Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography Part 3

This is the most striking kind of success, and it can be attained only by the man who has in him the quality which separates him in kind no less than in degree from his fellows. But much the commoner type of success in every walk of life and in every species of effort is that which comes to the man who differs from his fellows not by the kind of quality which he possesses but by the degree of development which he has given that quality. This kind of success is open to a large number of persons, if only they seriously determine to achieve it. It is the kind of success which is open to the average man of sound body and fair mind, who has no remarkable mental or physical attributes, but who gets just as much as possible in the way of work out of the apt.i.tudes that he does possess. It is the only kind of success that is open to most of us. Yet some of the greatest successes in history have been those of this second cla.s.s--when I call it second cla.s.s I am not running it down in the least, I am merely pointing out that it differs in kind from the first cla.s.s. To the average man it is probably more useful to study this second type of success than to study the first. From the study of the first he can learn inspiration, he can get uplift and lofty enthusiasm.

From the study of the second he can, if he chooses, find out how to win a similar success himself.

I need hardly say that all the successes I have ever won have been of the second type. I never won anything without hard labor and the exercise of my best judgment and careful planning and working long in advance. Having been a rather sickly and awkward boy, I was as a young man at first both nervous and distrustful of my own prowess. I had to train myself painfully and laboriously not merely as regards my body but as regards my soul and spirit.

When a boy I read a pa.s.sage in one of Marryat's books which always impressed me. In this pa.s.sage the captain of some small British man-of-war is explaining to the hero how to acquire the quality of fearlessness. He says that at the outset almost every man is frightened when he goes into action, but that the course to follow is for the man to keep such a grip on himself that he can act just as if he was not frightened. After this is kept up long enough it changes from pretense to reality, and the man does in very fact become fearless by sheer dint of practicing fearlessness when he does not feel it. (I am using my own language, not Marryat's.) This was the theory upon which I went. There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging from grizzly bears to "mean" horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid. Most men can have the same experience if they choose. They will first learn to bear themselves well in trials which they antic.i.p.ate and which they school themselves in advance to meet. After a while the habit will grow on them, and they will behave well in sudden and unexpected emergencies which come upon them unawares.

It is of course much pleasanter if one is naturally fearless, and I envy and respect the men who are naturally fearless. But it is a good thing to remember that the man who does not enjoy this advantage can nevertheless stand beside the man who does, and can do his duty with the like efficiency, if he chooses to. Of course he must not let his desire take the form merely of a day-dream. Let him dream about being a fearless man, and the more he dreams the better he will be, always provided he does his best to realize the dream in practice. He can do his part honorably and well provided only he sets fearlessness before himself as an ideal, schools himself to think of danger merely as something to be faced and overcome, and regards life itself as he should regard it, not as something to be thrown away, but as a p.a.w.n to be promptly hazarded whenever the hazard is warranted by the larger interests of the great game in which we are all engaged.

CHAPTER III

PRACTICAL POLITICS

When I left Harvard, I took up the study of law. If I had been sufficiently fortunate to come under Professor Thayer, of the Harvard Law School, it may well be that I would have realized that the lawyer can do a great work for justice and against legalism.

But, doubtless chiefly through my own fault, some of the teaching of the law books and of the cla.s.sroom seemed to me to be against justice.

The _caveat emptor_ side of the law, like the _caveat emptor_ side of business, seemed to me repellent; it did not make for social fair dealing. The "let the buyer beware" maxim, when translated into actual practice, whether in law or business, tends to translate itself further into the seller making his profit at the expense of the buyer, instead of by a bargain which shall be to the profit of both. It did not seem to me that the law was framed to discourage as it should sharp practice, and all other kinds of bargains except those which are fair and of benefit to both sides. I was young; there was much in the judgment which I then formed on this matter which I should now revise; but, then as now, many of the big corporation lawyers, to whom the ordinary members of the bar then as now looked up, held certain standards which were difficult to recognize as compatible with the idealism I suppose every high-minded young man is apt to feel. If I had been obliged to earn every cent I spent, I should have gone whole-heartedly into the business of making both ends meet, and should have taken up the law or any other respectable occupation--for I then held, and now hold, the belief that a man's first duty is to pull his own weight and to take care of those dependent upon him; and I then believed, and now believe, that the greatest privilege and greatest duty for any man is to be happily married, and that no other form of success or service, for either man or woman, can be wisely accepted as a subst.i.tute or alternative. But it happened that I had been left enough money by my father not to make it necessary for me to think solely of earning bread for myself and my family. I had enough to get bread. What I had to do, if I wanted b.u.t.ter and jam, was to provide the b.u.t.ter and jam, but to count their cost as compared with other things. In other words, I made up my mind that, while I must earn money, I could afford to make earning money the secondary instead of the primary object of my career. If I had had no money at all, then my first duty would have been to earn it in any honest fas.h.i.+on. As I had some money I felt that my need for more money was to be treated as a secondary need, and that while it was my business to make more money where I legitimately and properly could, yet that it was also my business to treat other kinds of work as more important than money-making.

