ROBUST POLITICAL FARCE
Coleman, Mcalister
Robust Political Farce POLITICS IN KANSAS, by W. G. Clugston, The Holm Press, 16 Orpheum Building, Topeka, Kans. $2, Reviewed by McAlister Coleman THE political boss whether he operates in...
...Before them Thomas Nast was busy with his devastating cartoons of Tweed and his ring, James Bryce was telling the civilized world how municipal corruption was eating the good heart of democracy, reformers were everywhere launching gallant but futile offensives against rings, city hall gangs, and the boys in the back rooms...
...Clugston's play are loathsome in the extreme (Mr...
...The farce is, a bit thick at times, the female characters in Mr...
...Clugston has written a play in four acts, which he calls a "serio-farcical performance," to show thia generation the Institution in action in the person of Gilly Piatt, head man of the public utilities and Big Business boss of Kansas, or, as the playwright says in his interesting introduction, any other boss-ridden state...
...Clugston, a veteran political reporter, is frankly depressed about women in polities), but on the whole "the performance" is robust and realistic...
...The reminder to us all that bosses just don't happen but are sedulously cultivated by our economic overlords is mighty timely in these days when the alliance of city bosses, self-styled liberals, and agrarian reactionaries kept in power for four terms an Administration professedly consecrated to sweetness and light...
...Lincoln Steffens and his fellow muekrakers first exposed and then religiously brooded over the origins and behaviors of the institution...
...2, Reviewed by McAlister Coleman THE political boss whether he operates in Kansas, Jersey City, Chicago, or Baton Rouge is an American Institution dating back to the days of Aaron Burr and The Tammany Society or Columbian Order of New York at the turn of the 18th Century...
Vol. 9 • May 1945 • No. 19
