St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-22
j. >. VANDIVER WRITES nook
CALLED "THE BOSS OF THE
WARD
VERY VANDIvERIAN IN STYLE,
HE SELECTS A HERO AND PRO-
CEEDs TO ROSS HIM UP IN
TfiE AIR.
THE AUTHOR IS CoLDLY CYNICAL.
Il
Assaiis everything Within Reach of
His Pen-In Politics for the
Pockets Sake.

j. >. Vandiver has written a book. It
may not reach the tremendous circula-
ton which an indulgent public has
granted to Ben Hur' and Zola's
Mana, and it may not find for itself
an undylng place on the top shelf of
the national gallery of fame, but this the
author candidly admits he does not eX-
pect In fact. he does not profess any
purpose in the publication. although he
ooes credit it with. an introduction, a
preface and moral. They might say
at the state auditors office that he could
only credit with a moral because he GER
ta1nly never had any morals to debit it
WITH This is bookkeeping joke, and
Mr.. Nandiver, as is now more or less
generally known, is the comptroller
OF the state auditors office, so to speak
without desiring to decrease the sale
OF Mr.. VandiVer's book, for he confesses
himself that he needs the money more
than he does the book, it is not violat-
ing either the ethics of the profession
or the international copyright laws to
introduce few excerpts from 1.-The
Boss Of the Ward,'' which is the title Of
the Vandiverian brochure.
AS the introduction is a good place TO
begin, it may be said that the intro
ductlon is gem. Among it's UNIQUE
expressions is this: mo man who has
maze an abortive attempt to half-sole
the m1snt throne of the Sandwich islands
can hgure in these pages" (This is
where BOD Dunn smiles) But Liluoka-
lanls guardian is not the only one who
does not combine the essentials of the
EandlVerlan IDEAL John Sherman and
sam Philips are likewise turned TO the
wall and the book is dedicated ITO nv
1althful yellow dog, whose wealth of
INDUSTRIOUS fieas give him a keen appre-
clatlon or the position of human be-
ing VINO has an office to bestow, and
whose grateful acceptance of a meat
less bone Is the.tonly adequate parallel
In the brute creation for the human
taxpayer who is accorded the honor Of
an interview with an alderman; to this
humble friend who possesses all. and
more than all, of the virtues of a ward
politician, with8 few Of his vices and
a superior order of intelligence. this vol
ume is respectfully dedicated with apol-
ogies to the dog Cfor mentioning him in
such company 7-E
1t will be observed that this trenchant
writer is coldly cynical He admits
that he is in politics for what there is
IN II, and 1ntfmates that when taxpayers
cease to offer acpremium for rascality.
he will quit competing for the premium.
Having thus cleansed himself of any
apparent purpose to preach from a
lofty moral plane, Mr.. Vandiver, ell
bowling amid the throngs of a ward
caucus. introduces his hero, Dan Lo-
gan, the boss Of the ward. He does
not tell whether Mr.. Logan wore a
moustache like, Oar Reese, or was
smooth-shaven like Tams iBixby, but
he does narrate how, within three DAYS.
Logan elected him delegate to a con
Vention, and he. promoted himself to
chairman of. the. campaign committee
much to Logans disgust, but admira-
ton withal. That is to say he claims
to have out-Loganed Logan, the boss
of the ward. BY this time the reader
is beginning to wonder which is the
hero, Logan or VandiNer, but the latter
solves this lady or the tiger enigma
by absolving himself from any heroic
tendencies. He entertained his admir-
ing heelers with a vivid description of
his campaigning that had never cam
paigned, closing with mysterious in
timation that there We're some things
in his past to which he did not care to
refer.
This was the only time I had come within
hailing distance of the truth but they con-
strued it to mean that had committed some
great election fraud They were ready
to fall down and worship me.
Chapter iv. details the process of
shaking down the officeholders, liquor
dealers and other people, and the DO
litical manipulation of the newspapers,
particularly the Independent papers,
He intfmates that this was where the
money largely went, and as he is now
on the staff of a paper which claims
to be independent he may be consid-
cred as an expert.
Chapter vi. has some of the suggest
iveness of a local picture. The writer
writes:
During the twenty years the city had accu-
mulated debt of $40, 900 900. OF the men
who had created this there was probably not
one out of twenty who was more than a
vote improvements and bond issues when
some one else foots the bills. Even Grover
Cleveland has discovered this. To tell the
truth, the boys had been pretty liberal with
the contractors. There were sidewalks pretty
well out toward the frontier of the state, and
there were streets graded on the most re-
markable engineering plans ever known. The
ldea mad been to. make cuts in the low
places and fills in the high ones. There
were bridges that nobody ever drove across
and street lamps that were never seen by
any one except the man who lit them There
were sewers that filled up with sand before
even a drop OF sewage went through them
and hydrants that could have been set I'D
for no other purpose than to extinguish
prairie fires. Men Who owned outlying prop
erty paid their assessments for few years
and then surrendered their lots in part pay
ment for the taxes. Sc r
This threw upon him and his commit
tee the watchword of Reform" The
issue was forced upon them, and they
had to face it. ATT first they would
not embrace in It the Sunday saloon
reform, but they afterwards did, as
this committee was supposed to be Re
publican. So they Topped and invited
ministers to attend their meeting.
They all came. They are just like other
people; they like to be considered of enough
importance to be invited tc participate in
things that they don't know anything about
Each man came there primed with enough
transformation and perverted energy to take
charge of the portfolio of state under Dem
ocratic administration. ! insisted that our
candidate for mayor should preside, but one
of them insisted that Rev. G.. U. Spottem,
a sensational divine and renowned temper
ance advocate, should have that honor. Dur
ing the three hours we were in session there
was not a CLEAN Of common sense. Here
were dozen of the most intellectual, most