This country cannot have a government of the best. It will always
be a government of the average. Mr. Curtis was only a leader to his own
grade, just as Tim Sullivan is the leader of his. Mr. Curtis, in his
editorials, spoke the feelings of one element in America. Sullivan, in
Germania Hall, voices another. Each is representative, the one of five
per cent. of New York; the other of ninety-five per cent. If the
American people have decided one thing, it is that they will not be
taken care of, nor coercively ruled, by their better element, or
minorities."
"Yet you will acknowledge that Curtis ought to rule, rather than
Sullivan?"
"Not if our government is to be representative. I need not say that I
wish such a type as Mr. Curtis was representative."
"I suppose if he had tried to be a boss he would have failed?"
"I think so. For it requires as unusual a combination of qualities to be
a successful boss, as to be a successful merchant or banker. Yet one
cannot tell. I myself have never been able to say what elements make a
boss, except that he must be in sympathy with the men whom he tries to
guide, and that he must be meeting them.
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