Here again the League might have retired in glory, but these “commonplace, ordinary men” proposed instead that they go ahead and get a majority, organize the Council on a non-partisan basis, and pass from a negative, anti-boodling policy to one of positive, constructive legislation. This meant also to advance from “beating bad men” to the “election of good men,” and as for the good men, the standard was to be raised from mere honesty to honesty and efficiency too. With such high purposes in view, the Nine went into their third campaign. They had to condemn men they had recommended in their first year, but “we are always ready to eat dirt,” they say. They pointed to the franchise issue, called for men capable of coping with the railways, and with bands playing, orators shouting, and Cole roaring like a sea-captain, they made the campaign of 1898 the hottest in their history. It nearly killed some of them, but they “won out”; the League had a nominal majority of the City Council. Then came their first bitter disappointment. They failed to organize the aldermen. They tried, and were on the verge of success, when defeat came, a most significant defeat. The League had brought into political life some new men, shop-keepers and small business men, all with perfect records, or none. They were men who meant well, but business is no training for politics; the shop-keepers who knew how to resist the temptations of trade were untried in those of politics, and the boodle gang “bowled them over like little tin soldiers.” They were persuaded that it was no more than right to “let the dominant party make up committees and run the Council”; that was “usage,” and, what with bribery, sophistry, and flattery, the League was beaten by its weak friends. The real crisis in the League had come. Mr. Cole resigned. He took the view that the League work was done; it could do no more; his health was suffering and his business was going to the dogs. The big corporations, the railroads, great business houses and their friends, had taken their business away from him. But this boycott had begun in the first campaign and Cole had met it with the declaration that he didn’t “care a d—n.” “I have a wife and a boy,” he said. “I want their respect. The rest can all go to h—l.” Cole has organized since a league to reform the legislature, but after the 1898 campaign the Nine were tired, disappointed, and Cole was temporarily used up.