ible to assume. 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 relationship with Joe Murray and my other friends of
this period which rendered that relationship 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 entitled in common with other people. So it was
in my relationship 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 noble 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 attitude of my
new friends toward me was first one of polite reserve, and then that of
friendly alliance. Afterwards I became admitted to comradeship, and then
to leadership. 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 fellowship with the other men and women engaged in the
same task, fellowship of work, with fun to vary the work; for unless
there is this feeling of fellowship, 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