The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-11-10
GOODBYE, MIR. BOSS.

lative national significance, were
tional emotion. 1t was merely that
the time of the countrys awakening
to long-continued wrong fell at
moment when the issues were local
lied and not general. What happen
cd in New York, in Pennsylvania and
in Ohio was that which would have
happened elsewhere in the land had
the people had an opportunity to ex-
press themselves Reduced to its
basic meanings and stripped of local
vote. the results imply simply that
people have begun to think for them
selves to the extent of rebuking that
class of professional politicians who
have undertaken to teach the lesson
that thinking is impotent to get votes.
Today the bosses in three great cities
are wiping the dust from their eyes
and doing some thinking on their own
account: and the people, good-natured
giant that the public is, are wonder
ing at their strength!
Examined with some detail, it is
seen that Murphy in New York, has
had the greatest scare of lbs life in
that the rebuke which he caught at
the ballot box indicated something
else than the well known spasmodic
polls New York is used to reformers
who wither away in night. She is
not used to a practical man who
stands forth alone, on a record of
duty well done, and beats the finest
political organization the world has
ever known. She is not used to a
man who practically nominated him
self on a stringent platform that cor
porations and politicians should not
rule, and ran that same organizations
clean and strong candidate a neck
and neck race, because he was aSSo-
ciated with the "boss." Had McClel-
land not been a strong man nothing
could have saved him; had the people
not been aroused to white heat against
Murphy and his notorious methods,
Hearst's candidacy would have died in
the hour of it's birth.
In Philadelphia, a city where there
has been So long continued a rule of
corrupt men, Boss Durham has met
a defeat which is as crushing as those
he has been in the habit of giving
with a laugh and sheer to the scarce
~ more than formal opposition. which
decency has hitherto ventured to set
up against himself and his theories.
In Cincinnati another and one of
the longest lived and most absolute
of political tyrants-"Boss" Cox
made the issue in a victorious cam
paign, has already announced in his
chagrin that he would "retire from
politics..
The issue everywhere there was a
boss has been in reality the right of
the many to rule as against the few,
the right of the individual as a cit-
zen, as against his duty to his master
to dance in strings.
The uniformity of the results gives
high hope of the permanency of the
principle ennunciated
After all, the matter is one of edu-
cation. The boss is simply and solely
a survival of ignorance. His wea-
pons are crude in an enlightened age.
Aside from moral considerations the
majority can never be actually bought
by cupidity, because the loot is neces-
sarily for the few. In a time when
mon did NOT think en- yanara fboy
do today the boss came into being.
His successes, while making him
drunk, at the same time blinded the
people. Forlorn hopes. led by vision
airy men, went to pieces before the at
tack of the practical politician and
decency threw up it's hands and NOR
allied over the spectacle from affair."
That condition has now changed Men
see affairs as they are, they know
their strength, they no longer despair.
1t is a knowledge which will grow
with experience. which will be the
more effective as practice teaches the
simple rules of organization, which is
not necessarily an agreement for
theft and corruption. When that day
has come, and Tuesday foreshadowed
it, the word boss will have become
obsolete.
The record of municipal control has
been one of astounding Inconsistency.
Certainly in the city in which he lives,
man might be expected for self pres
ervation TO take an interest in the
government of the place of his resi-
dence. The way in which the city is
managed touches the citizen at a hun
dred points. 1t affects his pocket in
dozen different ways, it affects mis-
liberty. his happiness, the prosperity
and. largely, the morality of his chill
idren. Yet, in the vital point of his
political interest the average citizen
has been there the most Indifferent
The man who marched uD to the polls
with painful regularity every four
years to drop his mite for president
stayed away from the primary which
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