s and identify myself with the right kind of people, the
people who would always in the long run control others and obtain the
real rewards which were worth having. I asked him if that meant that I
was to yield to the ring in politics. He answered somewhat impatiently
that I was entirely mistaken (as in fact I was) about there being merely
a political ring, of the kind of which the papers were fond of talking;
that the "ring," if it could be called such--that is, the inner
circle--included certain big business men, and the politicians, lawyers,
and judges who were in alliance with and to a certain extent dependent
upon them, and that the successful man had to win his success by the
backing of the same forces, whether in law, business, or politics.

This conversation not only interested me, but made such an impression
that I always remembered it, for it was the first glimpse I had of that
combination between business and politics which I was in after years so
often to oppose. In the America of that day, and especially among
the people whom I knew, the successful business man was regarded by
everybody as preeminently the good citizen. The orthodox books on
political economy, not only in America but in England, were written
for his especial glorification. The tangible rewards came to him, the
admiration of his fellow-citizens of the respectable type was apt to
be his, and the severe newspaper moralists who were never tired of
denouncing politicians and political methods were wont to hold up
"business methods" as the ideal which we were to strive to introduce
into political life. Herbert Croly, in "The Promise of American Life,"
has set forth the reasons why our individualistic democracy--which
taught that each man was to rely exclusively on himself, was in no way
to be interfered with by others, and was to devote himself to his own
personal welfare--necessarily produced the type of business man
who sincerely believed, as did the rest of the community, that the
individual who amassed a big fortune was the man who was the best and
most typical American.

In the Legislature the problems with which I dealt were mainly problems
of honesty and decency and of legislative and administrative efficiency.
They represented the effort, the wise, the vitally necessary effort, to
get efficient and honest government. But as yet I understood little of
the effort which was already beginning, for the most part under very bad
leadership, to