Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/38



he was told that it was the other way around. They walked in upon Mark — the Colonel who “made” him; the editor of the paper that “elected” him; and General Wanser who was ready to help “unmake” him,— these and the other big Republican bosses who expected, as a matter of course, to give Jersey City a “good business government,” called on the Mayor-elect. Mark, who has no humour, tried to tell me how he felt when they came and took charge of him and his office. Putting one fist to his forehead, and pressing the other hand on the back of his head (a characteristic gesture), he said that he looked up to those men; he felt his own deficiencies of education and experience; he had a heavy sense of his tremendous responsibility; and he wanted help and advice, for he wished to do right. But, you see, he was Mayor. The people looked to him. He might make mistakes; but since he must answer for them to those people, man to man, you understand, and man by man, when he knocked again at their doors, why, Mark Fagan thought he ought to listen to “his party,” yes, and be “true to it,” yes; but after all, the whole people would expect him to decide all questions — all.

Mayor Fagan didn’t realize, at that time, that our constitutional governments were changed,