hey have been running it through the agency of those interesting persons
whom we call political "bosses." A boss is not so much a politician as the
business agent in politics of the special interests. The boss is not a
partisan; he is quite above politics! He has an understanding with the
boss of the other party, so that, whether it is heads or tails, we lose.
The two receive contributions from the same sources, and they spend those
contributions for the same purposes.

Bosses are men who have worked their way by secret methods to the place of
power they occupy; men who were never elected to anything; men who were
not asked by the people to conduct their government, and who are very much
more powerful than if you had asked them, so long as you leave them where
they are, behind closed doors, in secret conference. They are not
politicians; they have no policies,--except concealed policies of private
aggrandizement. A boss isn't a leader of a party. Parties do not meet in
back rooms; parties do not make arrangements which do not get into the
newspapers. Parties, if you reckon them by voting strength, are great
masses of men who, because they can't vote any other ticket, vote the
ticket that was prepared for them by the aforesaid arrangement in the
aforesaid back room in accordance with the aforesaid understanding. A boss
is the manipulator of a "machine." A "machine" is that part of a political
organization which has been taken out of the hands of the rank and file of
the party, captured by half a dozen men. It is the part that has ceased to
be political and has become an agency for the purposes of unscrupulous
business.

Do not lay up the sins of this kind of business to political
organizations. Organization is legitimate, is necessary, is even
distinguished, when it lends itself to the carrying out of great causes.
Only the man who uses organization to promote private purposes is a boss.
Always distinguish between a political leader and a boss. I honor the man
who makes the organization of a great party strong and thorough, in order
to use it for public service. But he is not a boss. A boss is a man who
uses this splendid, open force for secret purposes.

One of the worst features of the boss system is this fact, that it works
secretly. I would a great deal rather live under a king whom I should at
least know, than under a boss whom I don't know. A boss is a much more
formidable master than a king, because a king is an