, one from each county, no matter
 
 230 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 what the population is, was controlled by eleven " rotten 
 boroughs." So the upper house held Republican, and 
 again the business bills flowed in. Among them were sev- 
 eral (introduced by " Gardner of Atlantic ") which 
 separately looked innocent enough, but which together 
 carried a deal. One was to enable corporations to increase 
 their capital stock, another was to " file maps," etc. The 
 first was to help one party in the Jersey Central to vote 
 another out of control, and the others secured to the Penn- 
 sylvania a right, disputed in the courts at the time, to 
 seize, hold, and exclude Jersey City (and its sewer-pipes) 
 and others from a certain water front. The Standard Oil 
 was in on this. This company had sneaked into the State 
 underground, with her pipe lines, the railroads and the 
 bosses helping her and holding up rivals. That was her 
 way. The Standard Oil hates to go to Legislatures her- 
 self, so she sends her railroads. She had property on the 
 water front. The Pennsylvania had a branch to it. One 
 of the little " niggers " discovered in this group of bills 
 was a provision to exempt from taxation, etc. this " ten- 
 acre terminal," which included the Standard Oil property. 
 These bills crept undebated through the Senate and 
 were well on their way in the House, when their rottenness 
 was discovered and declared. Then the railroads sent 
 counsel to defend them and, with the lobby at work, 
 forced them on up to the Governor. Tremendous pressure 
 was brought to bear upon him to sign them ; the corpora- 
 tions demanded that he be loyal to them, his professional 
 clients and his political creators, and they threatened to 
 ruin him if he was loyal to the State. Ludlow vetoed those
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 231 
 
 bills in a message that aroused the State. No matter. The 
 Republican Senate passed them over the veto, and the 
 Democratic House was doing likewise, when a member 
 rose in his place and waving five one-hundred-dollar bills 
 in one hand and an affidavit in the other, announced that 
 this money was half of a bribe of $1,000 promised him 
 for his vote. To " peach " is against the most sacred 
 rules of the game. The House adjourned. A committee 
 was appointed to investigate. That committee heard one 
 assemblyman confess that he had taken a retainer to de- 
 liver " three or four speeches " (including his vote, of 
 course) for the bills ; another that " Cul " Barcalow, the 
 Pennsylvania's chief lobbyist, had dropped a remark, as 
 lie passed him, that it was " worth a thousand " to vote 
 for the bills. So there was money in the business, but the 
 committee reported that the lobbyist's remark was a joke 
 (no lobbyist could mean such a thing seriously) ; and, as 
 for the cash shown in the House, that could not be traced 
 to a corporation. Nothing was done, therefore. But the 
 " joke " and some sharp maneuvering beat the bills. 
 
 Governor Ludlow rendered his State a far greater serv- 
 ice than this, however. Whenever a man in public office 
 actually represents the public interest, he revives the 
 Jeifersonian idea, and, as we have noticed before, that 
 makes trouble. Governor Ludlow started the greatest 
 trouble Jersey ever had. He was not a great man and he 
 seems to have had no very definite policy. Like Folk in 
 Missouri, like LaFollette in Wisconsin, and like Theodore 
 Roosevelt now in the United States, whenever he saw an 
 evil head he hit it. That is enough. That brings the
 
 232 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 special interests out into the light and raises the great 
 question, Who is to govern this country, the people or 
 the few who are corrupting it? It doesn't matter what 
 the particular issue is a revision of the tariff, a ship 
 subsidy bill, the trial of a boodler, the enforcement of a 
 liquor law, the just taxation of a railroad, or the regula- 
 tion of railroad rates let a man press any point that 
 touches the so-called " specially interested business class " 
 and he will arraign against him all the allied forces that 
 are running the government city, State, and nation to 
 get privileges from it and to protect those that they already 
 have. 
 
 The particular issue in Jersey is " equal taxation," and 
 Governor Ludlow raised it. It was the underlying issue 
 in the 'Sixties, it is the issue over there to-day, it is the 
 issue for which, principally, the railroads had been pre- 
 paring all these years. They " had to." Every Legislature 
 from the 'Thirties on, that for any reason, honest or cor- 
 rupt, admitted to the State a railroad with a charter 
 exempting from taxation " all railroad property used for 
 railroad purposes," made it absolutely necessary, accord- 
 ing to business ethics, to help corrupt the government and 
 keep it corrupt. That exemption was a valuable privilege, 
 and it was a burden to the people of the State. As all 
 those many Jersey railroads grew and prospered, the value 
 and the amount of their property increased. They acquired 
 more and more land, more and more buildings, more and 
 more stations, and bigger and bigger terminals. Each 
 purchase, grab, or extension of theirs removed just so 
 much of the most valuable property from local and
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 233 
 
 " equal " taxation. The cost of government increased 
 steadily, of course ; the railroads were careful about pub- 
 lic improvements, and they permitted very few. But the 
 corruptionists had to let the corrupted local leaders have 
 some money to spend in (and thus appease, satisfy, bribe) 
 their counties. So the expenses went on growing, and, 
 since the railroads could not be taxed, the citizens had to 
 pay; not only, mind you, to meet the normal increase, 
 but the deficiency also, due to the growing railroad 
 exemptions. 
 
 Charles L. Corbin, now one of the leading corporation 
 lawyers in the State, summed up the situation at the time. 
 He was explaining how it came about that New Jersey 
 had such a heavy debt and so high a tax rate. It was not 
 due, he said, to stealing. " Although scandalous defalca- 
 tions have come to light in probably more than half the 
 cities . . . the losses . . . have been made good 
 by bondsmen. . . . No expensive public works have 
 been carried on. No Governor of the State has found the 
 cost of the capitol a painful subject to contemplate in 
 his message. There is no State canal, no Brooklyn or St. 
 Louis bridge, no Hoosac tunnel, no Tweed court-house, 
 to show for all the millions added to the debt of the last 
 decade. I believe there is not in all New Jersey a city 
 park of ten acres extent. . . . The people have been 
 taxed to the limit of their endurance, in some cases beyond 
 it, yet the burden continues to increase. . . . Should 
 another business revulsion take place, the number of bank- 
 rupt cities would be greatly increased." 
 
 After this picture, Mr. Corbin stated the cause: " More
 
 234 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 than one-fourth the property of the State is exempt from 
 county and local taxation. That exempted property 
 belongs to the railroad companies." Estimating at 
 $250,000,000 the value of this exempt railroad property, 
 Mr. Corbin showed that " the people of New Jersey were 
 paying an annual subsidy of $2,000,000 to the owners of 
 the railroad property in the State ! " 
 
 When Governor Ludlow showed himself a free man, this 
 condition was brought to his attention by Mr. Corbin and 
 other men who had been seeking for years to correct it. 
 The Governor urged the Legislature to take it up, and 
 bills were introduced. The Legislature, with " Gardner 
 of Atlantic " presiding over the Senate, killed these bills, 
 and nothing was accomplished in Ludlow's administration. 
 The question was up, however; the railroads had had to 
 show themselves to beat it off, and with the scandal of 
 " Gardner of Atlantic's " little bills, to illustrate the meth- 
 ods of the roads, the American citizen had the sensation 
 needed to excite him to revolt. 
 
 Jersey was so excited in 1883 that both parties adopted 
 platforms pledging their candidates to tax reform. We 
 all know what railroad platforms are for ; in this railroad 
 State the citizens paid little heed to them ; they looked to 
 the candidates. A Jersey Governor cannot succeed him- 
 self, so Ludlow could not run. The Democrats nominated 
 Leon Abbett, the Republicans a judge on the bench. Now, 
 I make it a rule not to criticise the courts, but some lawyer 
 should and the place to go first for the facts is New Jer- 
 sey. The judges over there are not elected; high and low, 
 they all are appointed by the Governor. Business men and
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 235 
 
 lawyers tell me that is the way to insure a strong bench. 
 Rhode Island does not prove this, and taking up one by 
 one the appointments to the bench in Jersey, tracing the 
 past records of the judges, and noting the decisions that 
 bore on my work, I got somehow the impression that those 
 courts were part of the Jersey system. As a layman, I 
 asked corporation lawyers in Wall Street for their opin- 
 ion, and I heard from them that the Jersey bench ranks 
 among the very best State courts in the land. So I should 
 say that " Jersey justice " offers a fair test. Whatever 
 was found to be true there might be accepted with confi- 
 dence as more typical than, for instance, the results of an 
 investigation in Missouri. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the bench as a bench, how- 
 ever, I feel safe in this generalization: Judges make poor 
 leaders of a political campaign. They are not democratic 
 enough. They seem to put too much faith in machinery, 
 legal, political, social, and this judge whom the Republi- 
 cans nominated in their day of trouble left it to the organ- 
 ization to make him Governor, as it had made him judge. 
 As he said, he " waited where he was " in dignified silence 
 for the office and the people to come to him, and, while he 
 waited, Leon Abbett, who went to the people, was elected. 
 
 Abbett had to go to the people. It seems to me that this 
 most interesting man was an instinctive democrat, and 
 would naturally have campaigned the State, county by 
 county, as he did. But no two Jersey witnesses agree 
 about him now any longer, and it is certain that when he 
 ran for Governor he was forced by the fury of the attacks 
 on his imperfect record to fight on the stump. Besides the
 
 236 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Republican party, some of the State House ring of his 
 own party, and most of the big interests back of both par- 
 ties, were against him. It is believed that the Pennsyl- 
 vania's Republican machine secretly supported him, and 
 he was an old Camden and Amboy legislator. But he was 
 called a " politician," a " demagogue," an " anarchist " ; 
 and I find that " business " reserves these bad names for 
 men who are brave enough to challenge and able enough 
 to beat bad business ; and that was Abbett. There was 
 another charge against the man, however: ambition. His 
 enemies said he cared nothing for the State; which was 
 not true ; or for the governorship, which was partly true. 
 They said he wanted to be a United States Senator, and 
 believed that by taxing the railroads he could achieve his 
 ambition. Here was the outrageous truth, I guess : Leon 
 Abbett was one of those " unscrupulous politicians " who 
 want, not money, but office, and who think to rise, even to 
 the United States Senate, by serving, not the special, but 
 the common interests of the State. This makes the man 
 interesting to all of us; his career was an experiment in 
 democracy. 
 
 Abbett did tax the railroads. He did not tax them as 
 they should be taxed, like other property, but there is 
 an excuse for that failure. He represented the people; 
 the Legislature did not. The American people too com- 
 monly depend upon one man, the executive, to legislate for 
 them; they neglect the Legislature, which was meant to 
 be the representative, law-making branch of the govern- 
 ment. The result is such typical situations as that of 
 President Roosevelt and the Congress to-day (1905), and
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 237 
 
 of Governor Abbett in New Jersey in 1884. The President 
 is urging a law granting to the interstate commerce commis- 
 sion power to regulate railroad rates ; the Jersey Governor 
 was for a law to tax private and railroad property on 
 the same footing; both men were acting for the common 
 against the special interests. Now, note the parallel of 
 their experiences. Abbett had an equal-tax bill introduced 
 in the Assembly, and it was called the " Governor's bill " ; 
 just as the rate bill introduced in the House of Represen- 
 tatives is known as the " President's bill." Railroad men 
 rushed to Trenton as we have seen them rush to Washing- 
 ton. Abbett had aroused public opinion, however, and the 
 railroads could not make their assemblymen stand up. 
 Like the House of Representatives, the Jersey Assembly 
 passed the " Governor's bill " with an overwhelming vote 
 up to the Senate. That is as far as the President's bill has 
 gone up to this writing, but, as it progresses, see if the 
 parallel is not carried out. Public opinion in Jersey was 
 such that even the Senators were alarmed. They must do 
 something. When the special interests see that " some 
 legislation " is necessary, they always want to draw the 
 bill themselves. So, the Jersey Senate appointed a commit- 
 tee, with John W. Griggs for chairman; hearings were 
 held; the railroads appeared (United States Senator 
 Sewell for the Pennsylvania), and they pleaded for the 
 sacred rights of (their) property, and the inviolability 
 (by the State) of their contracts with the State. In vain. 
 Some sort of a bill had to be drawn. So the committee drew 
 a bill taxing the railroads, not equally they were to be 
 put in a class by themselves still the Griggs bill provided
 
 238 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 for a tax on railroads. Some of the railroad men objected 
 even to this compromise " Gardner of Atlantic," for ex- 
 ample. But there was the Governor's bill to meet, and the 
 Griggs bill was introduced to meet it. There was a dead- 
 lock. The railroads used all their power, legitimate and 
 illegitimate ; the Governor used all his, legitimate and ille- 
 gitimate patronage, vetoes, even a threat to veto the 
 appropriation bills. It was no use. The Griggs bill might 
 be passed, not the Governor's. As the session drew to a 
 close, the Governor was persuaded to take " half a loaf " ; 
 the Griggs bill would increase by about $300,000 the 
 revenue of the State. That was something. The Governor 
 consented to make terms with the railroads. In the current 
 discussion of the President's rate-regulation bill, I notice 
 that railroad men are saying that they would not mind the 
 regulation so much if only they could have a " better," a 
 " more expert " commission. That was the chief point in 
 the deal between Governor Abbett and the railroads of his 
 State. If the roads must be taxed, then the roads must do 
 the taxing. If laws must be passed against special inter- 
 ests, special interests want not only to draw the laws, but 
 to execute them. Abbett won the present railroad-tax law 
 of New Jersey by making two of the four assessors (Penn- 
 sylvania) railroad men. 
 
