Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/61



So the fight that fall, in Jersey City, as in Essex County and in New York, as in Toledo and Cincinnati, and Cleveland and Philadelphia, and in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, was a fight against the bosses. And as in those places, so in Jersey City, the people crossed all party lines to follow the leader, and they beat the bosses. Mark Fagan was reelected Mayor of Jersey City, and he and Senator Colby and the reformers of Jersey combined against the interests which the bosses represented.

But never mind Jersey! What of Mark Fagan, the man who by following the facts, without a theory of reform, by tackling each obstacle as he approached it, came out upon the truth and gave his state its issues and aroused it finally to take part in the second war for independence that is waging all over this country? I have told simply the simple story of this simple man. The mystery remains. Why did Mark Fagan do it? That is what they ask in Jersey City, and that is what the commercial spirit of this Christian land asks of Folk and La Follette and Tom Johnson. What prompted them to do something for others? What are they after? What is there in it for them? And how and why do they win?

His bitterest foes—the grafters—concede Fagan’s honesty. “Bob” Davis was the only one