Almost immediately after leaving Harvard in 1880 I began to take an interest in politics. I did not then believe, and I do not now believe, that any man should ever attempt to make politics his only career. It is a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while in office, and always puts him under the heaviest strain of pressure to barter his convictions for the sake of holding office. A man should have some other occupation--I had several other occupations--to which he can resort if at any time he is thrown out of office, or if at any time he finds it necessary to choose a course which will probably result in his being thrown out, unless he is willing to stay in at cost to his conscience.

At that day, in 1880, a young man of my bringing up and convictions could join only the Republican party, and join it I accordingly did.

It was no simple thing to join it then. That was long before the era of ballot reform and the control of primaries; long before the era when we realized that the Government must take official notice of the deeds and acts of party organizations. The party was still treated as a private corporation, and in each district the organization formed a kind of social and political club. A man had to be regularly proposed for and elected into this club, just as into any other club. As a friend of mine picturesquely phrased it, I "had to break into the organization with a jimmy."

Under these circ.u.mstances there was some difficulty in joining the local organization, and considerable amus.e.m.e.nt and excitement to be obtained out of it after I had joined.

It was over thirty-three years ago that I thus became a member of the Twenty-first District Republican a.s.sociation in the city of New York.

The men I knew best were the men in the clubs of social pretension and the men of cultivated taste and easy life. When I began to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of the local Republican a.s.sociation and the means of joining it, these men--and the big business men and lawyers also--laughed at me, and told me that politics were "low"; that the organizations were not controlled by "gentlemen"; that I would find them run by saloon-keepers, horse-car conductors, and the like, and not by men with any of whom I would come in contact outside; and, moreover, they a.s.sured me that the men I met would be rough and brutal and unpleasant to deal with. I answered that if this were so it merely meant that the people I knew did not belong to the governing cla.s.s, and that the other people did--and that I intended to be one of the governing cla.s.s; that if they proved too hard-bit for me I supposed I would have to quit, but that I certainly would not quit until I had made the effort and found out whether I really was too weak to hold my own in the rough and tumble.

The Republican a.s.sociation of which I became a member held its meetings in Morton Hall, a large, barn-like room over a saloon. Its furniture was of the canonical kind: dingy benches, spittoons, a dais at one end with a table and chair and a stout pitcher for iced water, and on the walls pictures of General Grant, and of Levi P. Morton, to whose generosity we owed the room. We had regular meetings once or twice a month, and between times the place was treated, at least on certain nights, as a kind of club-room. I went around there often enough to have the men get accustomed to me and to have me get accustomed to them, so that we began to speak the same language, and so that each could begin to live down in the other's mind what Bret Harte has called "the defective moral quality of being a stranger." It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready to take advantage of them. This was what happened to me in connection with my experiences in Morton Hall. I soon became on good terms with a number of the ordinary "heelers" and even some of the minor leaders. The big leader was Jake Hess, who treated me with rather distant affability. There were prominent lawyers and business men who belonged, but they took little part in the actual meetings. What they did was done elsewhere. The running of the machine was left to Jake Hess and his captains of tens and of hundreds.

Among these lesser captains I soon struck up a friends.h.i.+p with Joe Murray, a friends.h.i.+p which is as strong now as it was thirty-three years ago. He had been born in Ireland, but brought to New York by his parents when he was three or four years old, and, as he expressed it, "raised as a barefooted boy on First Avenue." When not eighteen he had enlisted in the Army of the Potomac and taken part in the campaign that closed the Civil War. Then he came back to First Avenue, and, being a fearless, powerful, energetic young fellow, careless and reckless, speedily grew to some prominence as leader of a gang. In that district, and at that time, politics was a rough business, and Tammany Hall held unquestioned sway. The district was overwhelmingly Democratic, and Joe and his friends were Democrats who on election day performed the usual gang work for the local Democratic leader, whose business it was to favor and reward them in return. This same local leader, like many other greater leaders, became puffed up by prosperity, and forgot the instruments through which he had achieved prosperity. After one election he showed a callous indifference to the hard work of the gang and complete disregard of his before-election promises. He counted upon the resentment wearing itself out, as usual, in threats and bl.u.s.ter.

But Joe Murray was not a man who forgot. He explained to his gang his purposes and the necessity of being quiet. Accordingly they waited for their revenge until the next election day. They then, as Joe expressed it, decided "to vote furdest away from the leader"--I am using the language of Joe's youth--and the best way to do this was to vote the Republican ticket. In those days each party had a booth near the polling-place in each election district, where the party representative dispensed the party ballots. This had been a district in which, as a rule, very early in the day the Republican election leader had his hat knocked over his eyes and his booth kicked over and his ballots scattered; and then the size of the Democratic majority depended on an elastic appreciation of exactly how much was demanded from headquarters.

