If there had been the slightest serious attempt to interfere with their vested privileges, corruptly obtained and corruptly enhanced, and with the vast amount of increment and graft that these privileges bought them, they would have instantly raised the cry of revolutionary confiscation. But they were very willing to put an end to the petty graft which the politicians collected from saloons, brothels, peddlers, and the small merchants, and thereby present themselves as respectable and public-spirited citizens, appalled at the existing corruption. The newspapers supported them in this attitude, and occasionally a sufficient number of the voters would sustain their appeals and elect candidates that they presented. The only real difference was that under an openly corrupt machine they had to pay in bribes for franchises, laws and immunity from laws, while under the "reform" administrations, which represented, and toadied to, them, they often obtained all these and more without the expenditure of a cent. It has often been much more economical for them to have "reform" in power; and it is a well known truism that the business-class reform administrations which are popularly assumed to be honest, will go to greater lengths in selling out the rights of the people than the most corrupt political machine, for the reason that their administrations are not generally suspected of corruption and therefore are not closely watched. Moreover, corruption by bribes is not always the most effective kind. There is a much more sinister form. It is that which flows from conscious class use of a responsive government for insidious ends. Practically all of the American "reform" movements have come within this scope. This is no place for a dissertation on these pseudo reform movements; it is a subject deserving a special treatment by itself. But it is well to advert to them briefly here since it is necessary to give constant insights into the methods of the propertied class. Whether corruption or "reform" administrations were in power the cheating of municipality and State in taxation has gone on with equal vigor.[161] A VAST ANNUAL INCOME. The collective Astor fortune, as we have said, amounts to $450,000,000. This, however, is merely an estimate based largely upon their real estate possessions. No one but the Astors themselves know what are their holdings in bonds and stocks of every description. It is safe to venture the opinion that their fortune far exceeds $450,000,000. Their surplus wealth piles up so fast that a large part of it is incessantly being invested in buying more land. Originally owning land in the lower part of Manhattan, they then bought land in Yorkville, then added to their possessions in Harlem, and later in the Bronx, in which part of New York City they now own immense areas. Their estate is growing larger and larger all the time.