The Nine had to let Cole and Hoyt King go. But they wouldn’t let the League go. They had no successor for Cole. None on the committee would take his place; they all declined it in turn. They looked outside for a man, finding nobody. The prospect was dark. Then William Kent spoke up. Kent had time and money, but he wouldn’t do anything anyone else could be persuaded to do. He was not strong physically, and his physicians had warned him that to live he must work little and play much. At that moment he was under orders to go West and shoot. But when he saw what was happening, he said: “I’m not the man for this job; I’m no organizer. I can smash more things in a minute than I can build up in a hundred years. But the League has got to go on, so I’ll take Cole’s place if you’ll give me a hard-working, able man for secretary, an organizer and a master of detail.” Such a secretary was hard to find, but Allen B. Pond, the architect, a man made for fine work, took this rough-and-tumble task. And these two with the committee strengthened and active, not only held their own, they not only met the receding wave of reactionary sentiment against reform, but they made progress. In 1899 they won a clear majority of the Council, pledged their men before election to a non-partisan organization of the Council, and were in shape for constructive legislation. In 1900 they increased their majority, but they did not think it necessary to bind candidates before the election to the non-partisan-committees plan, and the Republicans organized the house. This party maintained the standard of the committees; there was no falling off there, but that was not the point. Parties were recognized in the Council, and the League had hoped for only one line of demarcation: special interests versus the interests of the city. During the time of Kent and Pond, however, the power for good of the League was established, the question of its permanency settled, and the use of able, conscientious aldermen recognized. The public opinion it developed and pointed held the Council so steady that, with Mayor Harrison and his personal following among the Democrats on that side, the aldermen refused to do anything for the street railway companies until the Allen bill was repealed. And, all ready to pass anything at Springfield, Yerkes had to permit the repeal, and he soon after closed up his business in Chicago and went away to London, where he is said to be happy and prosperous.