William L. Riordon's compiling and embroidering of Boss Plunkitt's boastful comments on machine politics constitutes a minor classic in American social history in the Gilded Age and beyond. In an introduction to this edition of the political boss's remarks, James S. Olson, chairman of the history department at Sam Houston State University, and James W. Mooney of American University engage in a provocative exchange over how the boss mentality as Plunkitt expressed it is to be judged.