organization man first assistant. When Folk refused, Butler could not understand it. Going away angry, he was back in three days to have his man appointed second assistant. The refusal of this also had some effect. The boodlers say Butler came out and bade them “look out; I can’t do anything with Folk, and I wouldn’t wonder if he got after you.” They took the warning; Butler did not. It seems never to have occurred to him that Mr. Folk would “get after” him.
What Butler felt, the public felt. When Mr. Folk took up, as he did immediately, election fraud cases, Butler called on him again, and told him which men he might not prosecute in earnest. The town laughed. When Butler was sent about his business, and Folk proceeded in earnest against the repeaters of both parties, even those who “had helped elect him,” there was a sensation. But the stir was due to the novelty and the incomprehensibility of such non-partisan conduct in public office. Incredulous of honesty, St. Louis manifested the first signs of that faith in evil which is so characteristic of it. “Why didn’t Mr. Folk take up boodling?” was the cynical challenge. “What do a few miserable repeaters amount to?”
Mr. Folk is a man of remarkable equanimity. When he has laid a course, he steers by it truly, and nothing can excite or divert him. He had said 123he
