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The Fight for the City
As my interest in politics increased,so did the necessity for it.
As I had entered politics to protect my real estate from excessive taxation, so I had been slowly enveloped by it through my street railway and gas interests.
We were constantly opening streets, extending our tracks, or gas mains.
It was necessary to secure many privileges from the Council and the Administration.
In time our Superintendent, who was familiar with all the boys, came to place their friends and relatives in positions of employment.
We were able to do this through the thousands of employees upon our pay rolls.
In this way we were able to keep on friendly terms with the aldermen; while the Director of Streets was usually appointed at my suggestion.
In course of time the expiration of our franchises began to concern us.
They had been originally granted for twenty-five years at a time when they were of questionable value.
As time went on, however, and the city grew, the public came to appreciate the value of our grant, which was evident in the quotations of our stock.
Moreover, the capitalization had been more than trebled by us in order to keep down the dividends to a reasonable limit.
The renewal of these franchises had become a political issue.
One of the newspapers which we had not been able to control, insisted upon absurd concessions from the company.
They pointed to the fact that our stock had been watered and that the plant could be duplicated at the present time at about one-fourth of the selling price of the securities.
They aroused class feeling and were threatening our property rights.
Another company had secured possession of several streets which we had neglected to occupy because they did not seem necessary to us.
This company was controlled by another crowd in the city, who were backed by a couple of banks.
They offered to accept the franchises enjoyed by us on terms more advantageous to the city.
They said they would give universal transfers and a percentage of their gross receipts if our franchises were renewed to them.
They also offered to purchase our plant at its appraised value.
The universal transfers appealed to the working classes, who saw in this a material reduction in their car fare; while payment of a portion of the gross receipts to the city treasury appealed to the property owners, who saw in it a means of reducing their taxes.
A municipal election was approaching, and the Mayor and Council who were to be elected would have the franchise to dispose of.
There was considerable talk of nominating for Mayor upon the Republican ticket a successful business man by the name of Sterling, who had no political experience.
I was not personally acquainted with Sterling and could get but little definite information about him.
I sent one of our stockholders to find out how he stood on the franchise question, but his replies were not to our satisfaction.
He said that he could not see why the city should not treat the question just as an individual would,—why the franchise should not be given to the company offering the largest return.
It was a simple business proposition, and while he had not given the matter much thought, it seemed to him the company could well afford to pay liberally for the privilege.
I asked Sterling to come and see me, for as Chairman of the Republican Committee I was interested in the make-up of the party ticket.
I tried to make him see our point of view.
We had come into the city, I said, when the street railway business had little money in it.
We had made our investment on a speculative proposition.
Through the growth of the railway system the city had been developed; its boundaries had been extended and the railway had been a great agency in its upbuilding.
It was true, I admitted, that our stock was worth more than the physical value of the property, but then so was the stock of any corporation that had any good will attached to it.
Moreover, many of our stockholders were widows and orphans, and it would be unjust to deprive them of their property, which would be done if the terms of our franchise were materially modified or we were dispossessed of the rights of way we had enjoyed for so long.
I tried to make him see our point of view and the reasonableness of our wishes.
He finally said that if the things I said were true, we ought to be able to carry passengers cheaper than anybody else, because we knew the situation, we had possession.
Anyway he thought the franchises ought to.be disposed of to the company that offered the best terms.
I was unable to make anything out of him.
He was not open to reason.
So I sent for a lot of party leaders and told them flatly that if Sterling were nominated, they could expect no campaign funds from us or from any of the banks or companies in which I was interested; that we would not stand for such a candidate.
He was threatening the property rights that we had built up, and was a dangerous man.
I knew I had sown the seed in the right place.
Pretty soon interviews began to appear in the papers about his candidacy.
Some one dug up a story about a strike that he had once had in his factory.
It was not much of a strike, and had been very shortly settled; but it was hinted that this would alienate the labor vote.
Moreover, it was suggested that he was a reformer.
This idea was exaggerated until in a few days’ time he appeared to be a fanatic.
The boys said he was too good; that he would enforce the Sunday closing laws on the saloons.
At that the brewing interests and the Liquor League became alarmed.
They protested against the nomination of Sterling and insisted that the people wanted a liberal Sunday.
By this means in few days’ time almost all of the active political workers were arrayed against Sterling.
He had not sufficient experience in politics to get at the newspaper
men himself, and was easily disheartened at the opposition which his candidacy seemed to arouse and the change which had come over the public sentiment.
