borough was
inaugurated. He had got his nomination from a convention of men who
hated and feared him, but who dared not flout the people and fling away
victory; he had got his election because the defections from our ranks
in the doubtful states far outbalanced Goodrich's extensive purchases
there with the huge campaign-fund of the interests. The wheel-horse,
Partizanship, had broken down, and the leader, Plutocracy, could not
draw the chariot to victory alone.

As soon as the election was over, our people began to cable me to come
home and take charge. But I waited until Woodruff and my other faithful
lieutenants had thoroughly convinced all the officers of the machine how
desperate its plight was, and that I alone could repair and restore,
and that I could do it only if absolute control were given me. When the
ship reached quarantine Woodruff came aboard; and, not having seen him
in many months, I was able to see, and was startled by, the contrast
between the Doc Woodruff I had met on the train more years before than I
cared to cast up, and the United States Senator Woodruff, high in the
councils of the party and high in the esteem of its partizans among the
people. He was saying: "You can have anything you want, Senator," and so
on. But I was thinking of him, of the vicissitudes of politics, of the
unending struggle of the foul stream to purify itself, to sink or to
saturate its mud. For we ought not to forget that if the clear water is
saturated with mud, also the mud is saturated with clear water.

A week or so after I resumed the chairmanship, Scarborough invited me to
lunch alone with him at the White House. When I had seen him, four years
before, just after his defeat, he was in high spirits and looked a
youth. Now it depressed me, but gave me no surprise, to find him worn,
and overcast by that tragic sadness which canopies every one of the
seats of the mighty. "I fear, Mr. President," said I, "you are finding
the men who will help you to carry out your ideas as rare as I once
warned you they were."

"Not rare," was his answer, "but hard to get at through the throngs of
Baal-worshipers that have descended upon me and are trying to hedge me
in."

"Fortunately, you are free from political and social entanglements,"
said I, with ironic intent.

He laughed with only a slightly concealed bitterness. "From political
entanglements--yes," said he. "But not from social toils. Ever since I
have been in national life