 Some of the roads, left out of the final deal, resisted the 
 law, but Governor Abbett brought them to terms. The 
 Jersey Central appealed to the courts. There was a sus- 
 picion abroad that the law had been drawn to be ruled 
 unconstitutional, and, when the Supreme Court so held, 
 the comment through the State was rather excited. This
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 239 
 
 tradition, still believed but unsupported by evidence, goes 
 on to relate that the Governor served notice on the roads 
 that if the law was not upheld on appeal he would " equal- 
 tax " them. Anyhow, the Court of Appeals did reverse the 
 lower court and declare the law sound. Even then the 
 Delaware, Lackawanna and Western would not pay; till 
 the Governor discovered that this road, so insistent upon 
 its own rights, had not paid even the taxes it admitted it 
 should pay. In a special message, the Governor declared 
 that the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western (whose pres- 
 ident, by the way, used to put a Bible in each car) had 
 scaled down the value of personal property and equipment, 
 in twenty years, from thirteen to three millions, and that 
 consequently it had cheated the State out of one million 
 dollars. This set the Legislature in motion to take away 
 its charter, and the road offered to obey the new law. The 
 Governor demanded now, however, those arrears of taxes 
 also, and, upon the decision of umpires that at least 
 $300,000 was due, this " loyally grateful " corporation 
 performed for once its duty to the State. 
 
 Thus did Leon Abbett seize as Governor the powers of 
 the Governor, and reassert the sovereignty of his State, 
 even over the railroads. This, to get a United States Sen- 
 atorship. Did he deserve the promotion? He was not a 
 " good man," only a " good politician " ; he " dickered " 
 and he " dealt " ; to pass that railroad bill he used all the 
 arts of his profession, save only cash bribery, and he 
 showed himself not above that, for, having no money, he 
 paid out public offices ; and patronage is simply bribery 
 which the public pays. So Governor Abbett was not the
 
 240 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 perfect man we are looking for to give us good govern- 
 ment. Far from it; personally, Leon Abbett was as bad 
 as William J. Sewell. But Sewell was in the Senate; in- 
 deed, it was Sewell's seat that Abbett was after; and 
 Sewell had got it because he was bad. Why, then, shouldn't 
 Abbett have it? What was the difference? 
 
 There was a difference, and that difference beat Abbett. 
 What was it ? I think it was this : while Sewell was bad in 
 the interest of " business," Abbett was bad in the interest 
 of the State. But let us see: there were other differences 
 between these two men; Sewell was a Republican, Abbett 
 was a Democrat. But Sewell's Jersey colleague in the Sen- 
 ate at that time was John R. McPherson, a Democrat. We 
 have seen him fighting side by side with Sewell for the 
 Pennsylvania in the State Senate; and all Jersey remem- 
 bers a certain letter which a certain railroad man wrote to 
 Abram S. Hewitt, a director of the Reading (the old 
 National) Railroad, to warn him of a conversation, over- 
 heard at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia, in which 
 Sewell and McPherson were alleged to have agreed, since 
 both represented the Pennsylvania, that neither should fight 
 for his own party when the other was up for reelection to 
 the Senate. That is to say, when Sewell (Rep.) was running 
 for his seat, McPherson (Dem.) was to let the Republicans 
 carry certain doubtful districts, so that Sewell (P. R. R.) 
 could go to Washington, and when McPherson (Dem.) 
 was running, Sewell (Rep.) was to let the Democrats carry 
 certain close districts which the " road " could " influ- 
 ence," so that McPherson (P. R. R.) could go back. 
 
 So long as the Senator represented the Pennsylvania,
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 
 
 the party made no difference; was it that? Not exactly. 
 When now (1886) Governor Abbett was running against 
 Sewell, the Governor saw to it that the Democrats made a 
 fight. One wing of the party, missing the railroad " back- 
 ing," wanted to nominate a railroad man for Governor, 
 and, since the Jersey Central was angry, not only at the 
 party for taxing it, but at the Pennsylvania for having 
 " grabbed " for itself both " railroad representatives " on 
 the tax board, the railroad Democrats suggested Rufus 
 Blodgett, superintendent of the Long Branch division of 
 the Central. Abbett, by making humiliating concessions 
 to one of the State House ring, beat Blodgett, won the 
 nomination for his man, Robert S. Green, and with " Green 
 for Governor " the Democrats carried the election. They 
 had on joint ballot in the Legislature a majority, narrow, 
 but sufficient to elect a Democrat to the Senate if the 
 voting was straight. But the voting could not be straight, 
 and Sewell had hopes. The excitement was intense, the 
 scandal was sordid and loud. Some of the Democrats were 
 purchasable, and if Sewell had had the solid support of 
 his party, the " road " could have bought back his seat 
 for him. But, just as the dishonest Democrats made Ab- 
 bett's election doubtful, so some honest Republicans made 
 Sewell's impossible. They would not vote for him. There 
 was a dead-lock. Reluctantly, Sewell had to give up. It 
 was anybody to beat Abbett. The railroad Democrats sent 
 word to the railroad Republicans that they were ready to 
 unite, but only on a Democrat. The railroad Republicans 
 asked for a list of three Democrats to choose from. The 
 railroad Democrats furnished a list, headed by Rufus
 
 242 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Blodgett, and the railroad Republicans took him. Thus 
 was Leon Abbett punished by the System which sent Rufus 
 Blodgett to the United States Senate. 
 
 So any railroad man would do ; was that it ? Evidently 
 Leon Abbett thought so, for, bitterly disappointed, he set 
 about getting him a railroad. The Baltimore and Ohio, a 
 great corruptionist at home, was coming into Jersey. Un- 
 der the general railway law, it was free to cross the State. 
 But a bridge over the Kills to Staten Island was necessary, 
 and the general law did not provide for bridges. The Legis- 
 lature had to grant a special permission to bridge the Kills, 
 and the Pennsylvania and the other roads objected. The 
 Legislature was theirs. Abbett, as Governor, had favored 
 this further " development of the resources of the State," 
 so in 1889, when the term of his friend, United States Sen- 
 ator McPherson, expired, the ex-Governor went after his 
 seat with Baltimore and Ohio " backing." Abbett's move- 
 ments were very quiet, and McPherson had no suspicion 
 of his strength till the Democratic caucus was about to 
 meet. Then it appeared that Abbett had a majority. 
 McPherson rushed forth to sound an alarm ; the chairman 
 was his, and the meeting was held up while the McPherson 
 and Pennsylvania agents and Miles Ross " argued " with 
 the members. Abbett's Baltimore and Ohio " strength " 
 was soon exhausted, and McPherson (P. R. R. Dem.) was 
 reflected to the Senate. 
 
 So a United States Senatorship represented not only 
 money, but the most money ; and not only a railroad, but 
 the sovereign railroads the organized power in both par- 
 ties of established vested interests. Was that the secret?
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 2 
 
 That is the suspicion which I have gathered in other States, 
 where it has seemed that the United States Senate must be 
 made up of the representatives from each State, not of the 
 people, not even of the State, but of the corrupt system 
 of each State. This would account for much that happens 
 in the Senate, and it is pretty clear that Leon Abbett saw 
 it so. For this remarkable man, undaunted by two defeats, 
 still pursued his ambition. He fixed his eyes on the seat 
 Rufus Blodgett would vacate four years hence, and to win 
 it the ex-Governor proceeded with the organization of his 
 political machine, the establishment of a vested interest, 
 and the creation of a System, all his own. 
 
 During Abbett's term and that of Governor Green the 
 Jersey Democrats did what the Pennsylvania Republicans 
 had done twenty years before: they gerrymandered the 
 State. The grafters had long ago learned how, by divid- 
 ing cities and towns into classes, they could evade the con- 
 stitutional amendment adopted to prevent special legisla- 
 tion, and the Abbett organization now used their Legisla- 
 ture to legislate the Republicans out and themselves into 
 control of local governments. This was to strengthen their 
 party, and, for the sake of the " strength," the local 
 leaders had to be allowed to loot their localities, of course ; 
 a machine has to be built from the ground up. 
 
 But a machine, to become a system, must have a vested 
 interest. The Republicans had made one that just suited 
 the Democrats. It seems that when the Democrats, with 
 their " anti-railroad demagogy," had won the plain people, 
 the Republicans felt the need of " popular support." The 
 Prohibitionists had developed a vote of some 20,000, which
 
 244 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 was more than the normal difference between the two par- 
 ties. So the Republicans had drawn a local (county) high- 
 license bill, which, with the Prohibitionists, the clergy, and 
 the " good people " helping, they had passed through the 
 Legislature of 1888. The effect of this legislation was 
 startling. It brought about " bad government " in New 
 Jersey. 
 
 " Good " laws commonly make for " bad " government, 
 and good people wonder why. They may see now. Before 
 this local-option law was passed the liquor interest had not 
 been very active in politics ; and under the law, the people 
 beat them county by county ; prohibition was voted for all 
 over the State. This satisfied the good people, and they 
 retired from politics. But, just as governmental grants of 
 privilege force good men into politics to protect their " bus- 
 iness," so governmental prohibitions drive vicious business 
 men into politics to save their business. The prohibition 
 law aroused the liquor interest ; as the people withdrew, the 
 saloons entered the game; and while the good people were 
 rejoicing over the " good government " victories in the 
 counties, the " bad men " went out for representative gov- 
 ernment in the State. And they went about it in the right 
 way. They wanted a party to represent them. Since the 
 Republicans represented the " good " people, the " bad 
 people " joined the Democrats. Leon Abbett was the Demo- 
 cratic leader. They made him attorney for their Liquor 
 Dealers' Association. He wanted to be Governor again. 
 He wanted the office, as before, only to get a United States 
 Senatorship, but they didn't inquire into his motives. He 
 represented them, and that was all they asked ; they backed
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 245 
 
 him and his party. They elected a Legislature, which repre- 
 sented them ; the party was timid lest the people should re- 
 sent out-and-out repeal of the prohibition law, so the high- 
 license clause was retained ; but local option was " fixed." 
 Now see how the good citizens played into the hands of 
 the bad. Even after this victory the liquor interest did not 
 go home. It stayed in politics. Leon Abbett had uses for 
 it, and in 1889 it helped elect him Governor again, with 
 a Legislature solidly Democratic for the first time in ten 
 years. He was a changed man. He was a boss. Having 
 learned (I understand that he said once privately) that by 
 representing the people he could not rise in a government 
 that represented railroad and business corruption, he had 
 accepted the support of " criminal corruption." The cost 
 to Jersey was terrible. With the liquor interest had come 
 all that low following of vice that the saloons collect. 
 These interests, by " work " and by fraud at the polls, 
 practically controlled the Legislature, which they turned 
 over to the Governor. They delivered into his hands all 
 power: appointments, public institutions, the liquor licens- 
 ing boards, the State militia, a State police, local and 
 county offices and boards ; those legislators even resigned 
 legislation to him, passing his bills and adjourning with 
 them in his hands to sign or veto, as he would. In return, 
 Governor Abbett had to let the government represent 
 crime and vice, and it did. That was the beginning of the 
 race-track scandals of Jersey. There was a race-track 
 at Monmouth, others sprang up, one at Gloucester for 
 Philadelphia, another at Guttenberg for New York, and 
 when the railroads (and the Western Union) saw that the
 
 246 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 betting vice made traffic, they encouraged the location of 
 tracks in small towns along their lines. With the " sport " 
 came gamblers, prostitution, and all that goes with racing 
 and liquor politics. Jersey became a veritable Tenderloin 
 State. 
 