But on this day things went differently. The gang, with a Roman sense of duty, took an active interest in seeing that the Republican was given his full rights. Moreover, they made the most energetic reprisals on their opponents, and as they were distinctly the tough and fighting element, justice came to her own with a whoop. Would-be repeaters were thrown out on their heads. Every person who could be cajoled or, I fear, intimidated, was given the Republican ticket, and the upshot was that at the end of the day a district which had never hitherto polled more than two or three per cent of its vote Republican broke about even between the two parties.

To Joe it had been merely an act of retribution in so far as it was not simply a spree. But the leaders at the Republican headquarters did not know this, and when they got over their paralyzed astonishment at the returns, they investigated to find out what it meant. Somebody told them that it represented the work of a young man named Joseph Murray.

Accordingly they sent for him. The room in which they received him was doubtless some place like Morton Hall, and the men who received him were akin to those who had leaders.h.i.+p in Morton Hall; but in Joe's eyes they stood for a higher civilization, for opportunity, for generous recognition of successful effort--in short, for all the things that an eager young man desires. He was received and patted on the back by a man who was a great man to the world in which he lived. He was introduced to the audience as a young man whose achievement was such as to promise much for the future, and moreover he was given a place in the post-office--as I have said, this was long before the day of Civil Service Reform.

Now, to the wrong kind of man all this might have meant nothing at all. But in Joe Murray's case it meant everything. He was by nature as straight a man, as fearless and as stanchly loyal, as any one whom I have ever met, a man to be trusted in any position demanding courage, integrity, and good faith. He did his duty in the public service, and became devotedly attached to the organization which he felt had given him his chance in life. When I knew him he was already making his way up; one of the proofs and evidences of which was that he owned a first-cla.s.s racing trotter--"Alice Lane"--behind which he gave me more than one spin. During this first winter I grew to like Joe and his particular cronies. But I had no idea that they especially returned the liking, and in the first row we had in the organization (which arose over a movement, that I backed, to stand by a non-partisan method of street-cleaning) Joe and all his friends stood stiffly with the machine, and my side, the reform side, was left with only some half-dozen votes out of three or four hundred. I had expected no other outcome and took it good-humoredly, but without changing my att.i.tude.

Next fall, as the elections drew near, Joe thought he would like to make a drive at Jake Hess, and after considerable planning decided that his best chance lay in the fight for the nomination to the a.s.sembly, the lower house of the Legislature. He picked me as the candidate with whom he would be most likely to win; and win he did. It was not my fight, it was Joe's; and it was to him that I owe my entry into politics. I had at that time neither the reputation nor the ability to have won the nomination for myself, and indeed never would have thought of trying for it.

Jake Hess was entirely good-humored about it. In spite of my being anti-machine, my relations with him had been friendly and human, and when he was beaten he turned in to help Joe elect me. At first they thought they would take me on a personal canva.s.s through the saloons along Sixth Avenue. The canva.s.s, however, did not last beyond the first saloon. I was introduced with proper solemnity to the saloon-keeper--a very important personage, for this was before the days when saloon-keepers became merely the mortgaged chattels of the brewers--and he began to cross-examine me, a little too much in the tone of one who was dealing with a suppliant for his favor. He said he expected that I would of course treat the liquor business fairly; to which I answered, none too cordially, that I hoped I should treat all interests fairly.

He then said that he regarded the licenses as too high; to which I responded that I believed they were really not high enough, and that I should try to have them made higher. The conversation threatened to become stormy. Messrs. Murray and Hess, on some hastily improvised plea, took me out into the street, and then Joe explained to me that it was not worth my while staying in Sixth Avenue any longer, that I had better go right back to Fifth Avenue and attend to my friends there, and that he would look after my interests on Sixth Avenue. I was triumphantly elected.