For prior to that time his nomination had been looked upon as a foregone conclusion.
I had some of our friends call upon him and suggest that he ought not to go into politics anyhow.
They said that it would hurt his business; that it would not only make a lot of enemies for him, but that it would be necessary for him to neglect his other interests.
We got some of the labor leaders to make an investigation of his strike.
The Liquor Dealers’ Association came out in interviews against him.
Much of this was inspired by us, and reached the rank and file of the party through the ward leaders.
A few days before the Convention, Sterling announced that he would not be a candidate under any circumstances, and his name was not even presented.
As a man he was a most estimable fellow, and had he been reasonable upon street railway matters, I should have been pleased to have seen him Mayor.
All this time we had been preparing to spring our own candidate when the time was ripe.
We had picked out a young fellow who had been a very satisfactory alderman and who was well known to me.
I had secured a position for one of his brothers in a bank, while I had helped him in very substantial ways in his business.
Jackson was a man of commonplace abilities, with a general reputation of being a good fellow.
He was properly anxious to succeed, made very few enemies, and was open-minded and liberal in his views.
The Mayor enjoyed very large powers.
Not only did he exercise the veto, but he appointed the departmental heads, and through them distributed the patronage of the party.
In this way he controlled or was in a position to control the machine which it was necessary for us to have in hand.
The principal fight, however, was likely to be for the Council.
Our Superintendent had this in hand.
He picked out men here and there as candidates, supplied them with funds to carry on their campaign, and organized local political clubs to aid them.
Most of these candidates were comparatively unknown.
Many of them were under substantial obligations to us in many ways.
It was always possible for me to help them through the party organization, for as I was Chairman and practically the Treasurer as well, there was no difficulty in this respect.
In this way we were able to control most of the ward caucuses, and the majority of the men nominated for the Council were our choice.
The vote for delegates to the Nominating Convention was light.
On the evening before the Convention we had a conference in my office and fixed up the slate.
Enough men were taken into our confidence to make sure of the arrangement going through easily, and in the morning the idea was quietly circulated from group to group until it became the sense of the Convention.
Whatever opposition existed was unorganized and badly led.
Moreover, we controlled the temporary Chairman who called the Convention to order and appointed the Committee on Credentials.
Through these means we were in a position to seat friendly delegations had contests been necessary.
Everything was so well greased, however, that no serious contests arose.
Our man was made Permanent.
Chairman and the slate as made up went through without dissent.
Jackson was nominated without opposition, and the Executive Committee, which had control of the Republican organization, was organized to our satisfaction.
All was now easy sailing.
The city was safely Republican by several thousand votes, and I had the party thoroughly in control, for the Executive Committee was not only of my selection, but as I controlled the campaign funds and the organization made up of the existing city employees, opposition would have been foolish as well as ineffectual.
However, I had always found it wise to keep in touch with the Democratic organization as well.
While they had not elected a Mayor for many years, there were many wards from which they returned aldermen, and it was necessary to keep on good terms with them.
In line with this programme I had picked out Terence McGann as the head of the Democratic organization.
He was a man for whom I had a great liking, and he was very fond of me.
I had started him in politics.
He was a lusty Irishman of about thirty years of age, and had been interested in politics all his life.
When I first met him he was working in a bottling works, and I had recognized him as a natural politician.
He was one of the radiant kind.
He was as frank and cordial to me as to any one of the boys.
I liked him, and he liked being liked.
There was a certain big natural dignity about him, too, that made him a born leader.
It always did me good to see him enter my office, he cheered things up so much, I had started him in business, having loaned him sufficient money to open a saloon.
Soon his influence extended from his ward into the surrounding district.
His very instinct for doing a kindly thing made him liked, and added to this he had been able to place many men in our employment from all over the city.
This fact added to his power with the boys.
In addition to this he always had a bunch of money at election time, and as the Democratic party was a minority one and had few offices at its disposal, this gave him strong claims to the leadership.
I had induced him to try to secure control of the organization, and there being little opposition, he was easily successful.
Terence had never made any money out of politics himself; he was comparatively poor and was in politics because he liked it.
I used to send my own family physician around to attend his family when they were ill, and on one occasion had supplied him and his wife with railroad passes to Atlantic City.
And all the boys liked him.
He took care of them; and was unremitting in his efforts to secure them positions.
His idea of an honest politician was one who would “stay bought.”