 No matter, Leon Abbett, hardened now, sullen and de- 
 termined, had a " vested interest " with him. He was pretty 
 sure of election to the United States Senate, but to make 
 doubly sure he reached for another, a more respectable, 
 interest, the railroads. A group of these roads, the Jersey 
 Central, the Lehigh and Susquehanna, the Philadelphia 
 and Reading (and, is was believed, the Delaware and Hud- 
 son, and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western) , planned 
 a combination to control the output and price of coal. 
 Seeing that vice, not the Pennsylvania Railroad, was 
 ruling the State, they made overtures to Abbett and his 
 party. And since the Republicans had the Pennsylvania 
 behind them, the Democrats were glad of the chance to 
 get the other roads into their party. The " Coal Com- 
 bine " bill was passed. The Pennsylvania opposed it, and 
 the newspapers all over the country fought the new 
 monopoly ; but Abbett pushed it, and the bill, made a party 
 measure, was put through. 
 
 And all this also to get a United States Senatorship! 
 Did Leon Abbett get it? He did not. Then why not? 
 Because he flinched ; when it came to the final test he rep- 
 resented, not the System, not even his System, but the 
 State of New Jersey. When that Legislature adjourned, 
 leaving in his hands that " Coal Combine " bill for which 
 he had himself used the whip, public opinion, both in the
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 
 
 nation and in the State, continued to clamor against it, 
 and Leon Abbett, the demagogue, hearkened, hesitated, 
 and he vetoed the bill. This embittered the railroads and 
 the politicians and legislators " in on the deal." They 
 wanted to get even. He had, likewise after adjournment, 
 refused to sign a race-track bill which aroused public 
 opposition. This had embittered the vice interests, and 
 they also wanted to get even. He was too powerful to fight 
 while he was Governor, and the Coal Combine which tried 
 it and undertook to complete the deal without his sanction, 
 was held up by his attorney general, taken into court, and, 
 after a famous fight, was forced by a famous decision of 
 Chancellor McGill to disband till times were better. 
 
 But when Abbett, no longer Governor, came into the 
 caucus of his party in 1893 to ask for his reward, every- 
 body " got even." All " interests " were against him. 
 Some of them pretended to be for him, and there was 
 money back of him ; votes were bought for him ; yes, that 
 Senatorship was bought as for him. But the money was 
 not Abbett's own, and the men to whom it belonged, the 
 men who owned the votes, cast them for James Smith, Jr., 
 Abbett's right-hand man, and one of the lieutenants who 
 managed his campaign for the Senatorship. As for Leon 
 Abbett, he soon died. 
 
 I often hear American citizens say that the national 
 government is " all right if only the cities could be 
 governed as well." How can the national government be 
 good? The System is all one thing. In every State where 
 I have been I have noticed that the men who have tried to 
 serve the State were punished. In New Jersey the pursuit
 
 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 of poor old Governor Ludlow is an oft-told tale ; the failure 
 of Leon Abbett is a ringing moral lesson to Jersey poli- 
 ticians. Both were made Supreme Court judges, but late, 
 after their lives had been embittered and their failures 
 plain. And as the System punishes, so does it reward. 
 We have been in at the birth of several United States 
 Senators, so we can begin, if we are honest, to realize that 
 that august chamber is the earthly heaven of traitors. 
 But Senatorships are not the only federal reward of the 
 System. We have noted that Hobart became a Vice-Presi- 
 dent, Miles Ross a Congressman ; but let me give you just 
 as I got it, for once, one of the impressions I am getting 
 all over the country. Several times in the course of this 
 story I have mentioned, without comment or explanation, 
 a certain " Gardner of Atlantic." I did not do this to 
 mystify ; that was the way I heard of the man. Time and 
 time again, after listening to some Jerseyman's tale of a 
 bad bill intrpduced, a good bill held up, a railroad deal put 
 through, or an effort of protesting citizens balked, I would 
 ask, " Who did it ? " Time and time again the answer 
 was, " Gardner of Atlantic." The name meant nothing to 
 me ; I made no note of it and inquired no further, till one 
 day in exasperation I exclaimed : " Who is this Gardner of 
 Atlantic ? And where is he now ? " 
 
 My Jerseyman was astonished. " Gardner of Atlantic ! " 
 he said. " Haven't you come across him before? Why, 
 that is John J. Gardner, the Congressman ! " 
 
 " Oh," I said, and, since I have in mind to study some 
 day the National government, I put Gardner down in my 
 long list of " gone to the House." But while I was writing
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 249 
 
 these pages (1905) the vote on the " President's " rate bill 
 was taken, and I looked for Gardner. That vote was 326 
 ayes, 17 noes. Among the 17 was " Gardner (Rep. N. J.)." 
 Some of my critics have found fault with me, mildly, 
 for seeking only the evil in men ; others, much more indig- 
 nantly, have said I looked too eagerly for the good and 
 made heroes of men who palpably have human weaknesses. 
 My criterion and that of my critics are not the same, 
 evidently. I don't know what theirs is, but mine is simple. 
 I ask of a representative, What does he represent? " Gard- 
 ner of Atlantic " may be an honest man ; he certainly has 
 the courage of his conviction ; but he is not " Rep. N. J.' ; 
 he is P. R. R. I prefer Leon Abbett, defeated, to all the 
 Gardners in Congress, because in his practical, compro- 
 mising crooked Jersey way, he did sometimes represent 
 New Jersey, and because, though dead and buried, he is 
 still the livest Democrat in that State to-day. For the 
 consequences of his career have lived on; much of both 
 the good and the bad in Jersey can be traced to him, as 
 we shall see, and, as we shall also see, the effects of his 
 influence have spread all over the United States. Leon 
 Abbett adopted the charter-giving policy of New Jersey. 
 That hurts us, but Abbett didn't care about us. He was 
 for Jersey. That was his great limitation. When the 
 national press was imploring him to veto the " coal com- 
 bine " bill, lest it put up the price of coal for the whole 
 country, Abbett snapped his fingers at that argument. 
 He vetoed the bill, as he said, because while he had made a 
 bargain with the combine to except New Jersey and ensure 
 her cheap coal, there was no way to make that exception
 
 250 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 binding. So we, the whole people, owe Abbett no tears. He 
 was for Jersey. He was Jersey typified. 
 
 The live Jerseymen don't care either how much the Jer- 
 sey trusts hurt us. They take the same view of them that 
 Abbett did ; they are good for Jersey, and they bless him 
 for them. " But," they told me, a hundred of them, 
 " Abbett gave us bad government." He did. He left his 
 party machine so reorganized and so strong that in the 
 next Democratic administration (that of a Govenor named 
 Werts), the Legislature represented municipal and county 
 rings and the race-tracks. William J. Thompson, owner 
 of the Gloucester track, and better known as the " Duke 
 of Gloucester," was an assemblyman from Camden; Car- 
 roll of Hudson was a bookmaker at the Guttenberg track ; 
 there were many more such men, but the character of that 
 body may be summed up in this fact : the Speaker of the 
 House was Thomas Flynn, the starter of Thompson's 
 races. The race tracks could have any legislation they 
 wanted, but they didn't want much. Abbett's veto of the 
 bills legalizing all kinds of racing anywhere had proved 
 of advantage. The governments of racing counties repre- 
 sented the tracks, and neither the police nor the local 
 magistrates would enforce the law, which served, there- 
 fore, only to keep out more tracks and maintain the vice 
 monopoly. They passed such as they desired, and for the 
 rest they looted the State. These creatures stole the very 
 chairs they sat on. This is " bad government." This is 
 what your average American citizen means by " bad gov- 
 ernment," and it is disgusting. But it isn't dangerous. 
 It is no more dangerous in a State than in a city, and as I
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 251 
 
 have often remarked before, even Tammany in New York 
 has seen that theft and police blackmail are bad politics. 
 
 The government in New Jersey was too bad. It was too 
 bad to last. It became obvious, noisy, a stench, so that 
 even " good citizens " could see and hear and smell it. 
 They protested for a while, which is foolish ; the grafters 
 don't mind protests. By and by, when the race-track 
 legislators fell to quarreling over the spoils and passed 
 laws against one another, the scandal was such that the 
 citizens were driven to the polls. They voted in 1893 
 against the racing rings, and their votes settled the crim- 
 inal grafters. 
 
 But what did they vote for? What could they vote for? 
 The people of New Jersey had no party that represented 
 them. They had to vote for the Republicans. This party 
 represents the railroads and big graft, but when its lead- 
 ers saw the people coming they nominated a " good man," 
 John W. Griggs, for Governor, on a reform platform, 
 and they " exposed " the Democratic (petty) larceny by 
 way of text for campaign speeches. Thus they " caught 
 the honest vote," and thus, at last, the State of New Jersey 
 was turned over to the Republican party, which delivered 
 it up to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The conquest of New 
 Jersey was complete. Governor Griggs was appointed 
 Attorney General in the President's Cabinet. General 
 Sewell perfected his organization, and sent himself back 
 to the United States Senate. He treated the other rail- 
 roads " right " ; the coal combine is a fact. The Penn- 
 sylvania was fair to all " interests." True, the race tracks 
 were driven out, but the liquor men are quiet, prosperous,
 
 252 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and contented. Even the " Democratic Party " is satis- 
 fied. There is graft, of course, plenty of it; for the most 
 part, however, the corruption is orderly, respectable, dig- 
 nified " business." That is bad, but it is not " bad govern- 
 ment." The Pennsylvania rules and the government rep- 
 resents " the " road, the other roads, and some other inter- 
 ests ; but the syndicate that runs the State for the foreign 
 corporations gives Jerseymen good government, or, at 
 least, what they tell me is " pretty good government." 
 
 " Oh," they say, " there are some passing evils in 
 the counties, but in the State we have pretty good 
 government." 
 
 " Good government " is the falsest beacon in American 
 politics. I have seen the cities sail by it, and I know. New 
 Jersey has sailed by it since 1895, and I think I can show 
 in the next article that the " passing evils " the Jersey- 
 men speak of in their counties are the vestiges of the 
 wreck of their own citizenship ; and that the " good " they 
 point to with pride in their State is their share of the 
 plunder of our business pirates who buy, cheap, her letters 
 of marque, to prey not only on American business, but on 
 American character, and, when caught at their crimes, 
 sail for her ports to purchase, cheap, legislative immunity 
 from our laws. Jersey shows, plainer than any other State 
 or city, how we are all betraying one another, and that 
 what we Americans lack is what the poor Russians are 
 asking their Czar for representative government; not 
 good government, not reforms, not privileges, not advan- 
 tages over one another, but fair play all around, and, be- 
 fore the law, equality.
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 
 
 PART II. THE BETRAYAL: SHOWING HOW THIS 
 BOUGHT STATE SOLD OUT THE UNITED 
 STATES TO THE TRUSTS FOR MONEY 
 (May, 1905) 
 
 A SCHEME " to make New Jersey a Mecca for Corpora- 
 tions " was proposed in these terms to the Governor of 
 that State, in the summer of 1890, by a corporation lawyer 
 of New York. There is no doubt about the man: he was 
 James B. Dill, now known as the author of " Dill on Cor- 
 porations." There is no doubt about the year, and, as for 
 the season, " it must have been in the summer time, because 
 the Governor sat in his shirt sleeves." The only question 
 is whether this was the beginning. It was of the business. 
 Jersey's liberality to corporations is as old as Jersey, and 
 Mr. Dill was not the first New York lawyer to go over there 
 with corporation schemes. Alexander Hamilton (1800) 
 headed a long procession. But Mr. Dill did not know all 
 this. He lived in Jersey, but he was a commuter. He 
 thought he was proposing something new to Jersey, and 
 he was, in a way ; his proposition was to put the State 
 regularly into the business of incorporating business com- 
 panies ; it was not merely to let business sneak over there 
 for charters now and then, but to open up the State as a 
 sort of wholesale charter factory and advertise the indus- 
 try in a business-like way. 
 