Once before Joe had interfered in similar fas.h.i.+on and secured the nomination of an a.s.semblyman; and shortly after election he had grown to feel toward this a.s.semblyman that he must have fed on the meat which rendered Caesar proud, as he became inaccessible to the ordinary mortals whose place of resort was Morton Hall. He eyed me warily for a short time to see if I was likely in this respect to follow in my predecessor's footsteps. Finding that I did not, he and all my other friends and supporters a.s.sumed toward me the very pleasantest att.i.tude that it was possible to a.s.sume. They did not ask me for a thing. They accepted as a matter of course the view that I was absolutely straight and was trying to do the best I could in the Legislature. They desired nothing except that I should make a success, and they supported me with hearty enthusiasm. I am a little at a loss to know quite how to express the quality in my relations.h.i.+p with Joe Murray and my other friends of this period which rendered that relations.h.i.+p so beneficial to me. When I went into politics at this time I was not conscious of going in with the set purpose to benefit other people, but of getting for myself a privilege to which I was ent.i.tled in common with other people. So it was in my relations.h.i.+p with these men. If there had lurked in the innermost recesses of my mind anywhere the thought that I was in some way a patron or a benefactor, or was doing something n.o.ble by taking part in politics, or that I expected the smallest consideration save what I could earn on my own merits, I am certain that somehow or other the existence of that feeling would have been known and resented. As a matter of fact, there was not the slightest temptation on my part to have any such feeling or any one of such feelings. I no more expected special consideration in politics than I would have expected it in the boxing ring. I wished to act squarely to others, and I wished to be able to show that I could hold my own as against others. The att.i.tude of my new friends toward me was first one of polite reserve, and then that of friendly alliance. Afterwards I became admitted to comrades.h.i.+p, and then to leaders.h.i.+p. I need hardly say how earnestly I believe that men should have a keen and lively sense of their obligations in politics, of their duty to help forward great causes, and to struggle for the betterment of conditions that are unjust to their fellows, the men and women who are less fortunate in life. But in addition to this feeling there must be a feeling of real fellows.h.i.+p with the other men and women engaged in the same task, fellows.h.i.+p of work, with fun to vary the work; for unless there is this feeling of fellows.h.i.+p, of common effort on an equal plane for a common end, it will be difficult to keep the relations wholesome and natural. To be patronized is as offensive as to be insulted. No one of us cares permanently to have some one else conscientiously striving to do him good; what we want is to work with that some one else for the good of both of us--any man will speedily find that other people can benefit him just as much as he can benefit them.

Neither Joe Murray nor I nor any of our a.s.sociates at that time were alive to social and industrial needs which we now all of us recognize.

But we then had very clearly before our minds the need of practically applying certain elemental virtues, the virtues of honesty and efficiency in politics, the virtue of efficiency side by side with honesty in private and public life alike, the virtues of consideration and fair dealing in business as between man and man, and especially as between the man who is an employer and the man who is an employee.

On all fundamental questions Joe Murray and I thought alike. We never parted company excepting on the question of Civil Service Reform, where he sincerely felt that I showed doctrinaire affinities, that I sided with the pharisees. We got back again into close relations as soon as I became Police Commissioner under Mayor Strong, for Joe was then made Excise Commissioner, and was, I believe, the best Excise Commissioner the city of New York ever had. He is now a farmer, his boys have been through Columbia College, and he and I look at the questions, political, social, and industrial, which confront us in 1913 from practically the same standpoint, just as we once looked at the questions that confronted us in 1881.

There are many debts that I owe Joe Murray, and some for which he was only unconsciously responsible. I do not think that a man is fit to do good work in our American democracy unless he is able to have a genuine fellow-feeling for, understanding of, and sympathy with his fellow-Americans, whatever their creed or their birthplace, the section in which they live, or the work which they do, provided they possess the only kind of Americanism that really counts, the Americanism of the spirit. It was no small help to me, in the effort to make myself a good citizen and good American, that the political a.s.sociate with whom I was on closest and most intimate terms during my early years was a man born in Ireland, by creed a Catholic, with Joe Murray's upbringing; just as it helped me greatly at a later period to work for certain vitally necessary public needs with Arthur von Briesen, in whom the spirit of the "Acht-und-Vierziger" idealists was embodied; just as my whole life was influenced by my long a.s.sociation with Jacob Riis, whom I am tempted to call the best American I ever knew, although he was already a young man when he came hither from Denmark.

I was elected to the Legislature in the fall of 1881, and found myself the youngest man in that body. I was reelected the two following years. Like all young men and inexperienced members, I had considerable difficulty in teaching myself to speak. I profited much by the advice of a hard-headed old countryman--who was unconsciously paraphrasing the Duke of Wellington, who was himself doubtless paraphrasing somebody else. The advice ran: "Don't speak until you are sure you have something to say, and know just what it is; then say it, and sit down."

My first days in the Legislature were much like those of a boy in a strange school. My fellow-legislators and I eyed one another with mutual distrust. Each of us chose his seat, each began by following the lead of some veteran in the first routine matters, and then, in a week or two, we began to drift into groups according to our several affinities. The Legislature was Democratic. I was a Republican from the "silk stocking"

district, the wealthiest district in New York, and I was put, as one of the minority members, on the Committee of Cities. It was a coveted position. I did not make any effort to get on, and, as far as I know, was put there merely because it was felt to be in accordance with the fitness of things.

A very short experience showed me that, as the Legislature was then const.i.tuted, the so-called party contests had no interest whatever for me. There was no real party division on most of the things that were of concern in State politics, both Republicans and Democrats being for and against them. My friends.h.i.+ps were made, not with regard to party lines, but because I found, and my friends found, that we had the same convictions on questions of principle and questions of policy. The only difference was that there was a larger proportion of these men among the Republicans than among the Democrats, and that it was easier for me at the outset to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance, among the men who felt as I did, with the Republicans. They were for the most part from the country districts.

