III EARLY LESSONS IN POLITICS I N the year when President Garfield died, New York saw the unusual sight of two young" silk-stockings," neither of whom had ever been in politics before, running for office in a popular election. One was the representative of vast inherited wealth, the other of the bluest of the old Knickerbocker blood: William Waldorf Astor and Theodore Roosevelt. One ran for Congress, pouring out money like water, contemptuously confident that so he could buy his way in. The newspapers reported his nightly progress from saloon to saloon, where " the boys" were thirstily waiting to whoop it up for him, and the size of "the wad" he left at each place, as with illsuppressed disgust he fled to the next. The other, nominated for the State Legislature on an issue of clean streets and clean politics, though but a year out of college, made his canvass squarely upon that basis, and astounded old-time politicians by the fire he put into the staid residents of the brownstone district, who were little in the habit of bothering about elections. He, too, was started upon a round of the saloons, under management. At the first call the management and that end of the canvass gave out together. Thereafter he went it alone. He was elected, and twice re-elected to his seat, with ever-increasing majorities. Astor was beaten, and, in anger, quit the country. Today he lives abroad, a self-expatriated American. Theodore Roosevelt, who believes in the people, is President of the United States. There was no need of my asking him how he came to go into politics, for how he could have helped it I cannot see; but I did. He thought awhile. "I suppose for one thing ordinary, plain, every-day duty sent me there to begin with. But, more than that, I wanted to belong to the governing class, not to the governed. When I said that I wanted to go to the Republican Association, they told me that I would meet 6 the groom and the saloon-keeper there; that politics were low, and that no gentleman bothered with them. Then,' said I, ‘if that is so, the groom and the saloon-keeper are the governing class and you confess weakness. You have all the chances, the education, the position, and you let them rule you. They must be better men;' and I went. "I joined the association, attended the meetings, and did my part in whatever was going. We did n't always agree, and sometimes they voted me down and sometimes I had my way. They were a jolly enough lot and I had a good time. The grooms were there, some of them, and some of their employers, and we pulled together as men should if we are to make anything out of our country, and by and by we had an election." There had been a fight about the dirty streets. The people wanted a free hand given to Mayor Grace, but the machine opposed. The Assemblyman from Roosevelt's district, the old Twenty-first, was in disgrace on that account. The Republican boss of the district, "Jake" Hess, was at odds with his lieutenants, "Joe" Murray and Major Bullard, and |