Books: The Sentimentalists

YOU'RE THE Boss (243 pp.)—Edward J. Flynn—Viking ($3).

Democracy gives the people more power than they want to exercise directly. In the U.S., this surplus power normally falls into the hands of bosses who may be morally good, bad or indifferent; what they have in common is a fulltime love of power.

Philadelphia's Boies Penrose was a great, hearty extravert, whose lust for power was as obvious and simple as his appetite for oysters and wine. At the other end of the scale was Baltimore's John S. ("Frank") Kelly; though he ruled a state, he spent his life in one of the...