counterfeits. With the most ardent professions of civic purity and of horror at the prevailing corruption they have come forward on occasions, clothed in a fine and pompous garb of righteousness.
THE QUALITY OF "REFORMERS."
The very men who cheated cities, states and nation out of enormous sums in taxation; who bribed, through their retainers, legislatures, common councils and executive and administrative officials; who corruptly put judges on the bench; who made Government simply an auxiliary to their designs; who exacted heavy tribute from the people in a thousand ways; who forced their employees to work for precarious wages and who bitterly fought every movement for the betterment of the working classes—these were the men who have made up these so-called "reform" committees, precisely as to-day they constitute them.3
If there had been the slightest serious attempt to interfere with their vested privileges, corruptly obtained and corruptly enhanced, and with the vast amount of increment and graft that these privileges bought them, they would have instantly raised the cry of revolutionary confiscation. But they were very willing to put an end to the petty graft which the politicians collected from saloons, brothels, peddlers, and the small merchants, and thereby present themselves as respectable and public-spirited citizens, appalled at the existing corruption. The newspapers supported them in this attitude, and occasionally a sufficient number of the voters would sustain their appeals and elect candidates that they presented. The only real difference was that under an openly corrupt machine they had to pay in bribes for franchises, laws and immunity from laws, while under the "reform" administrations, which represented, and toadied to, them, they often obtained all these and more without the expenditure of a cent. It has often been much more economical for them to have "reform" in power; and it is a well known truism that the business-class reform administrations which are