when Jim Blaine was there reporting for his newspaper. I
want to tell you that when you get next to the real thing in politics
you'll find that this people thing--the capital-letter idea--is a dream.
Yes, it is, now! Don't undertake to dispute me! Here in one town you'll
find a man or a set of men handling a bunch. A county clique handles
another one. Some especial local interest makes this crowd vote one way;
same thing will make another bunch in another town mad and they'll vote
against it. It's all factions and self-interest, and you can't make it
over into anything different. That's practical politics. Get out and
you'll see it for yourself. You can swap and steer--that's politics. But
as for uniting 'em into The People--well, try to weld a cat's tail and a
tallow candle, and see how you get along!"

"It's high time we had less politics, then," cried Davis, "when politics
lets the picked and chosen get rich selling rum or dodging taxes, and
takes a poor man and pestles his head into the mortar till every cent is
banged out of his pocket!"

"Davis, I'm patient with ramrodders when they're having an acute attack
like you're having. It's the chronic cases I get after, the ones who are
in it for profit, and have been poking you fellows up because they're
paid for doing it. All of a sudden all of you are yapping at me because
I've played the game. I'm talking business with you now. I suppose I
might spread-eagle to you about our grand old State, and the call of
duty and the noble principles of reform; I might fly up on this fence
here and crow just as loud as any of those reform roosters, and not have
any more sense in what I was saying than they do. I see you've got
hungry for that revival hoorah. But I'm not going to perch and crow for
the sake of getting three cheers! I'm going to stay right down here on
the gravel with you, boys, and scratch a few times, and show you a few
kernels, and cluck a little business talk. This district--you and your
folks before you--has been sending me to the legislature for a good many
years. I'm an ordinary man, and I've been against ordinary men down
there at the State House. I should have played the game different with
angels, but I couldn't find the angels."

He pointed through a window to a large building that occupied a hilltop
just outside the village.

"Half the counties in the State were after that training seminary," he
went on. "I beat the lobby, and got it. How much money d