Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/92



it better than he, but I didn’t go right out and fight. Neither did he. Why didn’t we ? We both supported the Republican party that fall, and the party was not changed. The truth, falling like that, didn’t kill; it didn’t even change things essentially.”

The Governor appointed a commission to investigate taxes, and the platform promised some reform, if reform should prove necessary. But the Republican nominee for Governor was “the Penn’s man,” Edward C. Stokes. And Colby and Fagan supported the ticket; they were “loyal to the party” which one said and the other admitted “represented corporations” and “betrayed the people.” Why did they do it? Why do men like John C. Spooner and Edward C. Stokes “go along”? They know, and their friends say, they grieve themselves sick. Why did Mayor Weaver “go along” so long in Philadelphia ? Everett Colby says he had excuses for the world, and some for himself. “The commission was to investigate and report,” and he, meanwhile, threw himself into a study of taxation. He broke away, finally; like Mayor Weaver and Mark Fagan, he made a stand in the end. And why did he do that? And why did Mayor Weaver and Mark Fagan do it?

The way Everett Colby will try, when you ask