Chapter 46

THE BOSS.

After this statement, so satisfying to both, Leonore recovered her dignity enough to rise, and say, “Now, I want to pay you for your niceness. What do you wish to do?”

“Suppose we do what pleases you.”

“No. I want to please you.”

“That _is_ the way to please me,” said Peter emphatically.

Just then a clock struck four. “I know,” said Leonore. “Come to the tea-table, and we’ll have afternoon tea together. It’s the day of all others for afternoon tea.”

“I just said it was a glorious day.”

“Oh? yes. It’s a nice day. But it’s dark and cold and rainy all the same.”

“But that makes it all the better. We shan’t be interrupted.”

“Do you know,” said Leonore, “that Miss De Voe told me once that you were a man who found good in everything, and I see what she meant.”

“I can’t hold a candle to Dennis. He says its ‘a foine day’ so that you feel that it really is. I never saw him in my life, when it wasn’t ‘a foine day.’ I tell him he carries his sunshine round in his heart.”

“You are so different,” said Leonore, “from what every one said. I never knew a man pay such nice compliments. That’s the seventh I’ve heard you make.”

“You know I’m a politician, and want to become popular.”

“Oh, Peter! Will you let me ask you something?”

“Anything,” said Peter, rashly, though speaking the absolute truth. Peter just then was willing to promise anything. Perhaps it was the warm cup of tea; perhaps it was the blazing logs; perhaps it was the shade of the lamp, which cast such a pleasant rosy tint over everything; perhaps it was the comfortable chair; perhaps it was that charming face; perhaps it was what Mr. Mantalini called the “demd total.”

“You see,” said Leonore, shaking her head in a puzzled way, “I’ve begun to read the papers—the political part, I mean—and there are so many things I don’t understand which I want to ask you to explain.”

“That is very nice,” said Peter, “because there are a great many things of which I want to tell you.”

“Goody!” said Leonore, forgetting again she was now bound to conduct herself as befit a society girl. “And you’ll not laugh at me if I ask foolish questions?”

“No.”

“Then what do the papers mean by calling you a boss?”

“That I am supposed to have sufficient political power to dictate to a certain extent.”

“But don’t they speak of a boss as something not nice?” asked Leonore, a little timidly, as if afraid of hurting Peter’s feelings.

“Usually it is used as a stigma,” said Peter, smiling. “At least by the kind of papers you probably read.”

“But you are not a bad boss, are you?” said Leonore, very earnestly.

“Some of the papers say so.”

“That’s what surprised me. Of course I knew they were wrong, but are bosses bad, and are you a boss?”

“You are asking me one of the biggest questions in American politics. I probably can’t answer it, but I’ll try to show you why I can’t. Are there not friends whose advice or wish would influence you?”

“Yes. Like you,” said Leonore, giving Peter a glimpse of her eyes.

“Really,” thought Peter, “if she does that often, I can’t talk abstract politics.” Then he rallied and said: “Well, that is the condition of men as well, and it is that condition, which creates the so-called boss. In every community there are men who influence more or less the rest. It may be that one can only influence half a dozen other intimates. Another may exert power over fifty. A third may sway a thousand. One may do it by mere physical superiority. Another by a friendly manner. A third by being better informed. A fourth by a deception or bribery. A fifth by honesty. Each has something that dominates the weaker men about him. Take my ward. Burton is a prize-fighter, and physically a splendid man. So he has his little court. Driscoll is a humorist, and can talk, and he has his admirers. Sloftky is popular with the Jews, because he is of their race. Burrows is a policeman, who is liked by the whole ward, because of his kindness and good-nature. So I could go on telling you of men who are a little more marked than the rest, who have power to influence the opinions of men about them, and therefore have power to influence votes. That is the first step in the ladder.”

“But isn’t Mr. Moriarty one?”