So far as his relations with me were concerned, it was always on the assumption that I was in politics for the same reason that he was, because I liked it, or enjoyed power, or for some other reason that he could not make out.
At any rate, he always assumed an air of ignorance of what I wanted.
By this time I thoroughly appreciated the necessary intimacy between my business and politics.
They were identical.
They depended upon each other.
And in devoting myself to politics I was in reality devoting myself to business.
I sent for Terence.
The following day he came in to see me, and I asked him who they were going to run for Mayor this fall.
“The Democratic Convention is coming on in a few weeks,” I said, “and I presume you will be able to control the situation as usual.”
“That’s the thing I have been wanting to see you about for some days,” he said.
“You know we have been talking about Williams, who ran before.
Well, we can nominate him, all right, and he will be defeated just as he was before, unless Jim Ballantyne makes us some trouble.”
I had seen Ballantyne’s name in the papers, but did not know anything about him.
I asked Terence who he was.
“Well, he is a young fellow who came to the city some years ago and has been making himself busy in politics lately.
He recently made a corking speech at the Jackson Day banquet, and got the boys all stirred up.
He is the fellow who defended the Moulders’ Union in the United States Court, in an injunction suit brought to prevent their picketing during the strike.
The laboring men are all for him, and say he can beat your man in a walk.
He is very popular with the boys, and while we control the Committee and can organize the Convention all right, if he goes out for the nomination and makes a canvass, I fear he will beat us hands down.
For Williams isn’t strong, and I do not see what I can do if he is nominated except get into the band wagon.
I went to see Ballantyne myself the other day to see how he feels about running.
He said he had not yet made up his mind; that he did not think he could afford to run, but that he was going into the Convention to show up the fact that the Democratic party was just a part of the Republican machine; that it did not stand for anything and had been bought and sold long enough.
He opened up pretty hot on you, too.
He said it was a nice situation when a man could not run for office on either the Republican or Democratic tickets without asking the Street Railway Company’s permission.
He also said that if he ever were Mayor, you would have to pay the city every dollar the new franchises were worth and your taxes as well.
Just as I was going out he said: “You might tell Palmer from me, Terence, that I have the affidavit of Frank Buckley, who was sent to the penitentiary last week for accepting a bribe while on the jury in that street railway personal injury case, that I know where the money came from that bribed him, and that in the future Palmer had better not let his notes to his Superintendent get mixed up with the currency, He says he has a letter that he got from Buckley written by you, putting up the job to bribe the jury.
‘And you might tell him,’ he added, ‘that Buckley is a lot more honest than the man who gave him the money; and that, moreover, he was square, for he preferred to go down the road for three years, rather than give up the evidence that would have soaked Palmer and his Superintendent as well.’”
Here was a pretty situation.
I remembered writing such a note, and slipping it in a bunch of bills that I had sent to Staunton, our Superintendent.
If Ballantyne had this note he might present it to the Grand Jury.
If he ran for Mayor he might use it publicly.
This was the worst box I had ever gotten into.
I was at first inclined to take a trip to Europe until the whole thing blew over, and would have done so had not the franchise question been so important.
I let Terence go, and asked him to find out anything more about Ballantyne that he could, and the feeling among the boys, and come back and tell me in the morning.
I then sent for our attorney and laid the situation before him.
He was a resourceful lawyer and had drawn many franchises for us that were as full of barbs as a rose bush of thorns.
They contained simple provisions that passed the scrutiny of the public, but when once in held the community like an anchor.
He saw the situation at a glance.
“We must get Ballantyne out of the way for the present,” he said.
“Do you think him honest?”
“Apparently so,” I replied, “and that is Terence’s opinion.”
“I think I can arrange that,” he said.
“What would you think of making him special attorney for the company?
Give him some of the trial work to do.
I can tell him that there is more of that work than we can properly attend to; that we have been watching his court work for some time, and want to employ him by a special retainer to look after a portion of it for us.”
That was a brilliant inspiration.
“Offer him five thousand a year,” I suggested.
“Even seventy-five hundred, if necessary.
Get a contract with him for three years if you can.”
“Long enough to cover the statute of limitations,” he suggested, with a smile.
But Ballantyne was not to be had so easily.
He took the matter under consideration.
He said he had a couple of cases against the road that he would have to try before he could decide.
The next few weeks were the most uncomfortable I had ever passed.
I was more than ever tempted to cut and run away.
