gone in there from their “respectable” wards, and their presence proved that they could get there; their speeches were public protests, and their votes, “no,” “no,” “no,” were plain indicators of wrong. But all this was not enough. The Civic Federation, a respectable but inefficient universal reforming association, met without plans in 1895. It called together two hundred representative men, with Lyman J. Gage at their head, to “do something.” The two hundred appointed a committee of fifteen to “find something to do.” One of the fifteen drew forth a fully drawn plan for a new municipal party, the old, old scheme. “That won’t do,” said Edwin Burritt Smith to Mr. Gage, who sat beside him. “No, that won’t do,” said Gage. But they didn’t know what to do. To gain time Mr. Smith moved a sub-committee. The sub-committee reported back to the fifteen, the fifteen to the two hundred. And so, as Mr. Smith said, they “fumbled.”
But notice what they didn’t do. Fumblers as they were, they didn’t talk of more exposures. “Heavens, we know enough,” said one. They didn’t go to the Legislature for a new charter. They needed one, they need one to-day, and badly, too, but the men who didn’t know what, but did know what not to do, wouldn’t let them commit 240the
