Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/80



excise bills. Dickinson was Secretary of State and Republican boss of Hudson County, a “great fellow” like Lentz. And, like Lentz, Dickinson probably saw at once the uses of a fine, up-standing young gentleman to “stand for” a piece of dubious excise legislation. Colby looked over the bills; they seemed to him to be merely a weapon to help the Republican machine take away from the Democrats the control of Democratic Hudson County. He hesitated. He went to see the Governor about it. Governor Murphy was a gentleman and the father of a friend of Colby’s. The young assemblyman didn’t know that governors are usually mere figureheads for the System; he felt only that he could trust the Honourable Franklin Murphy. And when the Honourable Franklin Murphy pronounced the bills “all right,” Colby was reassured. He introduced them in the House.

Colby’s own pet measure — for every legislator thinks he must put some new law upon the books — was a normal school bill. Then Essex County wanted to have passed a bill providing for the purification of the Passaic River; of course, an Essex assemblyman was for that. But you have to have votes to pass bills, and Colby’s two bills lacked a majority. How could some more votes be got for them ? Colby and some others