Jefferson--which well enough represented the ``respectable
elements''--that is, those citizens who were of the upper class.
There were two other clubs--the Blaine and the Tilden--which were
similarly representative of the ``rank and file'' and, rather, of
the petty officers who managed the rank and file and voted it and
told it what to think and what not to think, in exchange taking
care of the needy sick, of the aged, of those out of work and so
on. Martin Hastings--the leading Republican citizen of Remsen
City, though for obvious reasons his political activities were
wholly secret and stealthy--was the leading spirit in the Lincoln
Club. Jared Olds-- Remsen City's richest and most influential
Democrat, the head of the gas company and the water company-- was
foremost in the Jefferson Club. At the Lincoln and the Jefferson
you rarely saw any but ``gentlemen'' --men of established
position and fortune, deacons and vestrymen, judges, corporation
lawyers and the like. The Blaine and the Tilden housed a
livelier and a far less select class--the ``boys''--the active
politicians, the big saloon keepers, the criminal lawyers, the
gamblers, the chaps who knew how to round up floaters and to
handle gangs of repeaters, the active young sports working for
political position, by pitching and carrying for the political
leaders, by doing their errands of charity or crookedness or what
not. Joe House was the ``big shout'' at the Tilden; Dick Kelly
could be found every evening on the third --or ``wine,'' or
plotting--floor of the Blaine-- found holding court. And very
respectful indeed were even the most eminent of Lincoln, or
Jefferson, respectabilities who sought him out there to ask
favors of him.

The bosses tend more and more to become mere flunkeys of the