To get their deals through legally
it was, of course, necessary that officials, councilmen, engineers, and
others should be sympathetic. So, naturally, the big operators as well
as the big lawyers had to go into politics. Legal efficiency coupled
with the inefficiency of the bench, legal corruption, and the arrogance
of personal favor, dissolved naturally into political corruption.
The elections of those days would have been a joke had they been not so
tragically significant. They came to be a sheer farce. The polls were
guarded by bullies who did not hesitate at command to manhandle any
decent citizen indicated by the local leaders. Such men were openly
hired for the purposes of intimidation. Votes could be bought in the
open market. "Floaters" were shamelessly imported into districts that
might prove doubtful; and, if things looked close, the election
inspectors and the judges could be relied on to make things come out all
right in the final count. One of the exhibits later shown in the
Vigilante days of 1856 was an ingenious ballot box by which the goats
could be segregated from the sheep as the ballots were cast. You may be
sure that the sheep were the only ones counted. Election day was one of
continuous whiskey drinking and brawling so that decent citizens were
forced to remain within doors.
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