``I'm a Democrat because when my father got too old to work, Mr.
House, the Democrat leader, gave him a job on the elevator at the
Court House--though that dirty thief and scoundrel, Kelly, the
Republican boss, owned all the judges and county officers. And
when my brother lost his place as porter because he took a drink
too many, Mr. House gave him a card to the foreman of the gas
company, and he went to work at eight a week and is there yet.''

Mr. Kelly and Mr. House belong to a maligned and much
misunderstood class. Whenever you find anywhere in nature an
activity of any kind, however pestiferous its activity may seem
to you--or however good --you may be sure that if you look deep
enough you will find that that activity has a use, arises from a
need. The ``robber trusts'' and the political bosses are
interesting examples of this basic truth. They have arisen
because science, revolutionizing human society, has compelled it
to organize. The organization is crude and clumsy and stupid, as
yet, because men are ignorant, are experimenting, are working in
the dark. So, the organizing forces are necessarily crude and
clumsy and stupid.

Mr. Hastings was--all unconsciously--organizing society
industrially. Mr. Kelly--equally unconscious of the true nature
of his activities--was organizing society politically. And as
industry and politics are--and ever have been--at bottom two
names for identically the same thing, Mr. Hastings and Mr. Kelly
were bound sooner or later to get together.

Remsen City was organized like every other large or largish
community. There were two clubs--the Lincoln and the