I would wake up in the night thinking of the power Ballantyne held over me.
But I concluded to wait for the Democratic Convention.
With Terence we had prepared a slate that the Republican ticket could easily defeat.
Williams was to be nominated for Mayor, and the councilmanic nominees had all been provided for.
Ballantyne did not seem to be making any canvass, and I had about concluded that he was not going to run.
The Democratic Convention met at nine in the morning.
About noon I received a telephone message from Terence, saying that he wanted to see me right away, but that he did not want to come to my office.
“Meet me in room 360 in the Arlington Hotel,” I said.
“I will be right over.”
When I reached the hotel Terence was already in the room.
I could see that things had gone wrong.
“What happened, Terence?” I asked.
“Oh! they have cleaned up the organization, broken the slate and carried everything their own way,” he said.
“By some means or other they got control of O’Brien, the Temporary Chairman, and he declared their man elected Permanent Chairman.
That devil of a labor leader, Cowen, put Ballantyne in nomination, and he got three-fourths of the vote, and then the Convention made it unanimous.
They stole the organization from us, and paid the Temporary Chairman for his desertion by nominating him for President of the Council.
I never saw such a wild lot of Democrats in my life.
But they put up a fine ticket, and, unless I am much mistaken, are going to give you and your man, Jackson, a run for your life.”
I saw that Terence was inclined to go with his party, and he seemed to think that I was responsible for his defeat and the discredit into which he had come with the organization.
I felt that I would have to act in a very careful way or he would go over to Ballantyne with the organization.
That was a thing which must be stopped at all hazards, for I had to make use of the Democratic party, and to use Terence to do it.
So I said quickly: “Of course you could not help it, Terence.
The trouble was, the Citizens’ Railway, that is trying to get possession of our franchises, put up too much money.
They bought the Convention and nominated Ballantyne.
They must have lined up the delegates in some way, and are trying to beat us out of the way.”
Then I showed him how his control of the party would be destroyed if Ballantyne were elected.
“For, of course, he will build up a machine of his own,” I said, “and the present organization will not be recognized.
He has made war on you, Terence, when he should have come to you as the head of the party.”
Finally I said: “Now, Terence, you know we have never been defeated; we have a safe majority here of from two to three thousand, and if Jackson is elected, as he will be, I will arrange so that you and your friends are taken care of.
He is under obligations to me; I will tell him that as the contest is close he cannot afford to ignore any help that you can give him.
I think I can arrange so that you will be permitted to control the nominations on the Police force if you throw your support to Jackson.
This will not be so difficult,” I said, “because that department is under civil service rules, and if he appoints Democrats instead of Republicans, the public will say that he is conducting the department on a non-partisan basis.”
Terence seemed to be fully convinced that he had been badly treated; that he had been defeated, too, through the use of money, and that if Ballantyne were elected his influence would be at an end.
To clinch matters, and put him under further obligations, I said:
“I have just received word this morning from the Superintendent of our mines at Spring Valley that he wants a new superintendent.
I concluded to offer the place to your brother if you think he would care to accept it.”
The campaign began in good earnest.
Both of the leading papers were owned by influential men.
Within the next few days I had a half dozen leading advertisers go to the editor of the Herald, the Democratic organ, and suggest that while they did not want to appear to be interfering with the policy of the paper, the Democratic party had nominated a man for Mayor whom it would be dangerous to see elected.
They said he was working with the labor unions; was nominated by them, and that should a strike break out in the city there was no knowing what he would do.
There was danger that he would not protect property and would refuse to call out the militia in case of disturbance.
The city already had a bad name among business men the country over, they suggested; and if it were known that a labor leader was Mayor, it would probably hurt its business interests.
This had its visible effect, for while the Herald did not openly endorse the Republican candidate, it did not support Ballantyne, and gave its columns to the fullest discussion of our meetings and printed any news we sent them.
Ballantyne plunged right into the campaign.
He made the street railway issue prominent.
He ignored the residence districts almost entirely, holding his meetings in the mill and factory districts.
He turned out to be a good campaigner, and worked up public sentiment as I had never known it to be aroused on a local election.
I went to hear him at the opening meeting.
He said the question before the people was a simple one.
It was, “Shall the corporations control the city, or the city control the corporations?”
He coined a whole lot of phrases like: “It is better for the city to help than to hurt,” meaning that the poorer classes should be given a chance to work in some honest way, rather than in the workhouse; or “An ounce of recreation is worth a pound of punishment;” “The saloon is the poor man’s club.
