Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1913-12-20
CALFBCON0VER
csis ss' ,.~" 1LROADER
l.. CONovueS T.
Irs'.rO "A STORY OF LOVE, POLITICS. INTRIGUE.
''9s't II OF A RICH g. POWERFUL BOSS
X5SsSgZSS' AND AN INTREPID YOUNG
y REFORH1ER.
II s. lRI BY ALBERT PATSoN TGRHONE.
RAILROADER
PATSON TGRHUNE'
eT ALBERT 1A~SON TeRHOHg.

Gives lips parted in protest, but
Caleb waved his to silence.
"You were going to say some wise
thing about the peoples involate
rights, Ell? We've all got 'inviolate
rights But if we leave 'em laying
around loose and don't stand up for
EN-, we can't expect much pity when
someone else cops 'em away from US.
If try to turn you out of your house,
you've got right to prevent me. And
you would. If you sat by and let me
do, it you deserve what you got. If
try to turn the people out of their
rights in the Legislature and they
stand for it, who's got kick coming?
Once in a blue moon some man whose
brains have all run to lungs-nothing
personal-gets up and shouts to the
people that they're being conned.
Sometimes-not this time, mind you
they believe it, and they throw over
the Machine and elect a bunch of
wall-eyed reformers that know as
much about practical politics as a
corn-fed dodo bird knows about the
ology. What happens? The city and
the state are run in way that'd make
schoolboy cry. At the end of one
single administration there's a record
of incompetence and messed-up Off
cial affairs that takes century to
straighten out. The police have been
made so pure they won'a let ice and
milk be sold for sick babies on Sun
days, but they haven't time to keep
folks from being sandbagged in open
daylight. The Building Department
Commissioners are so incorruptible
II I L. L..sa L. l.,
of putty. And the contractors eat up
chunks of overpay for rotten work.
And so in every branch of govern
ment. The people get wise to all this,
and they decide it's better to be bled
by professionals and to get at least
part of their moneys worth in decent
service than it is to be bled just as
heavy by a pack of measly amachoors
and get no service at all. SO back
they come to the Boss, begging him
to get on the job again: Which he
does, being a self-sacrificing sort of
people, Likewise himself"
"The administration you describe is
the result of fanaticism, not real re-
form. It"
From where l sit, the difference
between the two amt so great as to
show to the undressed eye. You
speak Of lawyers and country editors
being bought by my passes. Is there
any law making them accept those
passes if they don't want 'em ? Could
| buy ONE of those men if he wasn't
for sale There's just one thing more
and then your little lessonll be over
and you can run home. All through
this delightful little reunion you've
kind of took the 'holier-than-thou
tone that's such a pleasing trait of
you reformers when you're dealing
with mere sane folks. Now, the best
thing that you can do is to take that
fool idea out for a walk and lose it,
for you not only amt no better than
me, but amt half the man, and never
will be half the man l am. You were
born with a gold spoon in your mouth.
The spoon was pulled out after you
grew up, but not till you had your
education and your profession. What
did you do? You had the best advan-
tages money could buy you. And for
all that, the most you could rise to
was measly everyday law practice.
That's all the dividends the tens of
thousands of dollars invested in your
future were ever able to declare, or
ever will be able to. l started life
dead broke. No education, no pull, no
cash, no prospects. / don't know just
how rich am today, but no ones go
ing to call you a lair if you put it at
forty millions. And Pm bossing big
ger territory-and bossing with more
power-than half the so-called high
and mighty kings of Yurrup. Now,
>. - 4 z
Where'd you be today? You'd be the
honest young brakeman on the
branch road or at best you'd be our
genial and rising young fellow-towns-
man. the second deputy assistant pas
senger agent of the C.. G. & X. That's
where you'd be. And you know it.
Had you the brains or the sand to
get where l am? Not you. Any
more than one Of those patent leather
'ristocrats in France had the genius