wise to publish what I've said. Perhaps if it gets to
be known what a snap this manufacture of "Democracies" is, all the
green-goods men, the bunco-steerers, and the young Napoleons of finance
will go into it and the public will be humbugged more than it has been.
But, after all, what difference would it make? There's always a certain
number of suckers and a certain number of men lookin' for a chance to
take them in, and the suckers are sure to be took one way or another.
It's the everlastin' law of demand and supply.

Chapter 15. Concerning Gas in Politics

SINCE the eighty-cent gas bill was defeated in Albany, everybody's
talkin' about senators bein' bribed. Now, I wasn't in the Senate last
session, and I don't know the ins and outs of everything that was done,
but I can tell you that the legislators are often hauled over the coals
when they are all on the level I've been there and I know. For instance,
when I voted in the Senate in 1904, for the Remsen Bill that the
newspapers called the "Astoria Gas Grab Bill," they didn't do a thing to
me. The papers kept up a howl about all the supporters of the bill bein'
bought up by the Consolidated Gas Company, and the Citizens' Union
did me the honor to call me the commander-in-chief of the "Black Horse
Cavalry."

The fact is that I was workin' for my district all this time, and I
wasn't bribed by nobody. There's several of these gashouses in the
district, and I wanted to get them over to Astoria for three reasons:
first, because they're nuisances; second, because there's no votes in
them for me any longer; third, because--well, I had a little private
reason which I'll explain further on. I needn't explain how they're
nuisances. They're worse than open sewers. Still, I might have stood
that if they hadn't degenerated so much in the last few years.

Ah, gashouses ain't what they used to be! Not very long ago, each
gashouse was good for a couple of hundred votes. All the men employed in
them were Irishmen and Germans who lived in the district. Now, it is
all different. The men are dagoes who live across in Jersey and take
no interest in the district. What's the use of havin' ill-smellin'
gashouses if there's no votes in them?

Now, as to my private reason. Well, I'm a business man and go in for
any business that's profitable and honest. Real estate is one of my
specialties. I know the value of every foot of ground in my district,
and I calculated long ago that if them