 253
 
 254 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 It was not a bad scheme, not as he conceived it. Mr. 
 Dill was a young man. His practice was small; large 
 enough to open his eyes to the troubles of corporations, 
 small enough to leave him time to go far afield in his 
 reading. He had been following a series of articles on 
 the rise of business companies in England, and the advan- 
 tages of the joint-stock arrangement over the old copart- 
 nership came to him like a discovery. Mr. Dill believed 
 that what had reached the dimensions of a movement, 
 almost of a fashion, in England, was under way in the 
 United States. Why not promote it? Public opinion here 
 was against " monopolies " and " trusts," but Mr. Dill 
 was no theorist. He was a young American lawyer out 
 for business, and he realized that the lawyer who had a 
 hand in drafting laws favoring corporations could hardly 
 fail to become an authority on corporation law with a 
 large practice. Just about that time many of our Legisla- 
 tures were passing laws to discourage the growth of cor- 
 porations. But what did that matter? English legislation 
 encouraged the business. Mr. Dill was a Connecticut 
 Yankee, astute, jolly, energetic, and he set out with his 
 scheme to pass English laws for American corporations 
 and to make himself " Dill on Corporations." 
 
 How? By writing articles, making speeches, and ap- 
 pealing to public opinion? No. Mr. Dill was a practical 
 man. He went to the bosses. He put his scheme in shape 
 and offered it first to the rulers of the State of New York. 
 That was where his practice was, and that was where busi- 
 ness centered. The New York corporation laws were bad 
 bad, I mean, for corporations ; they were antiquated,
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 255 
 
 complicated, and rather strict. Moreover, operations 
 under them were subject to all sorts of " political graft- 
 ing." Now, lawyers and business men are not unreasonable 
 about paying for what they want, but they like " fixed 
 charges," and New York had, and has, a most annoying 
 system of variable taxes and miscellaneous feeing. From 
 court stenographers and departmental clerks all along 
 the line, through referees and assessors, up to legislators 
 and bosses, it is tip, tip, tip all the time. Mr. Thomas 
 C. Platt, when he was boss, simplified legislative business, 
 but progress elsewhere always had been like a trip abroad ; 
 you needed a guide to tell you where to tip and when you 
 were through. For example, a lawyer, lacking experience, 
 was changing the name of a corporation. This was a sim- 
 ple matter, and he thought he had " seen " that all 
 arrangements were made. There was delay, he waited, 
 then inquired. The official said " it was all right, and 
 everything would be ready in a few months." A few 
 months ! The lawyer drew the fellow aside. " I want those 
 papers to-morrow morning," he said ; " how much will that 
 cost ? " That cost only about forty dollars, but think of 
 the bother ! 
 
 When young Mr. Dill laid his great scheme before his 
 bosses and mine he explained how all this graft would be 
 wiped out. Taxes would be made certain, charges by the 
 State would be fixed, and stated fees would go to named 
 officials. It was beautiful, but it left the bosses cold. They 
 could see the advantage to the State and to business, but 
 they could not see, first, why they should deprive their office- 
 holders of all the good old graft, nor, second, where they,
 
 256 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the bosses, " came in." New York has regretted this blind- 
 ness since and has begun to adopt the scheme, but only 
 recently and late. New Jersey got it then. 
 
 Jersey at that time was opening wide to everything bad. 
 Leon Abbett was Governor. He was an ambitious man. 
 He long had wanted to go to the United States Senate, 
 and, to get there, he had, during his first term as Governor, 
 listened to a popular demand for a tax on the Pennsylvania 
 and other railroads which ruled the State. The railroads 
 were exempt, by the terms of their charters, from taxa- 
 tion, but when they pleaded the inviolability of those 
 ancient charters as sacred contracts, this man, this poli- 
 tician, said : " All right, then, we'll tax these charters. If 
 they are a contract, and if that contract is irrepealable, 
 it is a pretty valuable piece of property itself; we'll tax 
 that." Leon Abbett was an awfully bad man. The rail- 
 roads beat him when he ran for the Senate at the close of 
 his first term, but he was so unscrupulous that, convinced 
 of the impossibility of reaching the Senate by serving the 
 people of his State, he set about building him a system. 
 He organized the Democratic party into a grafting ma- 
 chine. He accepted the support of the liquor interests, 
 of the race tracks, and even of some of the railroads. He 
 had himself elected Governor, and now, in 1890, the first 
 year of his second term, he was making of Jersey a Ten- 
 derloin of interstate vice. 
 
 This, then, was the situation when our young lawyer, 
 rebuffed in New York, looked around for some place to 
 go to do what he was not allowed to do at home. He did 
 not know Abbett ; he did not understand the conditions in
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 257 
 
 Jersey. He only lived there. Mr. Dill went to Jersey with 
 his scheme, as Alexander Hamilton did with his, simply 
 because the State was convenient. And Jersey received 
 him, as she receives all, because for a hundred years she 
 has trafficked on her convenience. The State gave the 
 young successor of Hamilton a welcome commensurate 
 with the price he had to offer, and Mr. Dill had a good 
 price to offer. His experience with the New York grafters 
 had matured the young man. He had come to realize that 
 if he hoped to interest men in his scheme he must be able 
 to show them where they " came in." About that time he 
 heard how the Secretary of State of West Virginia was 
 in town, at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where, with the great 
 seal of his State by his side, he was displaying the liber- 
 ality of his laws and selling charters for fees. That was 
 the idea. Mr. Dill seized upon it, and when he went to 
 Jersey (in all fairness to the New York bosses this should 
 be noted well) his scheme was immensely improved. It 
 provided now for all; that is to say, for all, excepting 
 only the United States. 
 
 But in this exception lay Point One of the scheme: 
 With the United States as a nation of men and women 
 up in arms against trusts, there was need of a State where 
 public opinion was conservative. With " demagogic " leg- 
 islators in Congress, and in most of the States, passing 
 laws expressive of the public will, there was a demand for 
 a State Legislature that would enact the will of the cor- 
 porations. With business men everywhere forming pools, 
 and trusts, and gentlemen's agreements to break the law 
 or to get around it, and failing because, though there were
 
 258 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 trustees there was no trust, and while there were agree- 
 ments, there were so few gentlemen with all these diffi- 
 culties abounding in the Union, there was money in it for 
 the State that would throw down her sister States and 
 give a license to business to do business just as business 
 pleased ; lawfully, widely, with a Legislature to defeat the 
 general public will, and courts to compel private, corpor- 
 ate good faith. 
 
 Now, this is my statement of the case, not Jersey's, nor 
 Wall Street's, nor Mr. Dill's. They hold that corporations 
 are inevitable and good, and I don't contradict them. 
 Mr. Dill says that he had in mind many small companies, 
 not the few big trusts ; he did not foresee all of the future ; 
 and I believe him, for he is openly against some of the 
 recent developments of Jersey's corporation legislation. 
 All that is maintained here is that the men concerned at 
 that time in the adoption of the Dill scheme " didn't care 
 a whoop " what might result, and what the other States 
 might think, or feel, or wish. They were out for them- 
 selves and Jersey. Some of them told me so. But let us 
 follow the facts. 
 
 'When Mr. Dill, contemplating his descent upon Jersey, 
 inquired who the bosses were over there, he was referred 
 to Governor Abbett. Mr. Dill didn't know enough, then, 
 to be surprised that the head of a State and the Governor 
 thereof should be one and the same man. He was much 
 more taken aback to be directed from the capitol at Tren- 
 ton to the Governor's law office in New York, but he went 
 there ; and there, to the Governor " in his shirt sleeves," 
 he showed how Jersey, by granting licenses to business to
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 259 
 
 do what other States were trying to forbid, might become 
 the Mecca of corporations and make an enormous revenue. 
 Governor Abbett was interested. Leon Abbett was inter- 
 ested in anything that would increase the revenue of his 
 State. That was the backbone of his original policy ; 
 that was why he had taxed the railroads and, by the way, 
 the franchises of corporations also. And, as for the cost 
 to the other States, Abbett was not the man to scruple at 
 that. I tried to bring out in the first Jersey article how 
 Abbett, with all his faults, rose head and shoulders above 
 all other Jersey politicians in this, that he did, in his 
 crooked, unscrupulous, Jersey way, sometimes represent 
 his State. And in a nation where the average citizen is out 
 for his own pocket all the time ; where the average reformer 
 is for his county or his city; where the noblest cry is for 
 municipal reform; where good citizenship implies a will- 
 ingness to let the States go to the deuce, if only local gov- 
 ernment is not too bad in contrast with this sort of 
 parochial patriotism, the appearance of a man who has a 
 sense of the State, of a whole State, city and county and 
 country, too, is a phenomenon. Leon Abbett was a phe- 
 nomenon. But, rare as it is in these days, the State-sense 
 is not enough ; and Leon Abbett proves that. He was for 
 Jersey ; he was Jersey personified. Out of loyalty to Jer- 
 sey, the selfish, her best man betrayed the United States 
 to help him get into the United States Senate. 
 
 Governor Abbett then, thinking only of Jersey and the 
 Senate, hearkened to the voice of the young corporation 
 lawyer of New York, who was thinking of the corporations 
 and his practice, and there was no one there to think of the
 
 260 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 rest of us. Abbett saw that the scheme was good, but what 
 more could Jersey do for the corporations? They already 
 were running to Jersey for charters, and they were already 
 getting all that they asked for. Then Mr. Dill displayed 
 Point Two of his scheme; and for those States whose 
 statesmen have asked me covetously how Jersey " got such 
 a lead in this corporation business," let me say that this is 
 the feature of the Jeresy policy to adopt, if they want to 
 out-Jersey Jersey in the betrayal of the rest of us to the 
 trusts. 
 
 Mr. Dill explained to Governor Abbett that, while his 
 State had liberal laws, other States, like Delaware and 
 West Virginia, were liberalizing their laws, and that while 
 the advantages of Jersey were known to the great captains 
 of industry, the little captains did not know about them. 
 Tobacco was there, and Standard Oil, the Chicago Stock 
 Yards and Cordage, and Thurber-Whyland, and American 
 Gas and Sugar; but where were the little fellows? What 
 was wanted was a State that would not only open up its 
 laws, but would advertise itself; that State would get the 
 business which would go forth with business push, adver- 
 tising and drumming up trade among the businesses that 
 never had heard of West Virginia, Delaware, and New 
 Jersey as dealers in lawful license. Now a State, as a 
 State, could not afford, even if its officials, like the Secre- 
 tary of State of West Virginia, had the loyal energy to 
 take up the work, to go out on the road showing its goods 
 and advertising itself as the easiest, safest, and best shop 
 for limited-liability charters. The thing to do, therefore, 
 was to make it worth while for a private company, incor-
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 261 
 
 porated under Jersey laws, to undertake this part of the 
 business. So Mr. Dill proposed to form a company which, 
 for small but numerous fees, should advertise Jersey as a 
 charter-granting State, explain her laws, vouch for her 
 courts, attend to the incorporation of commercial compan- 
 ies, and look out for them at home while they were off 
 doing business in the other States. 
 
 The Governor of New Jersey was convinced, but while 
 he was boss of the State and the actual head of the system, 
 he was not " the whole thing." He told Mr. Dill that he 
 must see the Secretary of State, Henry C. Kelsey, who was 
 one of the old Democratic State House Ring; nothing 
 could be done without that interest. Then he must see 
 Allan L. McDermott, the Abbett lieutenant, who was clerk 
 of the Court of Chancery and chairman of the Democratic 
 State Committee. McDermott handled the Legislature, 
 and nothing could be done without legislation, of course. 
 Then he must see some Republican of influence, say, well, 
 say United States District Attorney Henry S. White; 
 for nothing could be done quietly without the minority 
 interest. And last, but not least, Mr. Dill must see some 
 representative of the Pennsylvania Railroad; the road, 
 though not in control, held South Jersey and owned leg- 
 islators. " You can't do without the Pennsylvania." So 
 Charles B. Thurston, secretary, in Jersey City, of Alex- 
 ander Hamilton's old Associates of the Jersey Company, 
 which the Pennsylvania controlled, with all the shore front 
 and exclusive ferry privileges, was added to Mr. Dill's 
 visiting list. 
 
