howed that
the best people in the churches joined the worst people in the dives to
vote the same ticket, and vote it "straight." And I was most of all
puzzled to find that when the elections were over, the opposition
newspaper ceased its scolding, the voice of ministerial denunciation
died away, and the crimes of the election thieves were condoned and
forgotten.

I was puzzled. I saw the jungle of vice and party prejudice, but I did
not yet see "the Cat." I saw its ears and its eyes there in the
underbrush, but I did not know what they were. I thought they were
connected with the Republican party.

And then I came upon some more of the brute's anatomy. Members of the
Legislature in Denver were accused of fraud in the purchase of state
supplies, and--some months later--members of the city government were
accused of committing similar frauds with the aid of civic officials
and prominent business men. It was proved in court, for example, that
bills for $3 had been raised to $300, that $200 had been paid for a
bundle of hay worth $2, and $50 for a yard of cheesecloth worth five
cents; barrels of ink had been bought for each legislator, though a
pint would have sufficed; and an official of the Police Department was
found guilty of conniving with a gambler named "Jim" Marshall to rob an
express train. I watched the cases in court. I applauded at the
meetings of leading citizens who denounced the grafters and passed
resolutions in support of the candidates of the opposition party. I
waited to see the criminals punished. And they were not punished.
Their crimes were not denied. They were publicly denounced by the
courts and by the investigating committees, but somehow, for reasons
not clear, they all went scot-free, on appeals. Some mysterious power
protected them, and I, in the boyish ardor of my ignorance, concluded
that they were protected by the Republican "bloody shirt"--and I rushed
into that (to me) great confederation of righteousness and all-decent
government, the Democratic party.

It would be laughable to me now, if it were not so "sort of sad."

Meanwhile, I was busy about the office, copying letters, running
errands, carrying books to and from the court rooms, reading law in the
intervals, and at night scrubbing the floors. I was pale, thin,
big-headed, with the body of an underfed child, and an ambition that
kept me up half the night with Von Holst's "Constitutional Law,"
Walker's "American Law,"