oligarchy, ever grasping for more power,
nullified the laws and trampled the statutes under its feet. The sins
of drunkenness and bribery among policemen, who were simply the
creatures for the most part of corrupt politicians, were too frequent
to attract much notice. That conscientious wearer of the blue and the
star who enforced the laws was either discharged or sent on some
unimportant suburban beat. The relations between city saloons and
politics were as close as hand and glove, palm and coin. The gambler,
the saloon-keeper, the masters of houses of ill-fame, were all in
favor of the kind of municipal government which Boston had had for a
generation or more.

An American back is like the camel's,--able to bear mighty loads, but
insurgent at the last feather. So, in Boston, the long-outraged moral
sense of the people suddenly revolted. A Citizens' Law and Order
League was formed, and Charles Carleton Coffin, elected to the House
of Representatives for the session of 1885, was asked to be their
banner bearer in reform. With the idea of destroying partisanship and
making the execution of the laws non-partisan, Carleton prepared a
bill, which was intended to take the control of the police out of the
hands of the Mayor and Common Council of the city, and to put it into
the hands of the Governor of the Commonwealth.

When Mr. Coffin began this work, Boston had a population of 412,000
souls. From the "Boston bedrooms," that is, the suburban towns in five
counties, one hundred thousand or more were emptied every day, making
over half a million people. In this city there was an array of forces
all massed against any legislation restricting their power, while
eager and organized to extend it. These included 2,850 licensed liquor
sellers, and 1,300 unlicensed places, besides 222 druggists; all of
which, and whom, helped to make men drunk. To supply the thirsty there
were within the city limits three distilleries and seventeen
breweries. To show the nature of the oligarchy, we have only to state
that there were twenty-five men who had their names as bondsmen on no
fewer than 1,030 licenses, and that eight men signed the bonds of 610
licenses. These "bondsmen" of one sort controlled the votes of from
15,000 to 20,000 bondsmen of a lower sort. The liquor business was
then, as it is now, the great incentive to lawlessness, helping to
make Boston a place of shame. Ten thousand persons and $75,000,000
capital were employed in wor