 The scheme provided for all these men and their inter-
 
 262 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ests. To Mr. Kelsey was shown how the Secretary of 
 State's office would get fees, fixed, regular, and small, but 
 many and, in the aggregate, large. Also Mr. Kelsey was 
 to come into the company. To Mr. McDermott was shown 
 how the clerk of the Court of Chancery could double his 
 fees and, besides, Mr. McDermott was to have an interest 
 in the company. So, also, with Mr. White. To Mr. Thurs- 
 ton it was shown that the business, by increasing the in- 
 come of the State and of her officials, would benefit the 
 Pennsylvania and all other railroads. In the first place, 
 the legitimate expenses of the State were growing. When 
 they became a burden to the taxpayer again there would 
 be another howl to tax the railroads. The railroads had just 
 had an experience of that. It probably would not be the 
 last. In the second place, the politicians would be asking 
 for more and more money for political expenses, and, 
 unless the State provided graft, the roads would have to 
 meet that demand. The roads were there ; they couldn't 
 get away. They would have to go down into their own 
 pocket, unless they could go down into somebody else's 
 pocket. Mr. Dill's scheme provided somebody else's pocket ; 
 it would bring all the corporations of the United States 
 into Jersey to pay her expenses, legitimate and political, 
 and save the railroads from that horrid cry, " equal taxa- 
 tion." This line of reasoning won the Pennsylvania, and 
 as for Mr. Thurston, who presented it to his people in 
 Philadelphia, Mr. Thurston himself was to be taken into 
 the company. 
 
 Thus was formed the Corporation Trust Company of 
 New Jersey, which in its circulars announced that " we
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 263 
 
 have a Board of Directors which includes Henry C. Kel- 
 sey, Secretary of State; Charles B. Thurston, of the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad; Allan L. McDermott," etc., etc. 
 Governor Abbett took stock in the company, but, as some- 
 one remarked, pointedly, " Abbett paid for his stock, which 
 is more than can be said of some of the others " ; and his 
 name was not used. The official, inside character of the 
 company was sufficiently indicated by the other names, 
 and hints like this : " Any forms issued by the Secretary 
 of State can be obtained from us without charge " ; or 
 this: "Our location (sic) which places us in close touch 
 with the State Department, having charge . . . will 
 be of special benefit to those for whom we may act." 
 
 Lest we be unfair, let us proceed now very deliberately. 
 This was a graft. This company was organized to graft 
 upon the incorporating function of the State, and the 
 State officials were in on it. But Jersey is a business man's 
 State ; business men and their lawyers have ruled it always, 
 and the laws they have made permit a business man to hold 
 office and engage in private business, almost any office and 
 almost any business. An Attorney General may take a 
 retainer from a railroad; while I was writing these lines 
 the present Attorney General, R. M. McCarter, was ap- 
 pearing in court for the Lackawanna Railroad; and so 
 with prosecutors of the pleas (District Attorneys) ; they 
 frequently are of counsel for the public service corporations 
 against whom they have to appear. In other States, as in 
 New York and Pennsylvania, for example, officials in the 
 public contracting business let their friends or their wives 
 appear in their private businesses. In Jersey, the Secre-
 
 264 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 tary of State could be, as he was, an officer of the Cor- 
 poration Trust Company of New Jersey. 
 
 Moreover, this company, unlike political-business com- 
 panies in other States, and even in New Jersey, was 
 organized not to rob, but to help the State ; it was to make 
 its profits by increasing the profits of the State. As things 
 financial-political go in America, the founders of the Cor- 
 poration Trust Company of New Jersey were engaging 
 in a singularly patriotic business. True, their prosperity 
 was to be achieved at the expense of the other States, and it 
 might be costly to the United States. But who cares about 
 the United States? That is too big, too great, too grand 
 and glorious to need care. And, as for the other States, 
 Mr. Dill himself, in his recent address at Harvard, said 
 that " the spirit of the charter-granting States is war, 
 interstate war." 
 
 Again, we must not charge up to this company all the 
 peculiarities of Jersey corporation laws. That would be 
 not only unjust, but ridiculous. The story of those laws 
 was told me by leaders of the Jersey bar without any 
 mention of Dill or his company. The Jersey policy was a 
 natural growth out of the character of the government 
 and people of the State, as influenced by her neighbors, 
 New York and Philadelphia. From the beginning of the 
 last century, when Alexander Hamilton went over there 
 and drew his two famous charters, for the Associates of 
 the Jersey Company, already mentioned, and for the 
 Society for the Encouragement of Useful Manufactures 
 which preempted the water power of the Passaic River 
 where it falls near what is now the city of Paterson from
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 265 
 
 that time on Jersey had been a resort for corporation 
 schemes. She was a business man's government by business 
 men, with lawyers and politicians for tools or agents, and 
 the traffic in her special charters went on till in 1875 amend- 
 ments to the constitution forbade special legislation. After 
 that, when you wanted a special law you procured the 
 passage of a general law, but the foreign railroads and 
 the jealous Jersey men were so rapacious that in a few 
 years the Jersey Legislature had enacted for special pur- 
 poses enough general corporation laws to permit almost 
 anything in the way of business. Jersey lawyers go fre- 
 quently to New York, and in the 'Eighties, when the anti- 
 monopoly agitation arose, New York lawyers and national 
 captains of industry, worried by the law elsewhere, heard 
 of Jersey and went there in such great numbers that, by 
 1891, a New York newspaper complained that " in the 
 last two years 1,626 (national) corporations with an 
 aggregate capital of over $600,000,000 have been organ- 
 ized under the New Jersey laws." 
 
 So, when, in 1890, Governor Abbett and Messrs. Dill, 
 Thurston, McDermott, and their friends sat down together 
 in New York City to perfect the Dill scheme, they were 
 turning a wild growth into a cultivated plant; what had 
 been a natural, subconscious functioning of the State, 
 they raised up into an intelligent, orderly, definite policy. 
 The business was coming of itself to Jersey ; all that was 
 necessary was to nurse it along and get possession of it 
 for the State officials in the Corporation Trust Company 
 of New Jersey. This last proved no easy task. At that 
 time the national corporations with Jersey charters were
 
 266 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 what a New York judge called "tramps"; they had no 
 domicile, no address in the State whence they were 
 launched. They had to hold certain meetings in Jersey, 
 however, so they used to sail now and then by ferry to 
 Jersey City, or Hoboken, where they took rooms for an 
 hour or two in some hotel. Taylor's Hotel, Jersey City, got 
 most of this business. The Corporation Trust Company 
 opened offices nearby. But (so conservative is capital) 
 Sugar, Tobacco, and the others were slow to cross the 
 street. Some of these " hotels " were vice resorts at night, 
 but the trusts didn't care; they continued to use them 
 for financial assignations by day. " We offered them 
 a fine * financial Raines law hotel,' " said one of my in- 
 formants, " with bona fide, lawful sandwiches, but they 
 stuck to their side-doors and the stock, wooden ' meals.' ' 
 It was not till the Corporation Trust Company passed 
 laws requiring corporations to have " an office," kept open 
 the year round, with books and an agent, and to hang out 
 a sign, that the corporations were driven out of the hotels. 
 And then the Corporation Trust Company and its branches 
 did not get all the business. The men interested were so 
 careful lest they frighten the corporations away, that, 
 to-day, under the law, almost anything is " an office," 
 and almost every bank, trust company, and lawyer in the 
 State displays a tablet with the names on it of some cor- 
 porations doing business out of the State. Most of this 
 trade hangs around the ferries, however, and in Jersey 
 City there is such a clustering of New York business at 
 the Exchange Place landing that this place is called West 
 Wall Street, and the Corporation Trust Company, which
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 267 
 
 has now two or three rooms in a high building on the site 
 of Taylor's Hotel, displays the " signs " of some 1,500 
 companies 1,500 of the biggest corporations in the world, 
 whose " principal office " is here. 
 
 Before legislating for themselves, however, the Corpo- 
 ration Trust group legislated for the State and for the 
 corporations ; and the propaganda began at the same time, 
 and very interestingly. Though the first bills were in the 
 direction of sound business, they were passed secretly. The 
 corporation tax had been fixed by Governor Abbett in his 
 first term, and it was low and regular one-tenth of one 
 per cent, on the capital stock. Little had to be done to, 
 ensure an orderly, simple method of incorporation without 
 any possibility of blackmail, but that little was done. 
 Fees were stated ; to be sure they were properly distributed 
 among the inside officials, but the system was to be above 
 board. 
 
 Thus Dill's idea of giving Jersey an honest advantage 
 over New York and other grafting States was carried 
 out, secretly. Why secretly? Other bills put through 
 were in the interest of corporations, but even these 
 were for all corporations; they were not for some one 
 or two special clients. They were for Jersey, to further 
 the policy that was to enrich her. Yet, I was told : " The 
 legislators did not know what the bills were for. All they 
 knew was that each crowd got orders from its own boss, 
 and, though some of the shrewd fellows remarked that all 
 parties were for these measures, it was assumed that this 
 was some private graft of the leaders ; so they voted like 
 blind pigs." Thus, then, the great Jersey policy was in-
 
 268 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 itiated, as a policy, by the corrupt Jersey Legislature, in 
 cynical ignorance! 
 
 " But why were you so quiet about it ? " I asked. " You 
 wanted advertisement, and here was something done for 
 Jersey ; why not let Jerseymen know ? " 
 
 " We didn't want Jersey to know till we had had time 
 to prove that the policy was paying the State. Then, 
 when the people felt the effect in their taxes, we knew there 
 would be no kick from Jersey." 
 
 The other States " kicked," however, and promptly. I 
 have quoted from a New York newspaper of 1891. Other 
 papers took up th.e discussion, and before long Jersey's 
 liberality to the corporations and her rush of business in 
 charters was the talk from Maine to California. I remem- 
 ber writing myself some newspaper articles on the sub- 
 ject, and you, who read these lines, you may have taken 
 your part in the discussion, too. But here is something 
 neither of us knew at the time : that discussion was inspired 
 in the interest of Jersey. The man who " fed the first facts " 
 to the New York papers told me it was then and thus that 
 the advertisement of Jersey's wideopenness to business was 
 begun. Our anti-Jersey anti-trust facts, our figures, and 
 some of our thoughts were passed out to us by men who 
 wanted corporations to come to Jersey for their charters. 
 The System is a wonderful thing ; it votes us, it buys and 
 it sells us, and it does a lot of our thinking for us. It 
 turns our abuse to its uses. Our denunciation of a boss 
 helps to make him a boss, by telling bribers where to go 
 to buy favors. As we shall see, the Jersey drummers for 
 Jersey's trust business have used in their propaganda
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 269 
 
 every offensive act of hers, but, in the beginning, our anti- 
 trust passions were aroused against Jersey for the purpose 
 of starting her on the road to become what she is. 
 
 Well, and what is she? I have called her a traitor; let's 
 see if that is too strong a term. Dr. Ernst von Halle, the 
 German economist, says : " By the end of 1894 the 
 Federal Government, twenty-two States, and one Terri- 
 tory, had enacted anti-trust laws." He gives a review of 
 this legislation, State by State, from 1887 to 1894, con- 
 cluding with the observation that " the United States Act 
 was passed in 1891." We need not go into details. This 
 is the point: we, the people of the United States, were 
 anti-trust. We may have been foolish, we may have been 
 wrong; but in the period from 1887 to 1894 our thinkers 
 were proposing, our legislators were legislating, and our 
 courts were deciding to check the growth of great combi- 
 nations of capital which threatened competition in trade. 
 
 That was the time when New Jersey said to the trusts : 
 " Come to us. We'll let you do anything. You needn't stay 
 here. Pay us for them, and we'll give you letters of marque 
 to sail out into the other States and do business as you 
 please. The other States have made your business a crime ; 
 we'll license you to break their laws. We'll sell out the whole 
 United States to you, and cheap; and our courts are 
 * safe ' and our Legislature is ' liberal,' and our location 
 is convenient." 
 
