THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE POLITICAL BOSS.
By T.
THE “boss” has come to be a recognized factor in politics everywhere. He seems to hold the balance of power in his hands, and he either rules or else exerts all his influence to ruin what and whom he can not bring under his control. Several of the States have been made to feel the power of the political boss in a very marked manner. There have been dead-locks and a prolonged contest in at least five States over the election of their United States senators. And the California and Pennsylvania Legislatures did not succeed in electing their senators at all. In all these States the work of the boss was very apparent, and in some of them the charges of bribery and fraud seemed to rest upon evidence that could not be set aside as untrue. But the boss is not confined in his work to senatorial contests. He is at work everywhere. His hand is seen in the ward caucus, in the local elections, and also in national affairs. One peculiar fact about the political boss is that no one can be found who will openly express a love for him. Every one will declare that he holds him in contempt. But still if you have a boss, you must have those who are bossed. In the very nature of things, when a man stands alone, and no one recognizes his authority, he can not be called a boss. But as soon as men begin to seek his favors and gifts, and prostrate their manhood before him in order to get them, then they create the boss. The boss does not create himself, but is made such by those who are willing to cater to some mere man in order to win his influence or his money. Then if the country is filled with political bosses and wire-pullers—and everybody seems to affirm that it is so—what does it indicate? Does it not show conclusively that men are becoming subservient, and that they are trucking to those that they themselves denominate as bosses? This is another link in the great chain of imperialism that is so rapidly turning this country on the backward movement. And how long can the present corrupt and corrupting work of the boss continue before the whole country is ruined? And if the torch of freedom that has been planted in America is snuffed out, what will be the fate of the rest of the world. These are questions that are at least worthy of most serious reflection.