and soon afterwards he began an active campaign for the Common
Council. It was partly my interest in him and partly a new sense of
duty I felt towards the whole game that made me resolve to have a hand
in this. I owed that much to the ward in which I lived and which was
doing so much for me.

In talking with some of the active settlement workers down here, I
found them as strongly prejudiced against the party in power as I had
been and when I spoke to them of Rafferty I found him damned in their
eyes as soon as I mentioned his party.

"The whole system is corrupt from top to bottom," said the head of one
settlement house to me.

"Are you doing anything to remedy it?" I asked.

"What _can_ you do?" he said. "We are doing the only thing
possible--we're trying to get hold of the youngsters and give them a
higher sense of civic virtue."

"That's good," I said, "but you don't get hold of one in ten of the
coming voters. And you don't get hold of one in a hundred of the
coming politicians. Why don't you take hold of a man like Dan who is
bound to get power some day and talk a little civic virtue into him."

"You said he was a Democrat and a machine man," said he, as though
that settled it.

"I don't see any harm in either fact," I said, "if you get at the good
in him. A good Democrat is a good citizen and a good machine is a
good power," I said.

The man smiled.

"You don't know," he said.

"Do _you_ know?" I asked. "Have you been to the rallies and met the
men and studied their methods?"

"All you have to do is to read the papers," he answered.

"I don't think so," I said. "To beat an enemy you ought to study him
at first hand. You ought to find out the good as well as the bad in
him. You ought to find out where he gets his power."

"Graft and patronage," he answered.

"What about the other party?" I said.

"Just as bad."

"Then what are you going to do about it?" I asked.

"Our only hope is education," he said.

"Then," I said, "why not educate the young politicians? Get to know
Rafferty--he's young and simple and honest now. Help him to advance
honestly and keep him that way."

He shook his head doubtfully but he agreed to have a talk with Dan. In
the meanwhile I had a talk with Dan myself. I told him what my scheme
was.

"Dan," I said, "you must decide right at the beginning of your career
whether you're going to be just a tool of Sweeney's or whether you're
going to stand on your own feet."