iff's office.
It rubbed shoulders with big contracts and big financial operations of
all sorts. The city was being built within a few years out of nothing by
a busy, careless, and shifting population. Money was still easy, people
could and did pay high taxes without a thought, for they would rather
pay well to be let alone than be bothered with public affairs. Like
hyenas to a kill, the public contractors gathered. Immense public works
were undertaken at enormous prices. To get their deals through legally
it was, of course, necessary that officials, councilmen, engineers, and
others should be sympathetic. So, naturally, the big operators as well
as the big lawyers had to go into politics. Legal efficiency coupled
with the inefficiency of the bench, legal corruption, and the arrogance
of personal favor, dissolved naturally into political corruption.

The elections of those days would have been a joke had they been not so
tragically significant. They came to be a sheer farce. The polls were
guarded by bullies who did not hesitate at command to manhandle any
decent citizen indicated by the local leaders. Such men were openly
hired for the purposes of intimidation. Votes could be bought in the
open market. "Floaters" were shamelessly imported into districts that
might prove doubtful; and, if things looked close, the election
inspectors and the judges could be relied on to make things come out all
right in the final count. One of the exhibits later shown in the
Vigilante days of 1856 was an ingenious ballot box by which the goats
could be segregated from the sheep as the ballots were cast. You may be
sure that the sheep were the only ones counted. Election day was one of
continuous whiskey drinking and brawling so that decent citizens were
forced to remain within doors. The returns from the different wards were
announced as fast as the votes were counted. It was therefore the custom
to hold open certain wards until the votes of all the others were known.
Then whatever tickets were lacking to secure the proper election were
counted from the packed ballot box in the sure ward. In this manner five
hundred votes were once returned from Crystal Springs precinct where
there dwelt not over thirty voters. If some busybody made enough of a
row to get the merry tyrants into court, there were always plenty of
lawyers who could play the ultra-technical so well that the accused were
not only released but were returned as legally elected a