 Do you think this is putting it too baldly? Listen, then, 
 to a Jerseyman, who, from the politician's standpoint, is 
 thoroughly versed in the Jersey policy from its formal 
 inception. I asked him to sum up for me the spirit of that
 
 270 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 policy. " When it was being talked over," I said ; " when 
 you were considering how corporate legislation would 
 profit you, your friends, your State, just what was your 
 attitude toward the other States and the United States ? " 
 " To hell with the rest ; what does Jersey care for other 
 States? That was the attitude. Their loss was our gain. 
 As for the trusts, we let them play in everybody's backyard 
 except ours. And, so far as possible, we fixed it so they 
 couldn't be kicked out." It was in this spirit that, in 1894, 
 when the Great White Spirit Company wanted to run a 
 distillery in Massachusetts, and couldn't do it as a Massa- 
 chusetts company, because Massachusetts law forbade the 
 organization of domestic companies for distilling pur- 
 poses, New Jersey provided the charter. Massachusetts 
 had not thought to provide against " foreign corpora- 
 tions," so New Jersey set that distillery right down on 
 the banks of the Charles River, and there it stayed until 
 insolvency closed it. 
 
 This is not war. Mr. Dill's word is too large. This is 
 business. Massachusetts, with her strict law, created a 
 demand for a loose law, and Jersey supplied the demand, 
 cleverly, and for money. Jersey was smart. So we of the 
 United States with our anti-trust laws developed a market 
 for trust laws, and Jersey made them to order. That's 
 business. Jersey sold us out, and that is treason. But 
 what's the difference? There was money in it. Let's fol- 
 low the growth of a few features of her law, and see how 
 she did it. 
 
 The great companies which we know as trusts are so 
 called because, at first, they were combinations of allied
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 271 
 
 businesses whose management was put into the hands of 
 trustees or pools. State and federal laws forbade such 
 trusts, and business character (or, perhaps, it was human 
 nature), was against them. The several companies broke 
 faith; they gave rates or cut prices, so that between the 
 law and the mutual distrust of trustees, pooling-trusts 
 broke up. Thus, for example, the Standard Oil Company 
 was dissolved by law, and all railroad pools of those days 
 were short-lived. What was needed, therefore, to beat the 
 law and human nature was a perfect, lawful combination. 
 So the corporation lawyers who were steering Jersey legis- 
 lation devised the " holding company," with power to own 
 absolutely all its subsidiary companies. Starting from a 
 decision of the Jersey court in 1888, that a corporation 
 had no implied power to purchase and hold the shares of 
 another, an act was passed in the next year authorizing 
 directors to purchase the stock of any company " manu- 
 facturing and producing materials necessary to its busi- 
 ness." This was not enough, and in the course of the next 
 few years the clause was made to read, " manufacturing 
 and producing materials and property necessary," etc. In 
 1893 this was simplified to let directors " buy stocks of 
 any other company which the directors might deem neces- 
 sary." And in 1896, when the corporation laws were re- 
 vised and codified under a Republican administration, this 
 section was broadened like this : " Any corporation may 
 purchase, hold, sell, assign, transfer, mortgage, pledge, 
 or otherwise dispose of the shares ... or any bonds, 
 securities, or evidences of indebtedness created by any 
 other corporation or corporations of this or any other
 
 272 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 State, and while owner of such stock, may exercise all 
 the rights, powers, and privileges of ownership, including 
 the right to vote thereon." There we have the holding 
 company, which makes the trust lawful and strong. 
 
 Again, the life of charters and the purposes of corpora- 
 tions were limited. The Jersey law specified the things for 
 which a company might be incorporated, and after 1891 
 the list grew year by year till, in 1896, charters were 
 made perpetual, and instead of a list of permissions, the 
 Revision Act said any " three or more persons may become 
 a corporation for any lawful purpose or purposes what- 
 ever," and then followed a list of exceptions. And this 
 list of exceptions was drawn only to protect from the 
 trusts Jersey and Jersey interests banks, insurance, rail- 
 road, telegraph, and telephone companies. As Frank P. 
 McDermott says in his " Pointers on New Jersey Corpora- 
 tions," " Companies for constructing and maintaining 
 railroad, telegraph, and telephone lines outside the State 
 are not within the exceptions." 
 
 These and many other such laws were all in the direction 
 of permitting trusts to exist and to stop competition ; i. e., 
 to become monopolies. But the captains of industry had 
 other needs. They wanted not only to do business; they 
 wanted also to exploit and finance it, and make money out 
 of the operation. Jersey was willing. The next string of 
 legislation was to enable promoters to buy up competing 
 companies without paying money for them. They were per- 
 mitted to pay with shares in the trust. In 1891 an act 
 was passed permitting directors to issue additional stock, 
 and another authorizing them to " buy property and pay
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 273 
 
 stock therefor." In 1893, stock issued for property that 
 is to say, paid out to the owners of the purchased company 
 might be exempted from calls for cash, but it had to be 
 marked. Later this last requirement which embarrassed 
 promoters who paid themselves in stock, was abolished. 
 In the famous revision of 1896, all powers necessary to 
 water and pour forth stock were rounded up in the famous 
 dummy-director clause, which declared that " the judg- 
 ment of directors as to the value of property purchased 
 shall be conclusive." The meaning of this law may be 
 brought out in a story Edwin Lefevre tells. When one of 
 the great steel combinations was forming, a group of 
 financiers, who had been buying companies in one city, got 
 drunk on the train that was taking them home. They 
 talked steel, and somebody suggested buying out a certain 
 mill at a town on the way. They left the train. It was late, 
 but they went to the mill-man's house in a hack and called 
 him to the window. He protested in his night shirt that he 
 did not want to sell. 
 
 " How much is your plant worth ? " they demanded. 
 
 " Two hundred .thousand," he said, " but it is not for 
 sale." 
 
 " We'll give four hundred thousand." 
 
 " Not for sale." 
 
 " Five hundred," said the drunken financiers. " Six." 
 
 To make a long story short, the man finally came down 
 to the door, went with them to a club, and sold his mill for 
 several times what it was worth. The financiers sold it to 
 their trust for twice what it cost them in watered stock, 
 and then they sold their trust out to the United States
 
 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Steel Company at so high a price that even Morgan 
 quailed. But Morgan took it, and, as we all know, he sold 
 it to us. All this was possible under the Jersey law per- 
 mitting trust directors to put their own value on purchased 
 companies. 
 
 One more of McDermott's " pointers on Jersey corpora- 
 tions," and we may proceed with our story. Our captains 
 of industry wanted not only to form trusts without the 
 law and to finance them without money; they wanted to 
 control them without owning the majority stock. Jersey 
 let them. In 1891 she passed a law permitting stockhold- 
 ers to vote by proxy ; the leaders thus could corner the 
 votes. Another law allowed stockholders to define a quo- 
 rum. Another gave directors power to decide the amount 
 of dividends. And finally, in the '96 Revision, stock- 
 holders could be classified, preferred and common, and 
 unequal power given to them. Under this law you and 
 I could organize a company with property worth, say, 
 a million. We could issue bonds for that amount; bonds 
 have no vote. If we then put out one million of preferred 
 stock with no vote, and a million of common stock with 
 no value but a vote, we could sell all the stock that the 
 market would take and yet control the property. In other 
 words, we could eat our cake and have it, too which is 
 one secret of high finance. 
 
 The famous revision of 1896, referred to above as the 
 culmination of each line of trust legislation, was a Re- 
 publican act. The Democrats, the so-called anti-trust 
 Democratic party, initiated the great Jersey policy which 
 gave us the trusts. But that party gave Jersey bad gov-
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 275 
 
 ernment ; the government that sold us out, sold out Jersey 
 as well. Governor Abbett, who, to attain a seat in the 
 United States Senate, let his party represent trusts, rail- 
 roads, saloons, race-tracks, and local public service 
 " crowds," disappointed the rapacity of these interests. 
 Ambitious as he was, and unscrupulous, this " demagogue " 
 was afraid of public opinion, so when his term expired they 
 beat him, and gave the seat for which he had sacrificed 
 so much, to his lieutenant, James Smith, Jr., the boss of 
 Essex County, and the largest contributor, in the new 
 public service crowd, to the Democratic campaign fund. 
 A! representative of corrupt special interests at home, 
 Smith was one of the four " Democratic " Senators who 
 helped the Republicans hold up President Cleveland's 
 tariff reform bill till Aldrich got the sugar schedule fixed. 
 Thus Smith became the boss of the Jersey Democracy, 
 and with Abbett out, Abbett's system went wild. With 
 a weak man for Governor and a race-track starter in 
 the Speakership (called the startership) the race-tracks 
 and the liquor men, the trolleys and the railroads, got 
 all that they wanted. Legislation was for sale. Cities 
 and towns were thrown open to loot; public property, 
 from franchises down to cheap furniture, was stolen, 
 and vice and crime reigned. This was the era of " bad " 
 government to which Jerseymen look back with horror. 
 As they speak of those days, you would think that 
 only the race-tracks, saloons, and vicious politicians were 
 busy. Jerseymen forget that it was then that the big 
 trusts and the public service corporations put through 
 some of their worst legislation. The stench of the vice
 
 276 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 graft did not repel, it attracted big business, and such 
 national concerns as the Standard Oil rushed over there, 
 and as for the Jersey public service people, it was in 1893 
 that they put through as separate, unnoticed bills a lot 
 of legislation which together not only allowed them to 
 merge, consolidate, and finance, but to compel unwilling 
 combinations by threats of parallel lines; and not only 
 to take streets, but to grab turnpikes without county 
 consent. Jersey was made a Tenderloin of vicious finance 
 at the time she was a Tenderloin of political graft. 
 
 But a change occurred. Jersey rose in revolt. The clergy 
 preached; they threw open the pulpits to lawyers and 
 merchants, and these laymen preached to churches filled 
 with men who went forth and voted. The Democratic 
 party was thrown out of the Legislature in 1894 and 1895, 
 and in 1896 John W. Griggs, the first Republican Gov- 
 ernor Jersey had had in some thirty years, was elected to 
 make the administration also Republican. Thus ended the 
 Democratic government which gave to Jersey bad gov- 
 ernment, and to the United States the trusts. 
 
 What did the Republicans give us? That was the re- 
 form party in New Jersey ; what reforms did it bring 
 about ? The race-tracks were abolished ; the liquor interest 
 was quieted; all criminal vice and crime were driven to 
 cover. The most flagrant of the trolley laws were repealed. 
 But the trolleys went on. They had the roads and streets ; 
 they got extensions, but noiselessly. They had their per- 
 petual franchises and their consolidations. They got more, 
 and they combined their consolidations. And, as for the 
 corporation laws, which concerned you and me, they were
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 277 
 
 not repealed. They were " improved." The Revision Com- 
 mission of 1896 was appointed by Governor Griggs, and 
 it codified, amplified it perfected in competent, Republi- 
 can fashion the charter-granting business policy of Gov- 
 ernor Abbett, the Democrat. And this was done with not 
 only the whole country, but with New Jersey also looking 
 on. The policy had begun to pay. In 1890 Jersey had 
 collected only some $292,000 from her miscellaneous cor- 
 porations; under the stimulus of the corporation-trust 
 legislation and propaganda she gathered in $405,000; 
 and by 1896 her revenue from this source was $707,000. 
 This was good ; good business and " good " government. 
 
 Good government began in New Jersey in 1896 what 
 Jerseymen call " good," and what most of us would call 
 " good " if we lived in New Jersey. General Sewell, the 
 veteran Republican boss, took charge. He was sent back 
 to the United States Senate to represent us. Really he 
 represented the Pennsylvania Railroad, but he was a broad, 
 conservative business man, and he took care of all business 
 interests. He rallied about him all railroads, all pro- 
 tected industries, all the public service groups, Dem- 
 ocratic and Republican alike, and he was on friendly terms 
 with the leaders of both political parties. To be sure 
 there was corruption, but it was " good " corruption ; 
 quiet, orderly, in the interest of business. The clergy were 
 not scandalized by it and the people heard nothing but 
 rumors which no one could prove. The people were not 
 represented, but the good people do not really want repre- 
 sentative government ; " good government " is their cry, 
 and the Jerseymen who had that did not " kick."
 
