and because the three-cent papers, which they never see,
abuse me, that they are going to turn from me unless I make them? That
is the true secret of the failure of reformers. A logical argument is
all right in a court of appeals, but when it comes to swaying five
thousand votes, give me five thousand loving hearts rather than five
thousand logical reasons."

"Yet you have carried reforms."

"I have tried, but always in a practical way. That is, by not
antagonizing the popular men in politics, but by becoming one of them
and making them help me. I have gained political power by recognizing
that I could only have my own way by making it suit the voters. You see
there are a great many methods of doing about the same thing. And the
boss who does the most things that the people want, can do the most
things that the people don't want. Every time I have surrendered my own
wishes, and done about what the people desire, I have added to my power,
and so have been able to do something that the people or politicians do
not care about or did not like."

"And as a result you are called all sorts of names."

"Yes. The papers call me a boss. If the voters didn't agree with me,
they would call me a reformer."

"But, Peter," said Le Grand, "would you not like to see such a type of
man as George William Curtis in office?"

"Mr. Curtis probably stood for the noblest political ideas this country
has ever produced. But he held a beacon only to a small class. A man who
writes from an easy-chair, will only sway easy-chair people. And
easy-chair people never carried an election in this country, and never
will. This country cannot have a government of the best. It will always
be a government of the average. Mr. Curtis was only a leader to his own
grade, just as Tim Sullivan is the leader of his. Mr. Curtis, in his
editorials, spoke the feelings of one element in America. Sullivan, in
Germania Hall, voices another. Each is representative, the one of five
per cent. of New York; the other of ninety-five per cent. If the
American people have decided one thing, it is that they will not be
taken care of, nor coercively ruled, by their better element, or
minorities."

"Yet you will acknowledge that Curtis ought to rule, rather than
Sullivan?"

"Not if our government is to be representative. I need not say that I
wish such a type as Mr. Curtis was representative."

"I suppose if he had tried to be a boss he would have failed?"

"I think so