Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/101



“Colby,” he said, “what’s this I hear about you introducing a limited franchise bill?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Raising his voice, as before, so that all could hear, he laid down the law of the land for legislators. “You introduce that bill,” he bawled in his mad rage, “and you’ll lose every friend you have in Essex County.”

What did Tom McCarter mean ? His brother made that clearer. The financial rings that rule Jersey often have to smooth over the troubles their quick-tempered trolley president causes with his “honest grafter” blunders. Uzel McCarter, Tom’s big brother, and the head of the trust company through which (like the Big Three) the Prudential Life Insurance crowd finances its trolley and other schemes — Uzel, a diplomat, joined Colby that day on a train. He talked pleasantly, even flatteringly, to the young man. By and by the franchise subject happened to come up, and that led, naturally, to Colby’s connection with the bill to limit trolley grants. Most unfortunate connection, that.

“We,” said the banker, “we think you have a political future before you, and we don’t want to see you throw it away.”

There was more, but that was the point. Uzel McCarter was taking the young man who couldn’t be bribed with money, or browbeaten by the