My closest friend for the three years I was there was Billy O'Neill, from the Adirondacks. He kept a small crossroads store. He was a young man, although a few years older than I was, and, like myself, had won his position without regard to the machine. He had thought he would like to be a.s.semblyman, so he had taken his buggy and had driven around Franklin County visiting everybody, had upset the local ring, and came to the Legislature as his own master. There is surely something in American traditions that does tend toward real democracy in spite of our faults and shortcomings. In most other countries two men of as different antecedents, ancestry, and surroundings as Billy O'Neill and I would have had far more difficulty in coming together. I came from the biggest city in America and from the wealthiest ward of that city, and he from a backwoods county where he kept a store at a crossroads. In all the unimportant things we seemed far apart. But in all the important things we were close together. We looked at all questions from substantially the same view-point, and we stood shoulder to shoulder in every legislative fight during those three years. He abhorred demagogy just as he abhorred corruption. He had thought much on political problems; he admired Alexander Hamilton as much as I did, being a strong believer in a powerful National government; and we both of us differed from Alexander Hamilton in being stout adherents of Abraham Lincoln's views wherever the rights of the people were concerned. Any man who has met with success, if he will be frank with himself, must admit that there has been a big element of fortune in the success. Fortune favored me, whereas her hand was heavy against Billy O'Neill. All his life he had to strive hard to wring his bread from harsh surroundings and a reluctant fate; if fate had been but a little kinder, I believe he would have had a great political career; and he would have done good service for the country in any position in which he might have been put.

There were other Republicans, like Isaac Hunt and Jonas van Duzer and Walter Howe and Henry Sprague, who were among my close friends and allies; and a gigantic one-eyed veteran of the Civil War, a gallant General, Curtis from St. Lawrence County; and a capital fellow, whom afterwards, when Governor, I put on the bench, Kruse, from Cattaraugus County. Kruse was a German by birth; as far as I know, the only German from Cattaraugus County at that time; and, besides being a German, he was also a Prohibitionist. Among the Democrats were Hamden Robb and Thomas Newbold, and Tom Welch of Niagara, who did a great service in getting the State to set aside Niagara Falls Park--after a discouraging experience with the first Governor before whom we brought the bill, who listened with austere patience to our arguments in favor of the State establis.h.i.+ng a park, and then conclusively answered us by the question, "But, gentlemen, why should we spend the people's money when just as much water will run over the Falls without a park as with it?" Then there were a couple of members from New York and Brooklyn, Mike Costello and Pete Kelly.

Mike Costello had been elected as a Tammany man. He was as fearless as he was honest. He came from Ireland, and had accepted the Tammany Fourth of July orations as indicating the real att.i.tude of that organization towards the rights of the people. A month or two in Albany converted him to a profound distrust of applied Tammany methods. He and I worked hand in hand with equal indifference to our local machines. His machine leaders warned him fairly that they would throw him out at the next election, which they did; but he possessed a seasoned-hickory toughness of ability to contend with adverse circ.u.mstances, and kept his head well above water. A better citizen does not exist; and our friends.h.i.+p has never faltered.

Peter Kelly's fate was a tragedy. He was a bright, well-educated young fellow, an ardent believer in Henry George. At the beginning he and I failed to understand each other or to get on together, for our theories of government were radically opposed. After a couple of months spent in active contests with men whose theories had nothing whatever to do with their practices, Kelly and I found in our turn that it really did not make much difference what our abstract theories were on questions that were not before the Legislature, in view of the fact that on the actual matters before the Legislature, the most important of which involved questions of elementary morality, we were heartily at one. We began to vote together and act together, and by the end of the session found that in all practical matters that were up for action we thought together.

Indeed, each of us was beginning to change his theories, so that even in theory we were coming closer together. He was ardent and generous; he was a young lawyer, with a wife and children, whose ambition had tempted him into politics, and who had been befriended by the local bosses under the belief that they could count upon him for anything they really wished. Unfortunately, what they really wished was often corrupt. Kelly defied them, fought the battles of the people with ardor and good faith, and when the bosses refused him a renomination, he appealed from them to the people. When we both came up for reelection, I won easily in my district, where circ.u.mstances conspired to favor me; and Kelly, with exactly the same record that I had, except that it was more creditable because he took his stand against greater odds, was beaten in his district. Defeat to me would have meant merely chagrin; to Kelly it meant terrible material disaster. He had no money. Like every rigidly honest man, he had found that going into politics was expensive and that his salary as a.s.semblyman did not cover the financial outgo. He had lost his practice and he had incurred the ill will of the powerful, so that it was impossible at the moment to pick up his practice again; and the worry and disappointment affected him so much that shortly after election he was struck down by sickness. Just before Christmas some of us were informed that Kelly was in such financial straits that he and his family would be put out into the street before New Year. This was prevented by the action of some of his friends who had served with him in the Legislature, and he recovered, at least to a degree, and took up the practice of his profession. But he was a broken man. In the Legislature in which he served one of his fellow-Democrats from Brooklyn was the Speaker--Alfred C. Chapin, the leader and the foremost representative of the reform Democracy, whom Kelly zealously supported.

