Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/43



puli begins to draw, we put it all up to Mark. ‘Blame him,’ we say; ‘we can’t help it,’ and they blame him. But that eases us, and, you see, Mark prefers it that way. He wants to stand for everything; everything. Oh, he should, yes, but you see, he wants to.”

The policy the Mayor and his corporation counsel outlined was to equalize taxation. They couldn’t raise the rates; the city was overburdened with taxes already, but the corporations probably dodged their share. Record didn’t know that they did; the Mayor was to see, and while he went about with the tax lists and an expert, Record had a talk with the boss, Dickinson. The Mayor had consented to let the Colonel have most of the patronage if “the party” would let him carry out his policy, and Record argued with Dickinson, that having made all the money he needed, it was time for him to play the big game of straight politics, take his ease and the credit of a good administration. Dickinson liked the idea.

The Mayor and his expert reported that the poor paid taxes on about 70 per cent, of the value of their property; privileged persons on about 50 per cent.; the corporations on all the way from 30 per cent, to nothing. Mark Fagan had a new purpose in life. The others laughed at the old, old story; it was new to Mark,