Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/226



besides the “ice” and the brewers’ contributions, there were other powers back of all these conditions. The railroads ruled the state, the railroads and the mine-owners and the American Smelting Company. Under them, in Denver, and for them, were all the public utility companies which, having grants of privileges, rewarded the people of the city and state by corrupting their government. “It’s necessary, they say. Now the corrupt business interests that ruled Denver and Colorado ruled partly by ballot-box stuffing, and it was the dive-keepers, thieves, loafers all the hangers-on of vice and crime — who did the stuffing. Lindsey, who long had known this, realized now that he had nowhere to turn to appeal for some little consideration of^ the children of his town, except to the people of his town.

He invited the Police Board to visit the Chil- dren’s Court on Saturday morning, May 24, 1902. He also invited reporters. Frank Adams didn’t come, but the other commissioners did, and the bailiff gave them seats in the jury-box. There the children could see them, and they could see the children, and there were some two hundred children on hand that morning: two hundred “bad” boys who knew all about everything, including that Police Board. When they were all ready, Judge Lindsey entered and took his