So they got John Weaver for mayor, and honest John Weaver is checking corruption, restoring order, and doing a great many good things, which it is “good politics” to do. For he is satisfying the people, soothing their ruffled pride, and reconciling them to machine rule. I have letters from friends of mine there, honest men, who wish me to bear witness to the goodness of Mayor Weaver. I do. And I believe that if the Philadelphia machine leaders are as careful with Mayor Weaver as they have been and let him continue to give to the end as good government as he has given so far, the “Philadelphia plan” of graft will last and Philadelphia will never again be a free American city. Philadelphia and New York began about the same time, some thirty years ago, to reform their city governments. Philadelphia got “good government”—what the Philadelphians call good—from a corrupt ring and quit, satisfied to be a scandal to the nation and a disgrace to democracy. New York has gone on fighting, advancing and retreating, for thirty years, till now it has achieved the beginnings, under Mayor Low, of a government for the people. Do the New Yorkers know it? Do they care? They are Americans, mixed and typical; do we Americans really want good government? Or, as I said at starting, have they worked for thirty years along the wrong road—crowded with unhappy American cities—the road to Philadelphia and despair? * * * * * _Post Scriptum_: Mayor Low was nominated on the Fusion ticket. Tammany nominated George B. McClellan. The local corporations contributed heavily to the Tammany campaign fund and the people of New York elected the Tammany ticket by a decisive majority of 62,696. The vote was: McClellan, 314,782; Low, 252,086. THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Edward W. Townsend Author of “Chimmie Fadden,” “Days Like These,” etc. LEES AND LEAVEN ❦ No novel of New York City has ever portrayed so faithfully or so vividly our new world Gotham—the seething, rushing New York of to-day, to which all the world looks with such curious interest. Mr. Townsend, gives us not a picture, but the bustling, nerve-racking pageant itself. The titan struggles in the world of finance, the huge hoaxes in sensational newspaperdom, the gay life of the theatre, opera, and restaurant, and then the calmer and comforting domestic scenes of wholesome living, pass, as actualities, before our very eyes. In this turbulent maelstrom of ambition, he finds room for love and romance also. There is a bountiful array of characters, admirably drawn, and especially delightful are the two emotional and excitable lovers, young Bannister and Gertrude Carr. The book is unlike Mr. Townsend’s “Chimmie Fadden” in everything but its intimate knowledge of New York life.