onsciousness that they have a
big, warm-hearted friend at court who will stand by them in an
emergency. The sense of just dealing comes apparently much later than
the desire for protection and indulgence. On the whole, the gifts and
favors are taken quite simply as an evidence of genuine loving-kindness.
The alderman is really elected because he is a good friend and neighbor.
He is corrupt, of course, but he is not elected because he is corrupt,
but rather in spite of it. His standard suits his constituents. He
exemplifies and exaggerates the popular type of a good man. He has
attained what his constituents secretly long for.

At one end of the ward there is a street of good houses, familiarly
called "Con Row." The term is perhaps quite unjustly used, but it is
nevertheless universally applied, because many of these houses are
occupied by professional office holders. This row is supposed to form a
happy hunting-ground of the successful politician, where he can live in
prosperity, and still maintain his vote and influence in the ward. It
would be difficult to justly estimate the influence which this group of
successful, prominent men, including the alderman who lives there, have
had upon the ideals of the youth in the vicinity. The path which leads
to riches and success, to civic prominence and honor, is the path of
political corruption. We might compare this to the path laid out by
Benjamin Franklin, who also secured all of these things, but told young
men that they could be obtained only by strenuous effort and frugal
living, by the cultivation of the mind, and the holding fast to
righteousness; or, again, we might compare it to the ideals which were
held up to the American youth fifty years ago, lower, to be sure, than
the revolutionary ideal, but still fine and aspiring toward honorable
dealing and careful living. They were told that the career of the
self-made man was open to every American boy, if he worked hard and
saved his money, improved his mind, and followed a steady ambition. The
writer remembers that when she was ten years old, the village
schoolmaster told his little flock, without any mitigating clauses,
that Jay Gould had laid the foundation of his colossal fortune by always
saving bits of string, and that, as a result, every child in the village
assiduously collected party-colored balls of twine. A bright Chicago boy
might well draw the inference that the path of the corrupt politician
not only leads to