n the organization? Look at the thirty-six district leaders
of Tammany Hall today. How many of them travel on their tongues? Maybe
one or two, and they don't count when business is doin' at Tammany
Hall. The men who rule have practiced keepin' their tongues still, not
exercisin' them. So you want to drop the orator idea unless you mean to
go into politics just to perform the skyrocket act.

Now, I've told you what not to do; I guess I can explain best what to
do to succeed in politics by tellin' you what I did. After goin' through
the apprenticeship of the business while I was a boy by workin' around
the district headquarters and hustlin' about the polls on election day,
I set out when I cast my first vote to win fame and money in New York
City politics. Did I offer my services to the district leader as a
stump-speaker? Not much. The woods are always full of speakers. Did
I get up a hook on municipal government and show it to the leader? I
wasn't such a fool. What I did was to get some marketable goods before
goin' to the leaders. What do I mean by marketable goods? Let me tell
you: I had a cousin, a young man who didn't take any particular
interest in politics. I went to him and said: "Tommy, I'm goin' to be a
politician, and I want to get a followin'; can I count on you?" He said:
"Sure, George". That's how I started in business. I got a marketable
commodity----one vote. Then I went to the district leader and told him
I could command two votes on election day, Tommy's and my own. He
smiled on me and told me to go ahead. If I had offered him a speech or a
bookful of learnin', he would have said, "Oh, forget it!"

That was beginnin' business in a small way, wasn't it? But that is the
only way to become a real lastin' statesman. I soon branched out. Two
young men in the flat next to mine were school friends--I went to them,
just as I went to Tommy, and they agreed to stand by me. Then I had a
followin' of three voters and I began to get a bit chesty. Whenever I
dropped into district head-quarters, everybody shook hands with me, and
the leader one day honored me by lightin' a match for my cigar. And so
it went on like a snowball rollin' down a hill I worked the flat-house
that I lived in from the basement to the top floor, and I got about a
dozen young men to follow me. Then I tackled the next house and so on
down the block and around the corner. Before long I had sixty men back
of me, and formed the George Washington Plu