Chapter 11

THE POLITICAL BOSS

At an assembly-room in New York I met a famous American political "boss." Many governors in China do not have the same power and influence. I had letters to him from Senators ---- and ----. I expected to meet a man of the highest culture, but what was my surprise to see a huge, overgrown, uneducated Irishman, gross in every particular, who used the local "slang" so fiercely that I had difficulty in understanding him. He had been a police officer, and I understand was a "grafter," but that may have been a report of his enemies, as he commanded attention at the time of the election.

This man had a fund of humor, which was displayed in his clapping me on the back and calling me "John," introducing me to a dozen or so of as hard-looking men in the garb of gentlemen as I have ever seen. I heard them described later as "ward beetles," and they looked it, whatever it meant. The "Boss" appeared much interested in me; said he had heard I was no "slouch," and knew I must have a "pull" or I would not be where I am. He wished to know how we run elections on "the Ho-Hang-Ho." When I told him that a candidate for a governmental office never obtained it until he passed one of three very difficult literary examinations in our nine classics, and that there were thousands competing for the office, he was "paralyzed"--that is, he said he was, and volunteered the information that "he would not be 'in it' in China." I thought so myself, but did not say so.

I told him that the politicians in China were the greatest scholars; that the policy of the Government was to make all offices competitive, as we thus secured the brightest, smartest, and most gifted men for officials. "Smart h----!" retorted the "Boss." "Why, we've got smart men. Look at our school-teachers. Them guys[9] is crammed with guff,[10] and passing examinations all the time; but there ain't one in a thousand that's got sense enough to run a tamale[11] convention. The State governor would get left here if all the boys that wanted office had to pass an examination. We've got something like it here," he said, "that blank Civil Service, that keeps many a natural-born genius out of office; but it don't 'cut ice with me.' I'm the whole thing in the ward."

Despite his rough exterior, ---- was a good-hearted fellow, as they say, no rougher than his constituents, and I was with him several days during a local election with a view to studying American politics. Much of the time was spent in the saloons of the district where the "Boss" held out, and where I was introduced as a "white Chinee," or as a "white Chink," and "my friend." I wish I had kept a list of the drinks the "Boss" took and the cigars he smoked per diem. Perhaps it is as well I did not; you