company had never cut off his gas. What would Mr. Spreckels do about it ?
“Treat him like anybody else,” was the answer.
When Mr. Spreckels told me of these incidents,
I explained to him that such things happened in most cities; that this was part of what business men called political blackmail; that business men, especially those in public service corporations, commonly submitted to and excused this corruption on the ground that, to protect the interests of their business and stockholders, they “had to.” They were “held up.”
“What do you say to that, Mr. Spreckels?”
“I say that you don’t have to be blackmailed, even if you are in the public service business.
A little backbone is all that is needed — unless you want things you shouldn’t have.”
“And that is true even as against a Labour government?”
Mr. Spreckels smiled. He knew that the “Labour” government was no more “labour” than the Republican party was “republican” and the Democratic party “democratic.” He knew that the boss and the leaders of the Labour party, and the officials of the Labour administration, were willing to sell out their followers and the city to capital. And this he knew at first-hand. Soon after he and t
