Category: History - American
This is not a book. It is a collection of articles reprinted from _McClure’s Magazine_. Done as journalism, they are journalism still, and no further pretensions are set up for them in their new dress. This classification may seem pretentious enough; certainly it would if I sh...
This is not a book. It is a collection of articles reprinted from _McClure’s Magazine_. Done as journalism, they are journalism still, and no further pretensions are set up for...
2. Part 2That was too subtle. So I answered that if they had no faith in the town, I had, and anyway, if I was wrong and the people should resent, not the crime, but the exposure of it,...
3. Part 3“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Folk, “I have secured sufficient evidence to warrant the return of indictments against you for bribery, and I shall prosecute you to the full extent of the...
4. Part 4Whenever anything extraordinary is done in American municipal politics, whether for good or for evil, you can trace it almost invariably to one man. The people do not do it. Nei...
5. Part 5Mr. Clarke does not talk much about his doings that summer; he isn’t the talking sort. But he does say that all he did was to apply simple business methods to his problem. In ac...
6. Part 6They will tell you in St. Louis that Butler never did have much real power, that his boldness and the clamor against him made him seem great. Public protest is part of the power...
7. Part 7The outlook was stormy. Mr. Folk felt now in full force the powerful interests that opposed him. The standing of some of the prisoners was one thing; another was the character o...
8. Part 8Minneapolis was an example of police corruption; St. Louis of financial corruption. Pittsburg is an example of both police and financial corruption. The two other cities have fo...
9. Part 9The graft of Pittsburg falls conveniently into four classes: franchises, public contracts, vice, and public funds. There was, besides these, a lot of miscellaneous loot—public s...
10. Part 10This enraged Thomas Steele Bigelow, E. M. Bigelow’s brother, and another nephew of old Squire Steele. Tom had an old grudge against Magee, dating from the early days of traction...
11. Part 11The Philadelphia organization is upside down. It has its root in the air, or, rather, like the banyan tree, it sends its roots from the center out both up and down and all aroun...
12. Part 12“Macing” is a form of high blackmail. When they have sold out all they have, the politicians form a competing company and compel the old concern to buy out or sell out. While Wi...
13. Part 13The thing to do was to beat the rascals. But how? Mr. Cole and his committee were pioneers; they had to blaze the way, and, without plans, they set about it directly. Seeking vo...
14. Part 14Fisher has carried the early practice of meeting politicians on their own ground to a very practical extreme. When tact and good humor failed, he applied force. Thus, when he se...
15. Part 15According to this, the standard course of municipal reform, the politicians are permitted to organize a party on national lines, take over the government, corrupt and deceive th...
16. Part 16Tammany men as grafters have a confidence in their methods and system, which, in the light of such perfection as that of Philadelphia, is amusing, and the average New Yorker tak...