the
arguments advanced against Civil Service Reform. One of these arguments,
a favorite with machine politicians, takes the form of an appeal to
"party loyalty" in filling minor offices. Why, again and again these
very same machine politicians take just as good care of henchmen of
the opposite party as of those of their own party. In the underworld of
politics the closest ties are sometimes those which knit together the
active professional workers of opposite political parties. A friend
of mine in the New York Legislature--the hero of the alpha and omega
incident--once remarked to me: "When you have been in public life a
little longer, Mr. Roosevelt, you will understand that there are no
politics in politics." In the politics to which he was referring this
remark could be taken literally.

Another illustration of this truth was incidentally given me, at about
the same time, by an acquaintance, a Tammany man named Costigan, a good
fellow according to his lights. I had been speaking to him of a fight in
one of the New York downtown districts, a Democratic district in which
the Republican party was in a hopeless minority, and, moreover,
was split into the Half-Breed and Stalwart factions. It had been an
interesting fight in more than one way. For instance, the Republican
party, at the general election, polled something like five hundred
and fifty votes, and yet at the primary the two factions polled
seven hundred and twenty-five all told. The sum of the parts was thus
considerably greater than the whole. There had been other little details
that made the contest worthy of note. The hall in which the primary was
held had been hired by the Stalwarts from a conscientious gentleman. To
him the Half-Breeds applied to know whether they could not hire the hall
away from their opponents, and offered him a substantial money advance.
The conscientious gentleman replied that his word was as good as his
bond, that he had hired the hall to the Stalwarts, and that it must
be theirs. But he added that he was willing to hire the doorway to
the Half-Breeds if they paid him the additional sum of money they had
mentioned. The bargain was struck, and the meeting of the hostile hosts
was spirited, when the men who had rented the doorway sought to bar the
path of the men who had rented the hall. I was asking my friend Costigan
about the details of the struggle, as he seemed thoroughly acquainted
with them, and he smiled good-naturedly over my su