ittle tact to lead him to the trough.

"As I am necessarily in your confidence I will take you voluntarily into
mine," he announced, in his clear high pipe. "I don't in my heart care a
hang more for the Democratic party than I do for the Republican. But the
Republicans own the State at present, and there's no chance to get your
name up and really do things in that party. They're out for graft, every
last one of them. The chance is on the other side. It's a big chance;
for the laboring class, what with unions, and being rotten spoilt with
easy living in this State, is becoming more and more dissatisfied every
day. If they were let alone it would never occur to them they weren't
the chosen of the Lord; but we--the Democratic party--can't afford to
let them alone, unless we want to go out of business altogether. They
are just about the only dough we've got to work on, and for the last few
years we've been systematically sowing the seeds of discontent by means
of the press, metropolitan and local, abusing the rich, the trusts,
harping on the segregation of capital by a favored few, to the unjust
and illegal impoverishment of the many, painting gaudy pictures of what
the working-man's lot will be when he gets his rights, emphasizing that
in this State, of all others, man was intended to be happy and share
equally in her abundance. We sail pretty close to anarchy; but they are
an ignorant foolish lot, and we keep a tight hand on the reins and will
drive them in a straight line when the time comes. I am qualifying for
the position of district leader hereabouts, although I'm not announcing
it from the house-tops. But the present one is getting old, and I'm on
the inside track. I dress in these battered old clothes, that make my
little wife weep--she'll never have any other cause from me--just to
impress the farmers what a good Democrat I am; not a bit like Hyliard
Wheaton, who is a dude. All he is waiting for is his father's death so
that he can move to San Francisco. But I drive round in a dusty old
buggy, with candy for the children in my pocket, and chin with the
farmers about the crops and any old thing. When this county turns
Democratic, as it shall in the next five years--likely as not sooner, we
have so much raw material to work on in these immigrants--I intend to go
to Congress, hold on in the House until there is a vacancy in the
Senate, and there I'll be for life, and the boss of this State to boot.
I can't say I care