The Municipal Boss By W. D. Wattles

The present revolt against bossism and the recent destruction of several of the strongest and best constructed machines, naturally suggest the question as to the permanence of the results. The vital problem now is whether the boss will rise again, or whether a new one will come in his stead. To know the answer we must understand the causes and conditions which bring the boss into existence.

The supposition that the boss arises by virtue of his strong personality; that he is an organizer, a general, one born to command; that the “machine” is the product of his skill and genius, and that no one who does not possess the same elements of character can follow him, is wrong. The municipal boss is an effect rather than a cause. He is the product of certain forces, working under certain conditions, and so long as the forces are unchecked and the conditions unchanged, a new boss must inevitably be created to fill the place of every one the people may dethrone.

In municipal politics, the boss comes into being at the point where the criminal rich come in contact with the criminal poor. The criminal rich desire franchise privileges, which are among the most productive and valuable of all forms of property. How valuable they are may be better understood if we remember that a recent conservative writer estimates the franchise values of Greater New York at four hundred and fifty millions of dollars, a staggering sum, but the real market value of actual property which has been virtually stolen from the people. Property, too, of great earning power as compared with most other investments, capable of paying almost unlimited dividends; and often giving its possessors control over all other branches of business, even over life itself. And this property, amounting to half a billion dollars in New York alone and to an incalculable sum in the cities of the whole United States, has been appropriated by the criminal rich through the agency of the municipal boss.

In order to consummate these thefts, the franchise grabbers must have a purchasable city council. To elect and maintain a purchasable city council two things are necessary: a division of the “good” citizens against each other, and a boss to unify and keep solid the criminal poor as a balance of power.

The “good” citizens—by this term I mean the great mass of fairly well-meaning people—are kept divided by the extension of national political interests into municipal affairs. This division is the first condition essential to the development of the boss.

The criminal poor—meaning not merely professional criminals, but all who gamble, get drunk, have occasional fights, and are liable to get into trouble with the police—having with them the saloons, dives and all the hosts of graft and shady business, hold the balance of power. The boss maintains his hold upon them by means of his ability to help them out of trouble. The first step of the boss must be to corrupt the police force and the justices’ courts. This is not hard, for the police and the justices are usually very anxious to be corrupted; it pays them much better to be corrupt than to be honest.

So the boss comes in as a business agent between the criminal poor and the police, enabling the criminal to escape punishment, and the police to get rich by sharing in the profits of crime.

Under this régime the criminal poor are permitted to prey upon society by dividing their spoils with the police. The power of the boss is in his ability to withdraw his protection from any individual who may waver in his political support. The boss never preys upon the poor, whether criminal or not, he is always a friend in need, a refuge in time of trouble to those who follow without questioning.

By means of this following he elects his henchmen to the city council; and so it is to him that the criminal rich must come when they want to appropriate franchise property. The boss really steals the franchise and sells it to the rich.

Thus, under the boss régime, both the criminal rich and the criminal poor are permitted to prey upon society.

We understand, now, that the municipal boss is the product, first, of the political condition which keeps the good citizens voting against each other; second, of the condition which makes possible the private ownership and control of municipal public utilities; third, of two forces, equally desirous of preying upon society—the criminal rich and the criminal poor.

And it is evident that so long as the conditions continue and the forces are permitted to operate, the creation of new bosses is inevitable.

It is only possible to hold the good citizens together in independent organizations in a very spasmodic and uncertain fashion so long as the party system prevails in national politics, but it is always possible to unite them on any one question by means of the referendum. Therefore, the first condition may be changed by the enactment of laws requiring the submission of all franchise questions to the popular vote. On a referendum, the good citizens of all parties, if they vote intelligently, will present a united front to the forces of graft. This will prevent the consummation of new thefts, but it will not restore the property already stolen, except by the slow process of awaiting the expiration of the present franchise grants.

The second condition may be removed by training the people in knowledge of the practicability of the municipal ownership and operation of public utilities. Until the people believe in municipal ownership as a practical possibility, it is impossible; once they do believe, and are ready, it is probable that the laws of the States for the recovery of stolen property will be found sufficient to bring about the restoration to them of all that is rightfully their own.

At the end, we always come to the proposition that to check the forces of evil we must eliminate the profits of evil doing. There is no other way. By this plan, the social problems in which the municipal boss appears will be found easy of settlement, and possibly those connected with the state and national boss also. For they, like their prototype of the city, are not the great personalities we have deemed them, but merely the products of conditions easily changed and of forces amenable to control.