“He comes in the next grade. Each of the men I have mentioned can usually affect an average of twenty-five votes. But now we get to another rung of the ladder. Here we have Dennis, and such men as Blunkers, Denton, Kennedy, Schlurger and others. They not merely have their own set of followers, but they have more or less power to dominate the little bosses of whom I have already spoken. Take Dennis for instance. He has fifty adherents who stick to him absolutely, two hundred and fifty who listen to him with interest, and a dozen of the smaller bosses, who pass his opinions to their followers. So he can thus have some effect on about five hundred votes. Of course it takes more force and popularity to do this and in this way we have a better grade of men.”

“Yes. I like Mr. Moriarty, and can understand why others do. He is so ugly, and so honest, and so jolly. He’s lovely.”

“Then we get another grade. Usually men of a good deal of brain force, though not of necessity well educated. They influence all below them by being better informed, and by being more far-seeing. Such men as Gallagher and Dummer. They, too, are usually in politics for a living, and so can take the trouble to work for ends for which the men with other work have no time. They don’t need the great personal popularity of those I have just mentioned, but they need far more skill and brain. Now you can see, that these last, in order to carry out their intentions, must meet and try to arrange to pull together, for otherwise they can do nothing. Naturally, in a dozen or twenty men, there will be grades, and very often a single man will be able to dominate them all, just as the smaller bosses dominate the smaller men. And this man the papers call a boss of a ward. Then when these various ward bosses endeavor to unite for general purposes, the strongest man will sway them, and he is boss of the city.”

“And that is what you are?”

“Yes. By that I mean that nothing is attempted in the ward or city without consultation with me. But of course I am more dependent on the voters than they are on me, for if they choose to do differently from what I advise, they have the power, while I am helpless.”

“You mean the smaller bosses?”

“Not so much them as the actual voters. A few times I have shot right over the heads of the bosses and appealed directly to the voters.”

“Then you can make them do what you want?”

“Within limits, yes. As I told you, I am absolutely dependent on the voters. If they should defeat what I want three times running, every one would laugh at me, and my power would be gone. So you see that a boss is only a boss so long as he can influence votes.”

“But they haven’t defeated you?”

“No, not yet.”

“But if the voters took their opinions from the other bosses how did you do anything?”

“There comes in the problem of practical politics. The question of who can affect the voters most. Take my own ward. Suppose that I want something done so much that I insist. And suppose that some of the other leaders are equally determined that it shan’t be done. The ward splits on the question and each faction tries to gain control in the primary. When I have had to interfere, I go right down among the voters and tell them why and what I want to do. Then the men I have had to antagonize do the same, and the voters decide between us. It then is a question as to which side can win the majority of the voters. Because I have been very successful in this, I am the so-called boss. That is, I can make the voters feel that I am right.”

“How?”

“For many reasons. First, I have always tried to tell the voters the truth, and never have been afraid to acknowledge I was wrong, when I found I had made a mistake, so people trust what I say. Then, unlike most of the leaders in politics, I am not trying to get myself office or profit, and so the men feel that I am disinterested. Then I try to be friendly with the whole ward, so that if I have to do what they don’t like, their personal feeling for me will do what my arguments never could. With these simple, strong-feeling, and unreasoning folk, one can get ten times the influence by a warm handshake and word that one can by a logical argument. We are so used to believing what we read, if it seems reasonable, that it is hard for us to understand that men who spell out editorials with difficulty, and who have not been trained to reason from facts, are not swayed by what to us seems an obvious argument. But, on the contrary, if a man they trust, puts it in plain language to them, they see it at once. I might write a careful editorial, and ask my ward to read it, and unless they knew I wrote it, they probably wouldn’t be convinced in the least. But let me go into the saloons, and tell the men just the same thing, and there isn’t a man who wouldn’t be influenced by it.”

“You are so popular in the ward?” asked Leonore.

“I think so, I find kind words and welcome everywhere. But then I have tried very hard to be popular. I have endeavored to make a friend of every man in it with whom one could be friendly, because I wished to be as powerful as possible, so that the men would side with me whenever I put my foot down on something wrong.”

“Do you ever tell the ward how they are to vote?”

“I tell them my views. But never how to vote. Once I came very near it, though.”

