ound to emerge; at any rate, he may give himself the
solace of literature and ideals in other directions, but the more
ignorant man who lives only in the narrow present has no such resource;
slowly the conviction enters his mind that politics is a matter of
favors and positions, that self-government means pleasing the "boss" and
standing in with the "gang." This slowly acquired knowledge he hands on
to his family. During the month of February his boy may come home from
school with rather incoherent tales about Washington and Lincoln, and
the father may for the moment be fired to tell of Garibaldi, but such
talk is only periodic, and the long year round the fortunes of the
entire family, down to the opportunity to earn food and shelter, depend
upon the "boss."

In a certain measure also, the opportunities for pleasure and recreation
depend upon him. To use a former illustration, if a man happens to have
a taste for gambling, if the slot machine affords him diversion, he goes
to those houses which are protected by political influence. If he and
his friends like to drop into a saloon after midnight, or even want to
hear a little music while they drink together early in the evening, he
is breaking the law when he indulges in either of them, and can only be
exempt from arrest or fine because the great political machine is
friendly to him and expects his allegiance in return.

During the campaign, when it was found hard to secure enough local
speakers of the moral tone which was desired, orators were imported from
other parts of the town, from the so-called "better element." Suddenly
it was rumored on all sides that, while the money and speakers for the
reform candidate were coming from the swells, the money which was
backing the corrupt alderman also came from a swell source; that the
president of a street-car combination, for whom he performed constant
offices in the city council, was ready to back him to the extent of
fifty thousand dollars; that this president, too, was a good man, and
sat in high places; that he had recently given a large sum of money to
an educational institution and was therefore as philanthropic, not to
say good and upright, as any man in town; that the corrupt alderman had
the sanction of the highest authorities, and that the lecturers who were
talking against corruption, and the selling and buying of franchises,
were only the cranks, and not the solid business men who had developed
and built up Chi