Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/36



Mayor, and, in 1901, Mark Fagan was nominated. Some of the little bosses warned the big bosses that they couldn’t handle him, but the big bosses pooh-poohed the fears of the little bosses. In the first place he wouldn’t be elected. The railroads, the public service companies, and some of the greatest corporations in the world have offices and properties in Jersey City, and their agents there had used money so extensively that they ruled absolutely a people supposed to be utterly corrupted. Bribery at the polls, election frauds, ballot-box stuffing — all sorts of gross political crimes had made this home of “common people” and corporations notorious. “Bob” Davis was the Democratic boss, politically speaking; but Mr. E. F. C. Young, banker, leading citizen, public utility magnate, was the business boss who, backing Davis, was the real power. Colonel Sam Dickinson, the Republican boss, was a corporation man, and one might expect that his party, which was in power in the state, would help him. But no. General Sewell, U. S. Senator, Pennsylvania railroad official, and Republican state boss, dispensed Republican patronage in Hudson County, through the Democratic boss, Mr. E. F. C. Young. Sewell was dead now, but the custom survived him, and in 1901 the Democrats nominated against Fagan,