Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/117



Brand Whitlock in Toledo, of Pattison in Ohio, etc. They all were anti-boss fights. Some of them, like Pattison’s and Dempsy’s, were minority party fights against the majority party boss; some, like Jerome’s and Whitlock’s, were against “both the bosses” and “all parties”; Colby’s, like La Follette’s and Folk’s, was within the majority party. No matter how made, these fights were all against the boss, and the boss fell. What next ?

The political boss is nothing but an agent of the business bosses back of him. Some of these anti-boss leaders know this; some do not. Those that do may get somewhere; the others won’t. Colby is one of those that can see beyond the boss; that is one reason why he would not make his campaign a personal fight against Carl Lentz. He saw, and he sees, and some of the men with him see, the powers behind Lentz, and he is proceeding now, deliberately and intelligently against them, the real enemies of the state,-its active rulers, the class which corrupts it, and its officials, and its people for the sake of the privileges obtained or to be obtained from the state.

Look at their programme of bills again. In themselves they might not interest you and me very much, but look behind those bills. To “limit franchises” and “to tax them”—these