s.

"Mr. Croker was home ten days before he missed his leadership, and
even then he was made aware of its spoliation only by beholding it in
the hands of the cabal. Mr. Croker meant Mr. Nixon for the mayoralty;
but the plotting eighteen, intriguing with Brooklyn blocked the way
with Mr. Coler. The coalition was too strong for Mr. Croker to force,
and the logic of that same word pressed to a conflict meant his
destruction in the city convention.

"'When the lion's skin is too short,' said Lysander, 'we piece it out
with the fox's,' and while the Greeks thought this sentiment
unbecoming a descendant of Hercules, they were fain to acquiesce in
its practice when met by a peril too strong for their spears. Mr.
Croker remembered Lysander; and, being thus hedged and hemmed about,
sought safety by nominating Mr. Shepard. There need be no mistake; Mr.
Shepard was not a candidate, he was a refuge. And such a refuge as is
Scylla when one is threatened of Charybdis.

"When Mr. Croker seized on Mr. Shepard, he defeated the Coler plot,
but made no safety for his leadership. He succeeded only in losing the
latter in a fashion less harrowing to his vanity, less obnoxious to
his self-respect. It was the old Roman at the last, who, preferring
suicide to capture, throws himself on his own sword.

"Study the situation as Mr. Croker studied it, following the city
convention; it will aid to an understanding of what has happened
since, and tell the story of his lost leadership. Following Mr.
Shepard's nomination there lived no Croker hope. With either Mr.
Shepard or Mr. Low elected, Tammany would dwindle--as one now beholds
it--to be a third-rate influence. The autocracy of Mr. Croker would
disappear. At the best, he might beg where he had once commanded, with
every prospect of being denied. Mr. Croker, in alarm for his pride,
decided that his sole chance to quit with credit was to quit at once,
and on that thought he acted. Following the naming of Mr. Shepard he
treated with the plotters and abandoned to them half his dominion. It
was they, and not Mr. Croker, who determined the personnel of the late
county and borough tickets; one has but to remember the folk who were
named, and recall those who were not, to know that this is true. But
bad fortune overtook Mr. Croker and the eighteen who then held him in
partial thrall. The city ticket of the one, and the county and borough
tickets of the others, were beaten."

"They were, of a hopefu