These legislators, it appeared from the testimony, had formed a water-tight ring or "combine" in 1899, for the purpose of systematizing this traffic. A regular scale of prices was adopted: so much for an excavation, so much per foot for a railway switch, so much for a street pavement, so much for a grain elevator. Edward R. Butler was the master under whose commands for many years this trafficking was reduced to systematic perfection. He had come to St. Louis when a young man, had opened a blacksmith shop, had built up a good trade in horseshoeing, and also a pliant political following in his ward. His attempt to defeat the home rule charter in 1876 had given him wider prominence, and he soon became the boss of the Democratic machine. His energy, shrewdness, liberality, and capacity for friendship gave him sway over both Republican and Democratic votes in certain portions of the city. A prominent St. Louis attorney says that for over twenty years "he named candidates on both tickets, fixed, collected, and disbursed campaign assessments, determined the results in elections, and in fine, practically controlled the public affairs of St. Louis." He was the agent usually sought by franchise-seekers, and he said that had the Suburban Company dealt with him instead of with the members of the Assembly, they might have avoided exposure. He was indicted four times in the upheaval, twice for attempting to bribe the Board of Health in the garbage deal--he was a stockholder in the company seeking the contract--and twice for bribery in the lighting contract. Cincinnati inherited from the Civil War the domestic excitements and political antagonisms of a border city. Its large German population gave it a conservative political demeanor, slow to accept changes, loyal to the Republican party as it was to the Union. This reduced partizan opposition to a docile minority, willing to dicker for public spoils with the intrenched majority.