“How was that?”

“I was laid up for eight months by my eyes, part of the time in Paris. The primary in the meantime had put up a pretty poor man for an office. A fellow who had been sentenced for murder, but had been pardoned by political influence. When I was able to take a hand, I felt that I could do better by interfering, so I came out for the Republican candidate, who was a really fine fellow. I tried to see and talk to every man in the ward, and on election day I asked a good many men, as a personal favor, to vote for the Republican, and my friends asked others. Even Dennis Moriarty worked and voted for what he calls a ‘dirty Republican,’ though he said ‘he never thought he’d soil his hands wid one av their ballots.’ That is the nearest I ever came to telling them how to vote.”

“And did they do as you asked?”

“The only Republican the ward has chosen since 1862 was elected in that year. It was a great surprise to every one—even to myself—for the ward is Democratic by about four thousand majority. But I couldn’t do that sort of thing often, for the men wouldn’t stand it. In other words, I can only do what I want myself, by doing enough else that the men wish. That is, the more I can do to please the men, the more they yield their opinions to mine.”

“Then the bosses really can’t do what they want?”

“No. Or at least not for long. That is a newspaper fallacy. A relic of the old idea that great things are done by one-man power. If you will go over the men who are said to control—the bosses, as they are called—in this city, you will find that they all have worked their way into influence slowly, and have been many years kept in power, though they could be turned out in a single fight. Yet this power is obtained only by the wish of a majority, for the day they lose the consent of a majority of the voters that day their power ends. We are really more dependent than the representatives, for they are elected for a certain time, while our tenure can be ended at any moment. Why am I a power in my ward? Because I am supposed to represent a given number of votes, which are influenced by my opinions. It would be perfectly immaterial to my importance how I influenced those votes, so long as I could control them. But because I can influence them, the other leaders don’t dare to antagonize me, and so I can have my way up to a certain point. And because I can control the ward I have made it a great power in city politics.”

“How did you do that?”

“By keeping down the factional feeling. You see there are always more men struggling for power or office, than can have it, and so there cannot but be bad blood between the contestants. For instance, when I first became interested in politics, Moriarty and Blunkers were quite as anxious to down each other as to down the Republicans. Now they are sworn friends, made so in this case, by mere personal liking for me. Some have been quieted in this way. Others by being held in check. Still others by different means. Each man has to be studied and understood, and the particular course taken which seems best in his particular case. But I succeeded even with some who were pretty bitter antagonists at first, and from being one of the most uncertain wards in the city, the sixth has been known at headquarters for the last five years as ‘old reliability’ from the big majority it always polls. So at headquarters I am looked up to and consulted. Now do you understand why and what a boss is?”

“Yes, Peter. Except why bosses are bad.”

“Don’t you see that it depends on what kind of men they are, and what kind of voters are back of them. A good man, with honest votes back of him, is a good boss, and _vice versa_.”

“Then I know you are a good boss. It’s a great pity that all the bosses can’t be good?”

“I have not found them so bad. They are quite as honest, unselfish, and reasonable as the average of mankind. Now and then there is a bad man, as there is likely to be anywhere. But in my whole political career, I have never known a man who could control a thousand votes for five years, who was not a better man, all in all, than the voters whom he influenced. More one cannot expect. The people are not quick, but they find out a knave or a demagogue if you give them time.”

“It’s the old saying; ‘you can fool all of the people, some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time,’” laughed a voice.

Peter took his eyes off Leonore’s face, where they had been resting restfully, and glanced up. Watts had entered the room.

“Go on,” said Watts. “Don’t let me interrupt your political disquisitions; I have only come in for a cup of tea.”

“Miss D’Alloi and I were merely discussing bosses,” said Peter. “Miss D’Alloi, when women get the ballot, as I hope they will, I trust you will be a good boss, for I am sure you will influence a great many votes.”

“Oh!” said Leonore, laughing, “I shan’t be a boss at all. You’ll be my boss, I think, and I’ll always vote for you.”

Peter thought the day even more glorious than he had before.