erably happy
when not in power in the city. When we win I won't let any deservin'
Republican in my neighborhood suffer from hunger or thirst, although, of
course, I look out for my own people first.

Now, I've never gone in for nonpartisan business, but I do think that
all the leaders of the two parties should get together and make an open,
nonpartisan fight against civil service, their common enemy. They
could keep up their quarrels about imperialism and free silver and high
tariff. They don't count for much alongside of civil service, which
strikes right at the root of the government. The time is fast coming
when civil service or the politicians will have to go. And it will be
here sooner than they expect if the politicians don't unite, drop all
them minor issues for a while and make a stand against the civil service
flood that's sweepin' over the country like them floods out West.

Chapter 10. Brooklynites Natural-Born Hayseeds

SOME people are wonderin' why it is that the Brooklyn Democrats have
been sidin' with David B. Hill and the upstate crowd. There's no cause
for wonder. I have made a careful study of the Brooklynite, and I can
tell you why. It's because a Brooklynite is a natural-born hay. seed,
and can never become a real New Yorker. He can't be trained into it.
Consolidation didn't make him a New Yorker, and nothin' on earth can. A
man born in Germany can settle down and become a good New Yorker. So
can an Irishman; in fact, the first word an Irish boy learns in the old
country is "New York," and when he grows up and comes here, he is at
home right away. Even a Jap or a Chinaman can become a New Yorker, but a
Brooklynite never can.

And why? Because Brooklyn don't seem to be like any other place on
earth. Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn's cobblestones, with the
odor of Newton Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in his nostrils, and there's
no place in the world for him except Brooklyn. And even if he don't grow
up there; if he is born there and lives there only in his boyhood and
then moves away, he is still beyond redemption. In one of my speeches
in the Legislature, I gave an example of this, and it's worth repeatin'
now. Soon after I became a leader on the West Side, a quarter of a
century ago, I came across a bright boy, about seven years old, who had
just been brought over from Brooklyn by his parents. I took an interest
in the boy, and when he grew up I brought him into politics. Finally, I
se