In New York, the problem is not to oust Tammany Hall; another would arise in a year. It is to make the great public understand the boss system, of which Tammany is only a part. As fast as the reformers see that clearly themselves, they will find the right machinery to do the work in hand. It may be that, like the Jews, we shall have to spend forty years more in the wilderness, until the entire generation that lived under Pharaoh has perished. But education nowadays marches quickly. The progress that has been made during the last seven years in the city of New York gives hope that within a decade a majority of the voters will understand clearly that all the bosses are in league. In 1890, this fact was so little understood by the managers of an anti-Tammany movement which sprang up in that year that, after raising a certain stir and outcry, they put in the field a ticket made up exclusively of political hacks, whose election would have left matters exactly where they stood. The people at large, led by the soundest political instinct, re-elected Tammany Hall, and gave to sham reform the rebuff it deserved. In 1894, after the Lexow investigation had kept the town at fever-heat of indignation all summer, Mayor Strong was nominated by the Committee of Seventy, under an arrangement with Platt. The excitement was so great that the people at large did not examine Mr. Strong’s credentials. He was a Republican merchant, and in no way identified with the boss system. Mayor Strong’s administration has been a distinct advance, in many ways encouraging. Its errors and weaknesses have been so clearly traceable to the system which helped elect him that it has been in the highest degree valuable as an object-lesson. In 1895, only one year after Mayor Strong’s election, the fruits of his administration could not yet be seen. In that year a few judges and minor local officers were to be chosen. By this time the “citizens’ movement” had become a regular part of a municipal election. A group of radicals, the legatees of the Strong campaign, had for a year been enrolled in clubs called Good Government Clubs. These men took the novel course of nominating a complete ticket of their own. This was considered a dangerous move by the moderate reformers, who were headed by the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce and its well-meaning supporters then took a step which, from an educational standpoint, turned out to be most important. In their terror lest Tammany Hall should gain the prestige of a by-election, they made an arrangement with Platt, and were allowed to name some candidates on his ticket. This was the famous “fusion,” which the Good Government men attacked with as much energy as they might have expended on Tammany Hall. A furious campaign of crimination between the two reform factions followed, and of course Tammany was elected.