tical machine,
for the reason that their administrations are not generally suspected of
corruption and therefore are not closely watched. Moreover, corruption
by bribes is not always the most effective kind. There is a much more
sinister form. It is that which flows from conscious class use of a
responsive government for insidious ends. Practically all of the
American "reform" movements have come within this scope.

This is no place for a dissertation on these pseudo reform movements; it
is a subject deserving a special treatment by itself. But it is well to
advert to them briefly here since it is necessary to give constant
insights into the methods of the propertied class. Whether corruption or
"reform" administrations were in power the cheating of municipality and
State in taxation has gone on with equal vigor.[161]

A VAST ANNUAL INCOME.

The collective Astor fortune, as we have said, amounts to $450,000,000.
This, however, is merely an estimate based largely upon their real
estate possessions. No one but the Astors themselves know what are their
holdings in bonds and stocks of every description. It is safe to venture
the opinion that their fortune far exceeds $450,000,000. Their surplus
wealth piles up so fast that a large part of it is incessantly being
invested in buying more land. Originally owning land in the lower part
of Manhattan, they then bought land in Yorkville, then added to their
possessions in Harlem, and later in the Bronx, in which part of New York
City they now own immense areas. Their estate is growing larger and
larger all the time.

In rents in New York City alone it is computed that the Astors collect
twenty-five or thirty million dollars a year. The "Astor Estates" are
managed by a central office, the agent in charge of which is said to get
a salary of $50,000 a year. All the business details are attended to
entirely by this agent and his force of subordinates. Of these annual
rents a part is distributed among the various members of the Astor
family according to the degree of their interest; the remainder is used
to buy more land.

The Astor mansions rank among the most pretentious in the United States
and in Europe. The New York City residence long occupied by Mrs. William
Astor at Fifth avenue and Sixty-fifth street is one of extraordinary
luxury and grandeur. Adjoining and connected with it is the equally
sumptuous mansion of John Jacob Astor. In these residences, or rather
palaces,