Jacob A. Riis 1849–1914. The Battle with the Slum. 1902.
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| is not the power he seems. He is formidable only in proportion to the amount of shaking it takes to rouse the community’s conscience. |
| The boss is like the measles, a distemper of a self-governing people’s infancy. When we shall have come of age politically, he will have no terrors for us. Meanwhile, being charged with the business of governing, which we left to him because we were too busy making money, he follows the track laid out for him, and makes the business pan out all that is in it. He fights when we want to discharge him. Of course he does; no man likes to give up a good job. He will fight or bargain, as he sees his way clear. He will give us small parks, play piers, new schools, anything we ask, to keep his place, while trying to find out “the price” of this conscience which he does not understand. Even to the half of his kingdom he will give, to be “in” on the new deal. He has done it before, and there is no reason that he can see why it should not be done again. And he will appeal to the people whom he is plundering to trust him because they know him. |
| Odd as it sounds, this is where he has his real hold. I have shown why this is so. To the poor people of his district the boss is a friend in need. He is one of them. He does not want to reform them; far from it. No doubt it is very ungrateful |