A few years later Chapin, a very able man, was elected Mayor of Brooklyn on a reform Democratic ticket. Shortly after his election I was asked to speak at a meeting in a Brooklyn club at which various prominent citizens, including the Mayor, were present. I spoke on civic decency, and toward the close of my speech I sketched Kelly's career for my audience, told them how he had stood up for the rights of the people of Brooklyn, and how the people had failed to stand up for him, and the way he had been punished, precisely because he had been a good citizen who acted as a good citizen should act. I ended by saying that the reform Democracy had now come into power, that Mr. Chapin was Mayor, and that I very earnestly hoped recognition would at last be given to Kelly for the fight he had waged at such bitter cost to himself. My words created some impression, and Mayor Chapin at once said that he would take care of Kelly and see that justice was done him. I went home that evening much pleased. In the morning, at breakfast, I received a brief note from Chapin in these words: "It was nine last evening when you finished speaking of what Kelly had done, and when I said that I would take care of him. At ten last night Kelly died." He had been dying while I was making my speech, and he never knew that at last there was to be a tardy recognition of what he had done, a tardy justification for the sacrifices he had made. The man had fought, at heavy cost to himself and with entire disinterestedness, for popular rights; but no recognition for what he had done had come to him from the people, whose interest he had so manfully upheld.

Where there is no chance of statistical or mathematical measurement, it is very hard to tell just the degree to which conditions change from one period to another. This is peculiarly hard to do when we deal with such a matter as corruption. Personally I am inclined to think that in public life we are on the whole a little better and not a little worse than we were thirty years ago, when I was serving in the New York Legislature.

I think the conditions are a little better in National, in State, and in munic.i.p.al politics. Doubtless there are points in which they are worse, and there is an enormous amount that needs reformation. But it does seem to me as if, on the whole, things had slightly improved.

When I went into politics, New York City was under the control of Tammany, which was from time to time opposed by some other--and evanescent--city Democratic organization. The up-country Democrats had not yet fallen under Tammany sway, and were on the point of developing a big country political boss in the shape of David B. Hill. The Republican party was split into the Stalwart and Half-Breed factions. Accordingly neither party had one dominant boss, or one dominant machine, each being controlled by jarring and warring bosses and machines. The corruption was not what it had been in the days of Tweed, when outside individuals controlled the legislators like puppets. Nor was there any such centralization of the boss system as occurred later. Many of the members were under the control of local bosses or local machines. But the corrupt work was usually done through the members directly.

Of course I never had anything in the nature of legal proof of corruption, and the figures I am about to give are merely approximate.

But three years' experience convinced me, in the first place, that there were a great many thoroughly corrupt men in the Legislature, perhaps a third of the whole number; and, in the next place, that the honest men outnumbered the corrupt men, and that, if it were ever possible to get an issue of right and wrong put vividly and unmistakably before them in a way that would arrest their attention and that would arrest the attention of their const.i.tuents, we could count on the triumph of the right. The trouble was that in most cases the issue was confused. To read some kinds of literature one would come to the conclusion that the only corruption in legislative circles was in the form of bribery by corporations, and that the line was sharp between the honest man who was always voting against corporations and the dishonest man who was always bribed to vote for them. My experience was the direct contrary of this. For every one bill introduced (not pa.s.sed) corruptly to favor a corporation, there were at least ten introduced (not pa.s.sed, and in this case not intended to be pa.s.sed) to blackmail corporations. The majority of the corrupt members would be found voting for the blackmailing bills if they were not paid, and would also be found voting in the interests of the corporation if they were paid. The blackmailing, or, as they were always called, the "strike" bills, could themselves be roughly divided into two categories: bills which it would have been proper to pa.s.s, and those that it would not have been proper to pa.s.s. Some of the bills aimed at corporations were utterly wild and improper; and of these a proportion might be introduced by honest and foolish zealots, whereas most of them were introduced by men who had not the slightest intention of pa.s.sing them, but who wished to be paid not to pa.s.s them. The most profitable type of bill to the accomplished blackmailer, however, was a bill aimed at a real corporate abuse which the corporation, either from wickedness or folly, was unwilling to remedy. Of the measures introduced in the interest of corporations there were also some that were proper and some that were improper. The corrupt legislators, the "black horse cavalry," as they were termed, would demand payment to vote as the corporations wished, no matter whether the bill was proper or improper.

Sometimes, if the bill was a proper one, the corporation would have the virtue or the strength of mind to refuse to pay for its pa.s.sage, and sometimes it would not.

A very slight consideration of the above state of affairs will show how difficult it was at times to keep the issue clear, for honest and dishonest men were continually found side by side voting now against and now for a corporation measure, the one set from proper and the other set from grossly improper motives. Of course part of the fault lay in the att.i.tudes of outsiders. It was very early borne in upon me that almost equal harm was done by indiscriminate defense of, and indiscriminate attack on, corporations. It was hard to say whether the man who prided himself upon always antagonizing the corporations, or the man who, on the plea that he was a good conservative, always stood up for them, was the more mischievous agent of corruption and demoralization.

