The "boss" controls the situation, gives and "takes," and the other citizens get the satisfaction of thinking they are a free people. In reality, they are political slaves, and the "boss," "sub-boss," and the long line of smaller "bosses" are their masters. Very much the same situation is seen in national politics. The party is controlled by a "boss," and at the present this personage is a millionaire, named Hanna, said to be an honest, upright man, with a genius for political diplomacy, a puller of wires, a maker of Presidents, having virtually placed President McKinley where he is. This man I met. Many of the politicians called him "Uncle Mark." He has a familiar way with reporters. He is a man of good size, with a face of a rather common type, with very large and protruding ears, but two bright, gleaming eyes, that tell of genius, force, intelligence, power, and executive talents of an exalted order. I recall but one other such pair of eyes, and those were in the head of Senator James G. Blaine, whom I saw during my first visit to America. Hanna is famous for his _bonhomie_, and is a fine story-teller. Indeed, unless a man can tell stories he had better remain out of politics, or rather he will never get into politics. As an outsider I should say that the power of the "boss" was due to the fact that the best classes will have none of him, as a rule (I refer to the ordinary "boss"), and as a consequence he and his henchmen control the situation. I think I am not overstating the truth when I say that every city in the United States has been looted by the politicians of various parties. It is of public record that Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and New York citizens have repeatedly risen and shown that the city was being robbed in the most bare-handed manner. Bribery and corruption have been found to exist to-day in the entire system, and if the credit of the republic stands on its political _morale_ this vast union of States is a colossal failure, as it is being pillaged by politicians. Every "boss" has what are termed "heelers," one function of whom is to buy votes and do other work in the interest of "reform." A friend told me that he spent election day in the office of a candidate for Congress in a certain Western town, and the candidate had his safe heaped full of silver dollars. All day long men were coming and going, each taking the dollars to buy votes. By night the supply was exhausted, and the man defeated. I expressed satisfaction at this, but my friend laughed; the other fellow who won paid more for votes, he said. I was told that all the great senatorial battles were merely a question of dollars; the man with the largest "sack" won.