clear of it. The System will sacrifice its own
children to have its dirty work done! Everett
Colby, fortunately, was “wise” enough to the
purposes of the bill to explain them to Percy
Rockefeller, and he sent his chum back to those
who had sent him with the message that not only
would he not father the thing, he would do his
best to kill it if anybody else introduced it. And
somebody else did introduce it, and when Colby,
the leader, opposed it, the System sent its other
messengers to him, not boys this time. No.
Governor Murphy and ex-Senator (now Governor) Stokes, “the Penn’s man.” The Governor called Colby a “Puritan” for his scruples; he said the great corporations threatened to leave
the state unless they were “treated fairly.” And
Stokes, backing up the Governor, said he, Stokes,
would be willing to go on the stump and advocate
a 50 per cent, law!
This opened a little the eyes of the young legislator. He didn’t see the System yet, but he was learning to. These were the leading men of his state and of his party, and the young assemblyman had great respect for them.
“But,” he says, “I saw then that they all were corporation men, and that they represented in politics the interests of corporations.”
Seeing this, he opposed and he helped to beat
