Turning now to New York city, we find the political situation very similar to that of the country town already described. The interests which actually control the businesses of the city are managed by very few individuals. It is only that the sums involved are different. One of these men is president of an insurance company whose assets are $130,000,000; another is president of a system of street railways with a capital stock of $30,000,000; another is president of an elevated road system with a capital of the same amount; a fourth is vice-president of a paving company worth $10,000,000; a fifth owns $50,000,000 worth of real estate; a sixth controls a great railroad system; a seventh is president of a savings-bank in which $5,000,000 are deposited; and so on. The commercial ties which bind the community together are as close in the city as in the country town. The great magnates live in palaces, and the lesser ones in palaces, also. The hardware-dealer of the small town is in New York the owner of iron-works, a man of stainless reputation. The florist is the owner of a large tract of land within the city limits, through which a boulevard is about to be cut. The retired merchant has become a partner of his nephew, and is developing one of the suburbs by means of an extension of an electric road system. But the commercial hierarchy does not stop here; it continues radiating, spreading downward. All businesses are united by the instruments and usages which the genius of trade has devised. All these interests together represent the railroad of the country town. They take no real interest in politics, and they desire only to be let alone. For the twenty years before the Strong administration the government of the city was almost continuously under the control of a ring, or, accurately speaking, of a Happy Family. Special circumstances made this ring well nigh indestructible. The Boss-out-of-Power of the Happy Family happens to be also the boss of the State legislature. He performs a double function. This is what has given Platt his extraordinary power. It will have been noticed that some of the masses of wealth above mentioned are peculiarly subject to State legislation: they subscribe directly to the State boss’s fund. Some are subject to interference from the city administration: they subscribe to the city boss’s fund. We see that by the receipt of his fund the State boss is rendered independent of the people of the city. He can use the State legislature to strengthen his hands in his dealings with the city boss. After all, he does not need many votes. He can buy enough votes to hold his minority together and keep Tammany safely in power, and by now and then taking a candidate from the citizens he advertises himself as a friend of reform.