hout the West--cities, towns, centrally-located
villages--where he had been and had made an impression; and by simple
and obvious means we were able to convert them into centers of "the
Burbank boom." I could afterward trace to the use we made of those
memoranda the direct getting of no less than one hundred and seven
delegates to the national convention--and that takes no account of the
vaster indirect value of so much easily worked-up, genuine, unpurchased
and unpurchasable "Burbank sentiment." The man of only local prominence,
whom Burbank remembered perfectly after a chance meeting years before,
could have no doubt who ought to be the party's nominee for President.

The national machine of our party was then in the custody, and
supposedly in the control, of Senator Goodrich of New Jersey. He had a
reputation for Machiavellian dexterity, but I found that he was an
accident rather than an actuality.

The dominion of the great business interests over politics was the rapid
growth of about twenty years--the consolidations of business naturally
producing concentrations of the business world's political power in the
hands of the few controllers of the big railway, industrial and
financial combines. Goodrich had happened to be acquainted with some of
the most influential of these business "kings"; they naturally made him
their agent for the conveying of their wishes and their bribes of one
kind and another to the national managers of both parties. They knew
little of the details of practical politics, knew only what they needed
in their businesses; and as long as they got that, it did not interest
them what was done with the rest of the power their "campaign
contributions" gave.

With such resources any man of good intelligence and discretion could
have got the same results as Goodrich's. He was simply a lackey,
strutting and cutting a figure in his master's clothes and under his
master's name. He was pitifully vain of his reputation as a Machiavelli
and a go-between. Vanity is sometimes a source of great strength; but
vanity of that sort, and about a position in which secrecy is the prime
requisite, could mean only weakness.

Throughout his eight years of control of our party it had had possession
of all departments of the national administration--except of the House
of Representatives during the past two years. This meant the
uninterrupted and unchecked reign of the interests. To treat with
consideration the interest