Under our laws the right of a public service corporation to occupy the public streets is based upon a franchise from the city. Before the days of the referendum the franchise was granted by the city council, usually as a monopoly, sometimes in perpetuity; and, until comparatively recent years, the corporation paid nothing to the city for the rights it acquired. When we reflect that within a few decades of the discovery of electric power, every city, large and small, had its street-car and electric-light service, and that most of these cities, through their councils, gave away these monopoly rights for long periods of time, we can imagine the princely aggregate of the gifts which public service corporations have received at the hands of our municipal governments, and the nature of the temptations these corporations were able to spread before the greedy gaze of those whose gesture would seal the grant. But it was not only at the granting of the franchise that the boss and his machine sought for spoils. A public service corporation, being constantly asked for favors, is a continuing opportunity for the political manipulator. Public service corporations could share their patronage with the politician in exchange for favors. Through their control of many jobs, and through their influence with banks, they could show a wide assortment of favors to the politician in return for his influence; for instance, in the matter of traffic regulations, permission to tear up the streets, inspection laws, rate schedules, tax assessments, coroners' reports, or juries. When the politician went to the voters, he adroitly concealed his designs under the name of one of the national parties. Voters were asked to vote for a Republican or a Democrat, not for a policy of municipal administration or other local policies. The system of committees, caucuses, conventions, built up in every city, was linked to the national organization. A citizen of New York, for instance, was not asked to vote for the Broadway Franchise, which raised such a scandal in the eighties, but to vote for aldermen running on a national tariff ticket!