In one fight in the House over a bill as to which there was a bitter contest between two New York City street railway organizations, I saw lobbyists come down on the floor itself and draw venal men out into the lobbies with almost no pretense of concealing what they were doing.

In another case in which the elevated railway corporations of New York City, against the protest of the Mayor and the other local authorities, rushed through a bill remitting over half their taxes, some of the members who voted for the measure probably thought it was right; but every corrupt man in the House voted with them; and the man must indeed have been stupid who thought that these votes were given disinterestedly.

The effective fight against this bill for the revision of the elevated railway taxes--perhaps the most openly crooked measure which during my time was pushed at Albany--was waged by Mike Costello and myself. We used to spend a good deal of time in industrious research into the various bills introduced, so as to find out what their authors really had in mind; this research, by the way, being highly unappreciated and much resented by the authors. In the course of his researches Mike had been puzzled by an unimportant bill, seemingly related to a Const.i.tutional amendment, introduced by a local saloon-keeper, whose interests, as far as we knew, were wholly remote from the Const.i.tution, or from any form of abstract legal betterment. However, the measure seemed harmless; we did not interfere; and it pa.s.sed the House. Mike, however, followed its career in the Senate, and at the last moment, almost by accident, discovered that it had been "amended" by the simple process of striking out everything after the enacting clause and un.o.btrusively subst.i.tuting the proposal to remit the elevated railway taxes! The authors of the change wished to avoid unseemly publicity; their hope was to slip the measure through the Legislature and have it instantly signed by the Governor, before any public attention was excited. In the Senate their plan worked to perfection. There was in the Senate no fighting leaders.h.i.+p of the forces of decency; and for such leaders.h.i.+p of the non-fighting type the representatives of corruption cared absolutely nothing. By bold and adroit management the subst.i.tution in the Senate was effected without opposition or comment. The bill (in reality, of course, an absolutely new and undebated bill) then came back to the House nominally as a merely amended measure, which, under the rules, was not open to debate unless the amendment was first by vote rejected. This was the great bill of the session for the lobby; and the lobby was keenly alive to the need of quick, wise action. No public attention whatever had so far been excited. Every measure was taken to secure immediate and silent action. A powerful leader, whom the beneficiaries of the bill trusted, a fearless and unscrupulous man, of much force and great knowledge of parliamentary law, was put in the chair. Costello and I were watched; and when for a moment we were out of the House, the bill was brought over from the Senate, and the clerk began to read it, all the black horse cavalry, in expectant mood, being in their seats. But Mike Costello, who was in the clerk's room, happened to catch a few words of what was being read. In he rushed, despatched a messenger for me, and began a single-handed filibuster. The Speaker pro tem called him to order. Mike continued to speak and protest; the Speaker hammered him down; Mike continued his protests; the sergeant-at-arms was sent to arrest and remove him; and then I bounced in, and continued the protest, and refused to sit down or be silent.

Amid wild confusion the amendment was declared adopted, and the bill was ordered engrossed and sent to the Governor. But we had carried our point. The next morning the whole press rang with what had happened; every detail of the bill, and every detail of the way it had been slipped through the Legislature, were made public. All the slow and cautious men in the House, who had been afraid of taking sides, now came forward in support of us. Another debate was held on the proposal to rescind the vote; the city authorities waked up to protest; the Governor refused to sign the bill. Two or three years later, after much litigation, the taxes were paid; in the newspapers it was stated that the amount was over $1,500,000. It was Mike Costello to whom primarily was due the fact that this sum was saved the public, and that the forces of corruption received a stinging rebuff. He did not expect recognition or reward for his services; and he got none. The public, if it knew of what he had done, promptly forgot it. The machine did not forget it, and turned him down at the next election.

One of the stand-by "strikes" was a bill for reducing the elevated railway fare, which at that time was ten cents, to five cents. In one Legislature the men responsible for the introduction of the bill suffered such an extraordinary change of heart that when the bill came up--being pushed by zealous radicals who really were honest--the introducers actually voted against it! A number of us who had been very doubtful about the principle of the bill voted for it simply because we were convinced that money was being used to stop it, and we hated to seem to side with the corruptionists. Then there came a wave of popular feeling in its favor, the bill was reintroduced at the next session, the railways very wisely decided that they would simply fight it on its merits, and the entire black horse cavalry contingent, together with all the former friends of the measure, voted against it. Some of us, who in our anger at the methods formerly resorted to for killing the bill had voted for it the previous year, with much heart-searching again voted for it, as I now think unwisely; and the bill was vetoed by the then Governor, Grover Cleveland. I believe the veto was proper, and those who felt as I did supported the veto; for although it was entirely right that the fare should be reduced to five cents, which was soon afterwards done, the method was unwise, and would have set a mischievous precedent.

