But notwithstanding all this, the issue was clear; the machine had helped to make it clear, not only by its long opposition to Jones, but more recently by its efforts for the street railway company. It was the old issue between privilege and democracy, that has marked the cleavage in society in all ages. The people were trying to take back their own government, for the purpose, first, of preventing the street railway company from securing another lease of the city’s streets for a quarter of a century, by which, incidentally, the company would realize profits on about twenty-five million dollars of watered stock. But the people were not to be deceived; they were not to be turned off the trail so easily; and the entire ticket was elected, so that at the beginning of that new year the Independents were in control of every branch of the government, not only in the city, but in the county as well. XXXIII I have spoken of the Independents as though they were an authentic political party, when it was one of their basic principles to be no party at all. They were Republicans and Democrats who, in the revelation of Jones’s death, had come to see that it was the partizan that was responsible for the evil political machines in American cities; they saw that by dividing themselves arbitrarily into parties, along national lines, by voting, almost automatically, their party tickets, ratifying nominations made for them they knew not how, they were but delivering over their city to the spoiler. As Republicans, proud of the traditions of that party, they had voted under the impression that they were voting for Lincoln; as Democrats they thought they were voting for Jefferson, or at least for Jackson, but they had discovered that they had been voting principally for the street railway company and the privileges allied with it in interest.