well-known real estate man; R. R. Donnelly, the head of one of the greatest printing establishments in the city; and Hoyt King, a young lawyer who turned out to be a natural investigator. These made, with Cole himself, only seven, but he had the help and counsel of Kent, Allen B. Pond, the architect, Judge Murray F. Tuley, Francis Lackner, and Graham Taylor. “We were just a few commonplace, ordinary men,” said one of them to me, “and there is your encouragement for other commonplace, ordinary men.” These men were selected for what they could do, however, not for what they “represented.” The One Hundred, which the Nine were to complete, was to do the representing. But the One Hundred never was completed, and the ward committee, a feature of the first campaign, was abandoned later on. “The boss and the ring” was the model of the Nine, only they did not know it. They were not thinking of principles and methods. Work was their instinct and the fighting has always been thick. The next election was to be held in April, and by the time they were ready February was half over. Since it was to be an election of aldermen, they went right out after the aldermen. There were sixty-eight in all—fifty-seven of them “thieves,” as the League reported promptly and plainly. Of the sixty-eight, the terms of thirty-
