ong as his money
lasted, but his store would soon be empty. It's just the same with
a reformer. He hasn't been brought up in the difficult business of
politics and he makes a mess of it every time.

I've been studyin' the political game for forty-five years, and! don't
know it all yet. I'm learnin' somethin' all the time. How, then, can you
expect what they call "business men" to turn into politics all at
once and make a success of it? It is just as if I went up to Columbia
University and started to teach Greek. They usually last about as long
in politics as I would last at Columbia.

You can't begin too early in politics if you want to succeed at the
game. I began several years before I could vote, and so did every
successful leader in Tammany Hall. When I was twelve years old I made
myself useful around the district headquarters and did work at all the
polls on election day. Later on, I hustled about gettin' out voters who
had jags on or who were too lazy to come to the polls. There's a hundred
ways that boys can help, and they get an experience that's the
first real step in statesmanship. Show me a boy that hustles for the
organization on election day, and I'll show you a comin' statesman.

That's the a, b, c of politics. It ain't easy work to get up to q and
z. You have to give nearly all your time and attention to it. Of course,
you may have some business or occupation on the side, but the great
business of your life must be politics if you want to succeed in it.
A few years ago Tammany tried to mix politics and business in equal
quantities, by havin' two leaders for each district, a politician and
a business man. They wouldn't mix. They were like oil and water. The
politician looked after the politics of his district; the business
man looked after his grocery store or his milk route, and whenever he
appeared at an executive meeting, it was only to make trouble. The whole
scheme turned out to be a farce and was abandoned mighty quick.

Do you understand now, why it is that a reformer goes down and out in
the first or second round, while a politician answers to the gong every
time? It is because the one has gone into the fight without trainin',
while the other trains all the time and knows every fine point of the
game.

Chapter 5. New York City Is Pie for the Hayseeds

THIS city is ruled entirely by the hayseed legislators at Albany. I've
never known an upstate Republican who didn't want to run things
her