ature. That's rot. People can get all the political stuff
they want to read--and a good deal more, too--in the papers. Who reads
speeches, nowadays, anyhow? It's bad enough to listen to them. You
ain't goin' to gain any votes by stuffin' the letter boxes with campaign
documents. Like as not you'll lose votes for there's nothin' a man hates
more than to hear the letter carrier ring his bell and go to the letter
box ex pectin' to find a letter he was lookin' for, and find only a lot
of printed politics. I met a man this very mornin' who told me he voted
the Democratic State ticket last year just because the Republicans kept
crammin' his letter box with campaign documents.

What tells in holdin' your grip on your district is to go right down
among the poor families and help them in the different ways they need
help. I've got a regular system for this. If there's a fire in Ninth,
Tenth, or Eleventh Avenue, for example, any hour of the day or night,
I'm usually there with some of my election district captains as soon as
the fire engines. If a family is burned out I don't ask whether they
are Republicans or Democrats, and I don't refer them to the Charity
Organization Society, which would investigate their case in a month or
two and decide they were worthy of help about the time they are dead
from starvation. I just get quarters for them, buy clothes for them
if their clothes were burned up, and fix them up till they get things
runnin' again. It's philanthropy, but it's politics, too--mighty good
politics. Who can tell how many votes one of these fires bring me? The
poor are the most grateful people in the world, and, let me tell you,
they have more friends in their neighborhoods than the rich have in
theirs.

If there's a family in my district in want I know it before the
charitable societies do, and me and my men are first on the ground. I
have a special corps to look up such cases. The consequence is that
the poor look up to George W. Plunkitt as a father, come to him in
trouble--and don't forget him on election day.

Another thing, I can always get a job for a deservin' man. I make it a
point to keep on the track of jobs, and it seldom happens that I don't
have a few up my sleeve ready for use. I know every big employer in the
district and in the whole city, for that matter, and they ain't in the
habit of sayin' no to me when I ask them for a job.

And the children--the little roses of the district! Do I forget them?