 278 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 There was still some kicking in the United States. Busi- 
 ness was reviving, and the Jersey trusts began to flourish. 
 These caused complaints, but most of us took the advice 
 of the late Governor Flower, who said : " Don't kick at 
 the trusts ; get into them." One loud political protest was 
 raised in Governor Flower's State: The Albany Legisla- 
 ture appointed a committee to investigate all Jersey trusts 
 that were operating in New York, and that committee 
 came down to New York City after the Sugar Trust. But 
 the Sugar Trust put its books on a boat and rushed them 
 over to Jersey, and Jersey, under the guidance of her 
 New York corporation lawyers, drew up and rushed 
 through the Trenton Legislature a bill to protect her 
 own. This so-called protective act is a remarkable meas- 
 ure. It says : " No action or proceeding shall be main- 
 tained in any court of this State against any stockholder, 
 officer, or director of any domestic (Jersey) corporation 
 for the purpose of enforcing any statutory personal lia- 
 bility . . . whether . . . penal or contractural, if 
 . . . created . . . by the statutes or laws of any 
 other State" 
 
 Here was a defiance to the other States. Put through in 
 eighteen hours, with the whole country watching the 
 " fight for the Sugar Trust's books," Jersey was not 
 ashamed to be seen saving one trust from possibly just 
 punishment for breaking a New York law; on the con- 
 trary, she took the occasion to announce to all trusts that 
 she would save them all from all laws " penal or con- 
 tractural," of all " other States." Her drummers, the 
 corporation trust companies (at least two of them), sent
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 279 
 
 out to their clients, the trusts, an identical circular boast- 
 ing of the act, as follows : 
 
 " May we not refer to this as an instance of the watch- 
 ful care which the New Jersey Corporation Guarantee and 
 Trust Co. (ditto the Corporation Trust Co. of N. J.) 
 exercises over the corporations located with it when we 
 say that this act, the importance of which cannot be over- 
 estimated, was drawn by our counsel, was introduced at 
 8.30 P.M. of March 29, and by 2.30 P.M. of the following 
 day was signed by the Governor and became a law? " 
 
 The whole spirit of this " good " Jersey government 
 was toward the indulgence of corporate business, and every 
 step it took in that direction was advertised not only by 
 our clamor, but by circulars sent out by her citizens to 
 attract business to their financial Raines law hotels. I have 
 a lot of these circulars stating the " advantages of corpo- 
 rations organized under the laws of New Jersey." They 
 say : " You are not called upon to disclose the financial 
 standing of your business, nor to make public the details 
 thereof." " We (the financial hotel) attend to every detail, 
 including, if you desire, the organization of your company, 
 notify you of all meetings which you are required to hold 
 and see that they are legally conducted." Again : " It is 
 unnecessary for you to come to New Jersey, as the matter 
 (organization and meetings) can be completed by mail." 
 Again : " We have employees of this office who act as in- 
 corporators, who would sign the charter, complete the 
 organization, and return you all the papers ready for the 
 company to do business within three days." But there are 
 some exactions : " The statute requires one director to
 
 280 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 be a resident of this State ; whom we will furnish, if desired, 
 without extra charge." 
 
 No matter how great and good trusts may be, there is 
 something disgusting about this. But these business rulers 
 of this " safe " and business-like State have gone lower 
 than that. In 1898 they made Jersey a retreat for property 
 that would escape taxes. Take the case of money. New 
 Jersey does not (in practice) tax deposits in banks and 
 trust companies. New York does, and she requires all 
 foreign corporations to make sworn statements of their 
 balances. So the ferry landings in Jersey are choked with 
 trust companies and banks which are agents of New 
 York companies, and some rich men have little depositories 
 of their own. If you are rich enough to be a tax dodger, 
 you keep an account in a Jersey " bank." You deposit in 
 New York in favor of that bank, and draw your checks 
 on it, but the money comes from the New York bank. 
 This practice is advertised openly in newspapers, and 
 Jersey's " Raines law banks " put out timely hints like 
 this: "The Comptroller of New York has fixed the 31st 
 day of October as the day upon which the report is to 
 be made to him for the purpose of fixing the tax. . . . 
 The amount of your bank-balance and the property you 
 have in New York on that day will have a bearing on the 
 amount of taxes you must pay." That is all; but before 
 such days you see boys going to Jersey with bags of 
 money and securities. 
 
 Jersey is a State in business. The business men who 
 govern her have turned her into a great commercial con- 
 cern. Does it pay?
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 281 
 
 Her main line has paid well so far. The miscellaneous 
 corporations, which netted her $707,000 in 1896, paid 
 nearly a million in 1899; nearly a million and a half in 
 1900, more than a million and a half in 1901 ; in 1902, 
 nearly two millions, and in 1903, $2,177,297.81. Her debt 
 was wiped out. She is famous for her schools. She has 
 the finest roads in the country ; one-third of the macadam 
 roads in the United States are in New Jersey. But listen 
 to her new Governor, Edward C. Stokes, summing up. 
 He is a Pennsylvania Railroad man, so he includes the 
 railroad tax receipts in his statement of the case. " At 
 the close of the last fiscal year the balance in the treasury 
 amounted to $2,940,918.98. The ordinary receipts for 
 the year amounted to $4,302,370.61, of which nearly 
 seventy-eight per cent., or $3,351,543.69, came from rail- 
 roads and business companies domiciled in our State. Of 
 the entire income of the government, not a penny was 
 contributed directly by the people. . . . The State is 
 caring for the blind, the feeble-minded, and the insane, 
 supporting our prisoners and reformatories, educating 
 the younger generations, developing a magnificent road 
 system, maintaining the State government and courts of 
 justice, all of which would be a burden upon the tax- 
 payer except for our present fiscal policy. To have raised 
 last year, by direct taxation, the income of the State, 
 would have imposed upon property a tax rate of nearly 
 one-half of one per cent." 
 
 There is no doubt, then, about these profits. But good- 
 will is the greatest asset of a Jersey corporation. Is her 
 own good-will all right? Can she hold the business ? Jersey
 
 282 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 is worrying over this question herself. This was what 
 Governor Stokes had in mind when he wrote the passage 
 quoted above. He sees other States getting the business 
 away from Jersey. " The incorporations in one State last 
 year," he says, "show a capital of $111,255,500; in 
 another, $251,971,620; in another, $285,553,700; in New 
 Jersey, $313,569,620." New Jersey still leads, but, says 
 the Governor of New Jersey, " our State is by no means 
 attracting all the great moneyed interests seeking articles 
 of incorporation." 
 
 What is the matter? Three things are the matter. In 
 the first place, while Jersey was helping trusts to wipe out 
 competition, she could not create a monopoly in such legis- 
 lation. Any American State can go into that business, 
 and some have. Jersey is suffering from competition. 
 Her example in betrayal was promptly followed by States 
 that are willing to give lower laws at a lower price, and if 
 the rivalry in lax legislation goes on at the present rate, 
 the trusts will be able to get all they want, and Jersey may 
 have to suffer with the rest of us. 
 
 The second thing the matter is that Jersey's trusts 
 have abused Jersey's frailty and discredited her corpora- 
 tion laws. Those trusts which she launched so completely 
 armed with indulgences for every thinkable financial sin, 
 have come sailing back, as we saw Sugar do, for further 
 dispensations and more power. A Jersey charter is a chip 
 off the sovereignty of the State; it is what a constitution 
 is to a State. Under her laws you could draw a charter 
 distributing power and rights at will. You could dis- 
 franchise a majority of the stock and let the board of
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 283 
 
 directors declare dividends, earned or unearned, or with- 
 hold them. In Jersey, you, not the Legislature, made your 
 corporation laws, and Jersey's drummers warned promoters 
 as follows : " You can draw your charter as broad as you 
 please; be sure to use foresight and care." Even after 
 all this the Jersey trusts committed crimes or wanted to, 
 and back they came for amendments to her laws to cover 
 them. In 1901, United States Steel asked that the law 
 which provided for a two-thirds vote be changed to two- 
 thirds of the stock present. In 1902 it was back again 
 for a special act to permit the conversion of stock into 
 bonds which might be sold below par. This operation, 
 Professor William Ripley, in his " Trusts, Pools, and 
 Corporations " says, " betrayed a disregard of the prin- 
 ciples of sound finance and even of common honesty and 
 fair dealing with the stockholders." In 1903, Malting, 
 Amalgamated Copper, and other trusts appeared at 
 Trenton for a law to remove the liabilities of directors 
 before the courts for crimes already committed. This was 
 putting the State regularly into the business of selling, 
 not only indulgences, but absolution. 
 
 These are but a few instances of what has developed 
 into a large part of Jersey's business, and, taken together 
 with such scandals as the Shipbuilding Trust, which failed, 
 and the Franklin Syndicate of 520-per-ccnt.-Miller fame, 
 which ended in prison, and other unfortunate Jersey com- 
 panies, a Jersey charter was brought to mean to many 
 men nothing but danger. No wonder, then, that James 
 B. Dill now advocates federal charters, and Governor 
 Stokes, to save the business of his State, recommends a
 
 284 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 revision of the Jersey laws " to safeguard the public," and 
 " protect the stockholders of other States." 
 
 The third thing the matter is, perhaps, the saddest of 
 all. The betrayer is being betrayed. It was reported in Jer- 
 sey while I was there that her junior United States Senator, 
 John F. Dryden, president of the Prudential (Life) In- 
 surance Company of America, was in favor of President 
 Roosevelt's recommendation that the Federal Government 
 take over the charter-granting function of the States. 
 Two States, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, have objected 
 to the Prudential's methods, so Senator Dryden, being a 
 Jerseyman and selfish, might be willing to sacrifice the 
 interest of Jersey if the United States would let him 
 operate in two more States than a Jersey charter can open 
 to him. But Dryden since has introduced a bill to put 
 insurance companies under national control, and that may 
 satisfy him. Her Senator still may represent her. But her 
 drummer is lost to her. The Corporation Trust Company, 
 proving a good thing, was bought in 1902 by some New 
 Yorkers belonging to the Equitable Life Insurance crowd, 
 and those men have broadened the field ; they do business 
 not for New Jersey alone, but, as they advertise, in all 
 charter-granting States. Jersey's own original partner is 
 in business with her rivals. 
 
 Abused by her progeny, the trusts; betrayed by the 
 agents of her treason ; outdone in self -prostitution by 
 sister States, younger and more reckless in the business, 
 Jersey is finding that her liberal policy was too liberal. 
 Governor Stokes says : " The day of gigantic business 
 combinations is on the wane," and to catch the smaller
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 285 
 
 companies, he is urging legislation to " insure the faith- 
 ful administration of the affairs " of business companies, 
 to guard the " rights of the owner of a single share of 
 stock," and " to remedy abuses." Coming so late, this 
 sounds pathetic, and when you hear that Governor Stokes 
 thinks that, at best, the business is good for only a few 
 years more, you will see that there is something desperate 
 about it. 
 
 But the trusts don't care what becomes of Jersey. They 
 have got what they wanted out of her, and can go else- 
 where now. Has her policy paid the trusts? Of course, 
 the' promoters have profited by it, but has business? Busi- 
 ness men say " No." While I was working on Jersey I 
 had to spend a great deal of time in Wall Street, and I 
 heard this question discussed. The feeling of conservative 
 corporation men can best be indicated by the proposition 
 two of them made to me ; one was the president of one of 
 the oldest and cleanest corporations in the country, the 
 other a corporation lawyer of national reputation. They 
 said they would furnish the facts if I would write an ar- 
 ticle showing the methods by which some typical big corpo- 
 rations were being " wrecked." * Why were they willing to 
 tell? Because, they said, the financial licentiousness and 
 the criminal corruption of the financial rings they had in 
 mind were a menace to corporate and all other business. 
 And their examples were all taken from Jersey-made 
 trusts, or from the operations of men interested in the 
 exploitation of that State which protected the wreckers. 
 
 i This has been done by others since ; the insurance business, for 
 example,
 
 286 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Business men stand license no better than politicians. 
 Having no self-restraint, they need the restraint of law, 
 and having been placed by Jersey where they long have 
 wanted to be, above the law, they find that anarchy, finan- 
 cial anarchy, is hurting business. So Jersey's liberal policy 
 does not pay business? Whom does it pay? Not us, not 
 the other States, not the United States. With millions of 
 men holding watered stock in fallen or falling corpora- 
 tions, which have been robbed like cities, and with the 
 President urging national control in the interest of busi- 
 ness and fair play, that conclusion needs no enforcement. 
 And, besides, " to hell with the rest." That is Jersey's 
 attitude to-day; Governor Stokes is advocating other, 
 higher principles ; but strong forces are opposing him, 
 and, to carry the State, he is appealing to Jersey motives, 
 to wit: to save the business to the State. And, as for the 
 rest of us, many of us envy Jersey. She is making money 
 at the expense of the rest of us; she is trafficking in 
 treason; but Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, South 
 Dakota and Maine are seeking by still greater liberality 
 to get the trusts to come to them, and New York, Rhode 
 Island, Massachusetts, and others would like to because 
 they think it pays. That is the American attitude. And 
 the great American question is: Does it pay? 
 