Make the parks the poor man’s club;”
“It is better to make people happy than to make them fearful.”
I could see by the faces of the men that he was awakening their interest.
So far as I could learn, he had no money to spend.
His workers were always the voluntary ones.
Unconsciously, I became interested in what he was saying, and crowded to the front.
He evidently recognized me, for after he had continued in this way for some time, he concluded by saying:
“As you know, I am not a politician.
I have never had as much experience in politics as many of you who are here.
But during the past few years I have seen enough of this city to know that it has not mattered much which of the two parties was in power, for in either event the gentleman who stands before me, Mr. Palmer, was the real ruler of the city.
For years you and I have gone to the polls, cast our votes for one candidate or another, but whoever was elected we were merely voting the one ticket, and that ticket was made up by William Palmer, the President of the Electric Railway Company.
Today he is Chairman of the Republican Executive Committee.
He made out a slate for the Republican Convention, and you and I and all the people of this great city read in the papers the morning before the Convention just who was to be nominated, and we read it without a suggestion of surprise.
We have become so accustomed to having such things done for us that we have ceased to care, and the shame is that the same thing has been true of our own party.
Who has been the leader of the Democratic party?” he asked.
“Terence McGann,” some one said.
“Yes, Terence McGann,” he replied.
“I have no desire to say anything mean of Terence, for so far as I know he never did a mean or dishonest thing in his life; and while he and I are on different sides in this contest, I will leave it to the gentleman who has recently entered this room, Mr. William Palmer, if Terence McGann did not confer with him just prior to the Democratic Convention in order to make up a slate, and if he and Terence did not have a meeting in the Arlington Hotel immediately after the Convention to map out plans to beat the Democratic ticket.
“I make that charge, Mr. Palmer, and ask you to come forward on the platform and deny it if you care to, for I have no desire to do any man injustice, and I have every reason to believe that you will tell the truth.”
I did not move.
I was taken by surprise.
The crowd all turned and looked at me.
I started to the speaker’s stand, I scarcely knew why.
I looked into the faces of the first crowd I had ever addressed.
As calmly as I could, I said:
“I came out as a citizen to hear both sides of this case.
It is true I am the President of the Electric Railway; but am I for that reason an enemy of the people?
Think what you would do if you had to walk miles to your work.
Think what the street railway company has done for the upbuilding of the city.
Do we not pay taxes the same as do other people?
Do we not give good accommodation?
Is it not a legitimate industry?
Times are good,” I said.
“The country is prosperous.
Men have work and wages are high.”
Then turning to Ballantyne, I said:
“I do not feel called upon to answer your questions.
You are a lawyer out here stirring up class feeling in a country which, thank God, is free from classes.
You are arousing a spirit of discontent, of socialism, of anarchy; and it will be a sad day for the good name of this city and for its industries if a socialist leader like you is elected Mayor.”
This seemed to have a visible effect upon the audience, for I have noticed that even the laboring man is fair-minded and looks out for his own interests.
But I did not like the enthusiasm of that crowd.
I saw many of our own party workers there, and heard that they were more or less indifferent in the campaign.
The next day I called a large number of business men into my office.
I told them of my experience the night before.
“This is getting serious,” I said.
“If that man is elected Mayor, property will not be safe.
Manufacturing plants will no longer come here.
He will raise the taxes and drive business from the city.”
We started in to raise a large campaign fund.
I suggested that we organize a City Reform Club.
I called in one of the leading clergymen and had a talk with him.
I said: “Dr. Jameson, this present contest is one the clergy cannot afford to neglect.
This campaign threatens the home.
The Democratic party is in league with the liquor interests.
They will throw open the saloons on Sunday if Ballantyne is elected, and I happen to know that they have raised a large fund for his election.
And you know what will happen if they get into control—we will have an open Sunday; the city will be an open town, the gambling houses will run again, and our children will not be safe from this evil, while we will be subjected to all of the criminal things that follow a European Sunday.
Don’t you think it would be a good thing for the churches to do a little campaign work?
Isn’t it a good proverb to follow, “When bad men conspire, good men should organize’?
“Now, if you can arrange for a citizens’ organization to hold a big public meeting a few nights before the close of the campaign, and also have all of the ministers preach a sermon on the necessity of taking an interest in local matters about the same time, I think you would be doing a great service to the city that already owes you so much.
