Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/37



George T. Smith, Young’s son-in-law, an employee of the Pennsylvania. So Fagan had against him the money, the “best citizens,” the “solid, conservative business interests” of the state and city, and — both rings. Hence, the certainty that Fagan would be defeated. But even if he should win the big bosses believed they could “handle him.” They had sized up the man. And if you could size up Mark Fagan — feel his humility and see the pleading, almost dependent look of his honest, trustful eyes—you would understand how ridiculous to the big bosses the worry of the little bosses must have seemed.

An astonished city elected Mark. His quiet campaign from house to house, his earnest, simple promise to “serve you honestly and faith- fully,” had beaten bribery. His kind of people believed Mark Fagan, and so, though the Republican ticket as a whole was beaten, Mark was Mayor. Being Mayor, Mark assumed that he was the head of the city government. He didn’t understand that his election meant simply that his boss had come into his own. He saw Governor Murphy appoint Colonel Dickinson secretary of state, and he heard that the Colonel was to have some of the local patronage of the Republican state government. Mark might have assumed that he had “made” Dickinson. But