Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/94

 it impossible to elect him. He didn’t mention to Lentz how many pledges he had; but neither did he bow to the boss as bosses like to be bowed to.

Now political bosses are not really bosses; they are the agents of the real bosses, who are business men, I and when Colby got a telephone message to come to the Newark office of U. S. Senator Dryden, the young man, his eyes wide open now, realized that he was to see one of the men who represented one of the sovereign interests of his state. Senator Dryden, the president of the Prudential Life, was there, and with him was Lentz. The United States Senator was the financial head of the Public Service Corporation in New Jersey; not the president; Thomas C. McCarter is that. Dryden is the man back of McCarter as he is the man back of Lentz, and that is why he was a United States Senator; he represented one of the two great sources of the corruption of the state. He told Mr. Colby that he couldn’t be Speaker. Dryden is a pleasant-spoken man, and he appealed to his young friend’s” good feeling, explaining that since he couldn’t get the votes, it would weaken the prestige of their (Essex) delegation to run and fail. But Colby said he could get the votes. How did he know he could ? He knew it because he had