And in case the meeting is arranged for, I think I can secure any money you may need from some of the members of your congregation.”
Prior to this time I had sent a man to Ballantyne’s old home to learn what I could about his early life, and what sort of a citizen he had been prior to coming to the city.
But all reports showed him to be an industrious young fellow who had worked his way through college and had studied law while teaching school.
I also got some of our stockholders to call on the members of the City Reform Club.
I knew many of its contributing members, and some of them were connected with me in the same banks.
These I induced to appear before its executive committee and urge the necessity of ridding the city of the dangerous demagogic influences that had arisen in the Democratic party.
They also spoke of the necessity of protecting the city from an open Sabbath and the control of the saloons.
Soon all of these influences were thoroughly aroused.
They organized local ward committees in the churches, while the Reform Association began to issue bulletins on the mayoralty situation.
This they had never done before, as they were organized simply for councilmanic matters.
But they justified themselves by saying that the issue before the people was so momentous that they had decided to enter the field and protest against the election of a man who was manifestly designing to create a machine; a man who was in league with the liquor element, and who had said in his public speeches that the saloon was the poor man’s club, and that until the people furnished him something better, the working man was not to be condemned for going there.
The Sunday before election all of the churches preached a crusade against Ballantyne.
They did not mention him in so many words nor attack the Democratic party, but they urged the people to be aroused to the election, to defend their families and their homes from the saloon, from the demagogic utterances that were arousing class feeling in America.
There did not seem to be a chance for our defeat.
The sentiment against Ballantyne was so strong that the betting was two to one in favor of Jackson, the Republican candidate, who had been almost overlooked in the campaign.
This was fortunate for us for he was not a good speaker, and had done little in the Council, although he was a good fellow and an active church worker.
But the Council was as important to us as the Mayoralty.
To this we devoted much of our attention.
The Mayoralty contest was so absorbing that the public paid little particular attention to the Council.
McGann had picked men for us in the sure Democratic wards, and had supplied them with such funds as they needed, while I had chosen the men in the Republican wards which we could control.
This was a comparatively easy matter, as McGann was familiar with his men through the Democratic organization, while I knew all of the men on the Republican ticket.
They came to me for funds, and in this way I made myself acquainted with their necessities, habits, positions and friends.
I made any assistance that was given them a personal matter, and talked about the party, and the necessity of keeping things in line owing to the Presidential election that was coming on the following year.
On election day the odds were three to one against Ballantyne.
The better element, by that I mean the men of wealth who usually remain away from the polls, was aroused by the work which had been done by the Reform organization and the churches.
They came out early and voted straight.
All indications were that a large vote would be polled, and that the entire Republican ticket would go through.
In the evening of election day we all met at the Metropolitan Club.
The Republican candidate was there and a special wire had been run into the rooms.
The early wards to come in were the Democratic ones about the mills.
They showed Ballantyne gains; but that was to be expected.
The East End wards were slow in coming, and they would easily overcome that by reason of the large vote which had been polled.
In this we were not disappointed, and after a goodly sprinkling of Republican wards had showed up, all indicating a good vote, we began to feel more easy, and be pretty confident of the result.
But the outlying mill wards continued black.
The feeling for Ballantyne seemed to be very strong there.
Soon one of the German wards came in, a conservative, well-to-do ward, usually Republican.
Even it showed heavy Democratic gains.
These same losses came from one after another of the foreign wards. Thompson, one of our directors, said: “That shows the socialism that is being brought to America by those who come here for freedom, and then don’t seem to be satisfied with it when they get it.
Our naturalization laws ought to be changed,” he said.
“What do these men know of American institutions?
They come here, and after a few years’ time have as much influence at the ballot as any one of us who have lived here since the founding of the city.
We ought to limit the suffrage to those who pay taxes.”
By ten o’clock Ballantyne was in the lead.
But there were still some heavy Republican wards to hear from.
They came in slowly.
But the Democratic gains continued, and by midnight the extras were out announcing Ballantyne’s election by several thousand majority.
We could hardly believe the result.
No one had expected it save Ballantyne, but he had confidently claimed his election from the first.
We had been beaten at the polls.
For the first time in our experience we had failed to control the situation.
The people had been carried away by an appeal to class feeling.
Nothing remained to do but to carry the fight into the Council, and for this we were well prepared.
We could easily control a majority of the aldermen, and if Ballantyne could not be brought over to us, we felt pretty confident of our ability to secure enough votes to override his veto.
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