 Let us go back to Jersey. Does it really pay her? Has 
 she good government? 
 
 The government of New Jersey is a syndicate. You 
 have noticed, perhaps, that I have had little to say about 
 individual men. The reason is that there aren't any. Since 
 Abbett, the Democratic Governor, and Senator Sewell,
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 287 
 
 the Republican boss, died, Jersey hasn't had any con- 
 spicuous, leading men, good or bad, on the machine side 
 or on the side of reform. There are bosses, like Major 
 Lentz in Essex County and David Baird in Camden, and 
 there are reformers, too, but the bosses are local political 
 agents of the controlling business interests and the re- 
 formers are county reformers. Both parties take con- 
 tributions from the business interests, organize the voters 
 county by county, appoint candidates, and deliver to the 
 business interests the sovereignty of the citizens in the 
 shape of local and State officers and legislators who 
 take orders like dummy-directors and deliver franchises, 
 charters, and laws to the local, State, and national busi- 
 ness interests that pay. The higher officers are represent- 
 atives, customers, attorneys, or agents of the chief sources 
 of corruption ; they typically are business men, sometimes 
 clean-handed, but they represent dirty money washed white 
 in campaign funds and, instinctively, they stand for 
 privileged business. The railroads, with the Pennsylvania 
 at their head, and the so-called " Prudential Insurance 
 Fidelity Trust-Public Service Corporation " crowd, are 
 the largest political spenders. Therefore they dominate. 
 As between the Pennsylvania and this Public Service 
 group, the Public Service is the stronger. The Governor, 
 Mr. Stokes, retired from a Pennsylvania directorate to 
 run for his office, but both the United States Senators, 
 John Kean and John F. Dryden, are public utility men. 
 This does not mean that they are against the " roads " ; 
 they are showing in the Senate that they are " safe " for 
 the railroads. All the " rise " of these men means is that
 
 288 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the public utilities are the more active corruptionists ; the 
 railroads don't want much more now out of Jersey, only 
 to be left alone; they don't care to rule just for the sake 
 of ruling. If some other business, not antagonistic, will 
 attend to the government and put up enough money to 
 keep politics corrupt so that any business man can get 
 what he wants for a fair price, the railroads are glad to 
 neglect politics. Now the trolleys and other public utility 
 businesses are still building up their business in Jersey; 
 they are extending lines, buying and absorbing plants, 
 making contracts all the time, so that they have, anyway, 
 to keep in touch with politics, and at the bottom, too, in 
 the cities and counties. Senator Kean has some independ- 
 ent public utilities down his way, but most of the water, 
 gas, electric light and power, and the trolleys of New 
 Jersey are held by the Public Service Corporation, Thomas 
 N. McCarter, president. This company was financed by 
 the Fidelity Trust Co., Uzal H. McCarter, president. 
 And back of the trust are the men in the Prudential In- 
 surance Company, John F. Dryden, president. Naturally, 
 when General Sewell died Mr. Dryden was elected to the 
 Senate. He had never taken any part in politics before, 
 and his election caused some surprise and some difficulty ; 
 his friends had to buy outright several votes for him un- 
 beknown to him, they say but that will probably not 
 happen again. Unless there is " reform " in Jersey, the 
 next time he runs for the United States Senate, he will 
 probably go through as the chief visible representative 
 of the system. I say visible, because the Prudential has 
 relations with the Equitable Life in New York City; and
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 289 
 
 since the Pennsylvania resides in Philadelphia, the real 
 seat of the government of New Jersey, the most selfish and 
 provincial of States, is outside its borders, and the State 
 government, which so liberally has served national trusts, 
 actually is governed by a syndicate representing national 
 corporate interests. Is this good government? 
 
 When I first went to work in Jersey I was made most 
 welcome everywhere, by good citizens who, aware of the 
 corrupt conditions all about them, wanted to help me to 
 expose what? The charter-granting system by which 
 Jersey was betraying the citizens and the sound business 
 of the whole country? Oh, no, they said. That was all 
 right ; that relieved Jerseymen of their State taxes. What, 
 then, the State? The Public Service Corporation and the 
 Lehigh Valley Railroad were preparing at that time to 
 abandon the old Morris Canal, and to divide it up, the 
 railroad to sell off the water and the trolley to have the 
 canal-way for a trolley line. R. H. McCarter, the Attor- 
 ney-General who must pass upon the bill, is a brother of 
 Tom McCarter, president of the Public Service Corpora- 
 tion, and he was counsel for the Lehigh Valley ; and the 
 Legislature is owned by the Public Service and Railroad 
 lobbies. Did they want me to show up the State govern- 
 ment which made them despair of defeating this typical 
 scheme of despoliation? No, they said, the State was in 
 pretty good shape. There might be some evils, but the 
 government was in the hands of good business men, safe 
 and conservative, and they had it in an excellent financial 
 condition. Very well, then, what would they have me " ex- 
 pose"? Why, their county. "Do Passaic county," they
 
 290 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 said, in Paterson ; " we are having an investigation here 
 right now." They were, and the condition was rotten with 
 petty, political graft. In Newark and the Oranges they 
 offered me Essex County. " That is the center of the 
 whole business," they urged. And it is. But Jersey City, 
 bestraddled and hemmed in by railroads which paid her 
 no taxes, and shut her off from the water with their 
 ferries and terminals, which denied the city easement for 
 sewers Jersey City would have made an interesting 
 article. At the other end of the State, however, there was 
 Camden declaring, " We are the worst. We need exposure 
 the most." Exposure! I have never exposed anybody or 
 anything, and no exposure is needed in any American com- 
 munity. What everybody knows is more than enough ma- 
 terial for me, and in Jersey everybody knows everything 
 apparently. The trouble there is that such citizenship as 
 they have is mean, narrow, local. Jersey, in the mind of 
 the average Jerseyman is a group of counties, and his con- 
 cern, if he worries at all, is with the petty evils of his own 
 sordid surroundings. My concern is for the other States 
 that Jersey is selling out, my interest is in the story of 
 the troubles she has caused me and you, not in the troubles 
 of Jerseymen. I didn't know when I set out that they had 
 any. I had heard that Jersey got good government out 
 of her ruling corporations. And when I found that they 
 really had troubles of their own, my first impulse was to 
 rejoice. My first feeling was that I'd like to see the citizens 
 of this selfish State pickle in the corruption of Hudson 
 County and Essex, of Camden, and Passaic, and Middle- 
 sex, and Ocean. And when President Roosevelt proposed
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 291 
 
 that the Federal Government should take over the charter- 
 granting function from the States, I said " Good ; it will 
 serve Jersey right. She deserves all the punishment we 
 can give her." 
 
 That feeling was wrong. The President's suggestion 
 may be sound, but I notice that many leading corporation 
 men are leaning in that direction, and that makes me 
 pause. Why this bad faith in Washington ? Is the national 
 government more corrupt than that of the States? Is it 
 more representative of business than Jersey? 
 
 But there is another reason why I know my feeling about 
 punishing Jersey is wrong: It is too Jersey-like. That 
 is the spirit which has betrayed Jersey and made her be- 
 tray the rest of us. It is the spirit of the reformers of 
 the Oranges, of Hudson, and Camden, and they were in a 
 fair way of finding it out when I was there. Camden 
 elected as Mayor Joseph E. Nowrey, a Democrat who 
 represented the city. David Baird, the Republican boss, is 
 chairman of the State board that taxes railroads, and he 
 is in business with the Public Service Corporation in his 
 county. He had the State Legislature take away the 
 veto and other powers of the Mayor. And thus Camden 
 must see that Camden's issue cannot be fought out in 
 Camden County. 
 
 Jersey City has for its Mayor a Republican, Mark 
 Fagan, who is one of the few real democrats in this 
 State. He has stood for " equal taxation," which is in- 
 deed the issue in his city, but he had to go to the Legis- 
 lature. What did he find? He wrote Governor Murphy, a 
 fellow Republican, a letter describing what he found;
 
 292 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 here is part of it : " The Republican Legislature is con- 
 trolled by the railroad, trolley, and water corporations, 
 and the interests of the people are being betrayed. While 
 I charge no man with personal corruption, I do not hesi- 
 tate to say that this is a condition of affairs which is 
 essentially corrupt, and which, if unchecked, means the 
 virtual control of our State and our party by corpora- 
 tions. As a citizen I say that this condition is dangerous 
 and demoralizing. As a public official I protest against 
 the injustice done to Jersey City. As a member of the 
 Republican party I deplore its subserviency to corporate 
 greed and injustice. No political party can long receive 
 the support of the people with such a record as this Re- 
 publican Legislature is making." 
 
 The Orange men are not willing to grant forever and for 
 nothing a trolley extension to the Public Service Corpora- 
 tion. They appeal to their local aldermen, only to find them 
 bought up. By threats they frighten off the company, 
 which proposes a Greater Newark to swallow up Orange 
 in one well-owned municipality. The Orange men go to 
 Trenton with a bill to limit all franchises to twenty-five 
 years, and they find, what Mayor Fagan found, that their 
 Legislature does not represent them ; not even all the repre- 
 sentatives from their own town represent them. Wouldn't 
 you think they would see, Orange and Camden and Hudson, 
 that the trouble is not that their local governments are bad, 
 but that no part of their government represents them ? and 
 that the thing to do is to begin in their counties, make their 
 Mayors and aldermen, not " good men," but men who 
 will represent them, or be beaten. And that, this done, all
 
 NEW JERSEY: A TRAITOR STATE 293 
 
 the good citizens in all the counties should get together, 
 pledge their own legislators not only to represent their 
 own county, but the wishes of good citizens in all counties, 
 and last, but not least, that all these same citizens should 
 see to it that this Legislature should, first, send to the 
 Senate Senators who would represent you and me, and, 
 second, pass no bills that would betray the will and injure 
 the business of the United States? But, no, the local spirit 
 of Jersey is the spirit of counties, cities, and States all 
 over the country. It is the home-rule sentiment which 
 says : " Give us good government, and to hell with the 
 rest." And that, again, is the American spirit. 
 
 If our national government is corrupt, it is because 
 Jersey and other States, being corrupt, send their Keans 
 and Drydens to the Senate, and their Gardners and Mc- 
 Dermotts to the House to misrepresent all of us. And if 
 Jersey and the other States are corrupt, it is because 
 their Jersey Cities, and their Hudson and Essex Counties, 
 being corrupt, send their graduates in corruption to the 
 State Legislature to misrepresent all the counties. Jersey- 
 men can't see it so, but this is the truth: Jersey's policy 
 toward the trusts, which is the cause of so much trouble 
 to all the rest of us, is the cause of the trouble of all the 
 counties of Jersey. The corruption of those counties is 
 the foundation of the " good " State government that 
 sells us out for fees, which, turned back into the counties 
 to relieve them of taxes, act upon the character of Jersey's 
 citizens like bribes : they keep Jerseymen contented with a 
 State government which represents, not you and me and 
 them, but corrupt special business interests, at home and
 
 STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 abroad. The cry of Americans in wards, counties, cities, 
 States, and the United States should be, not good govern- 
 men, but " representative government." 2 
 
 2 A promising movement for representative government in New 
 Jersey has been started under the leadership of Senator Everett 
 Colby of Essex, who beat his boss, Carl Lentz, in the fall of 1905. 
 Back of Colby are the followers of Mayor Fagan of Jersey City and 
 the reformers of Newark and the Oranges, in Essex County. They 
 carried every county that they worked in last fall, and, reaching out 
 to organize other counties, the movement they have inaugurated 
 bids fair to make Jersey one of the leaders of State and National 
 Reform in the United States.
 
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