An instance of an opposite kind occurred in connection with a great railway corporation which wished to increase its terminal facilities in one of our great cities. The representatives of the railway brought the bill to me and asked me to look into it, saying that they were well aware that it was the kind of bill that lent itself to blackmail, and that they wished to get it through on its merits, and invited the most careful examination. I looked carefully into it, found that the munic.i.p.al authorities and the property-owners whose property was to be taken favored it, and also found that it was an absolute necessity from the standpoint of the city no less than from the standpoint of the railway. So I said I would take charge of it if I had guarantees that no money should be used and nothing improper done in order to push it. This was agreed to. I was then acting as chairman of the committee before which the bill went.

A very brief experience proved what I had already been practically sure of, that there was a secret combination of the majority of the committee on a crooked basis. On one pretext or another the crooked members of the committee held the bill up, refusing to report it either favorably or unfavorably. There were one or two members of the committee who were pretty rough characters, and when I decided to force matters I was not sure that we would not have trouble. There was a broken chair in the room, and I got a leg of it loose and put it down beside me where it was not visible, but where I might get at it in a hurry if necessary. I moved that the bill be reported favorably. This was voted down without debate by the "combine," some of whom kept a wooden stolidity of look, while others leered at me with sneering insolence. I then moved that it be reported unfavorably, and again the motion was voted down by the same majority and in the same fas.h.i.+on. I then put the bill in my pocket and announced that I would report it anyhow. This almost precipitated a riot, especially when I explained, in answer to statements that my conduct would be exposed on the floor of the Legislature, that in that case I should give the Legislature the reasons why I suspected that the men holding up all report of the bill were holding it up for purposes of blackmail. The riot did not come off; partly, I think, because the opportune production of the chair-leg had a sedative effect, and partly owing to wise counsels from one or two of my opponents.

Accordingly I got the bill reported to the Legislature and put on the calendar. But here it came to a dead halt. I think this was chiefly because most of the newspapers which noticed the matter at all treated it in such a cynical spirit as to encourage the men who wished to blackmail. These papers reported the introduction of the bill, and said that "all the hungry legislators were clamoring for their share of the pie"; and they accepted as certain the fact that there was going to be a division of "pie." This succeeded in frightening honest men, and also in relieving the rogues; the former were afraid they would be suspected of receiving money if they voted for the bill, and the latter were given a s.h.i.+eld behind which to stand until they were paid. I was wholly unable to move the bill forward in the Legislature, and finally a representative of the railway told me that he thought he would like to take the bill out of my hands, that I did not seem able to get it through, and that perhaps some "older and more experienced" leader could be more successful. I was pretty certain what this meant, but of course I had no kind of proof, and moreover I was not in a position to say that I could promise success. Accordingly, the bill was given into the charge of a veteran, whom I believe to have been a personally honest man, but who was not inquisitive about the motives influencing his colleagues.

This gentleman, who went by a nickname which I shall incorrectly call "the bald eagle of Weehawken," was efficient and knew his job. After a couple of weeks a motion to put the bill through was made by "the bald eagle"; the "black horse cavalry," whose feelings had undergone a complete change in the intervening time, voted unanimously for it, in company with all the decent members; and that was the end. Now here was a bit of work in the interest of a corporation and in the interest of a community, which the corporation at first tried honestly to have put through on its merits. The blame for the failure lay primarily in the supine indifference of the community to legislative wrong-doing, so long as only the corporations were blackmailed.

Except as above mentioned, I was not brought in contact with big business, save in the effort to impeach a certain judge. This judge had been used as an instrument in their business by certain of the men connected with the elevated railways and other great corporations at that time. We got hold of his correspondence with one of these men, and it showed a shocking willingness to use the judicial office in any way that one of the kings of finance of that day desired. He had actually held court in one of that financier's rooms. One expression in one of the judge's letters to this financier I shall always remember: "I am willing to go to the very verge of judicial discretion to serve your vast interests." The curious thing was that I was by no means certain that the judge himself was corrupt. He may have been; but I am inclined to think that, aside from his being a man of coa.r.s.e moral fiber, the trouble lay chiefly in the fact that he had a genuine--if I had not so often seen it, I would say a wholly inexplicable--reverence for the possessor of a great fortune as such. He sincerely believed that business was the end of existence, and that judge and legislator alike should do whatever was necessary to favor it; and the bigger the business the more he desired to favor it. Big business of the kind that is allied with politics thoroughly appreciated the usefulness of such a judge, and every effort was strained to protect him. We fought hard--by "we" I mean some thirty or forty legislators, both Republicans and Democrats--but the "black horse cavalry," and the timid good men, and the dull conservative men, were all against us; and the vote in the Legislature was heavily against impeachment. The minority of the committee that investigated him, with Chapin at its head, recommended impeachment; the argument for impeachment before the committee was made by Francis Lynde Stetson.