I made several speeches myself though it was hard work for me. I don't run to that sort of thing. I did it however just because I didn't like it and because I felt it was the duty of a citizen to do something now and then he doesn't like for his city and his country. The old excuse with me had been that politics was a dirty business at best and that it ought to be left to the lawyers and such who had something to gain from it. The only men I ever knew who went into it at all were those who had a talent for it and who liked it. Of course that's dead wrong. A man who won't take the trouble to find out about the men up for office and who won't bother himself to get out and hustle for the best of them isn't a good citizen or a good American. He deserves to be governed by the newcomers and deserves all they hand out to him. And the time to do the work isn't when a man is up for president of the United States, it's when the man is up for the common council. The higher up a politician gets, the less the influence of the single voter counts. It was in the spring that some of my ideals received a set back. The alderman from our ward died suddenly and Rafferty was naturally hot after the vacancy. He came to see me about it, but before he broached this subject he laid another before me that took away my breath. It was nothing else than that I should go into partnership with him under the firm name of "Carleton and Rafferty." I couldn't believe it possible that he was in a position to take such a step within a couple of years of digging in the ditch. But when he explained the scheme to me, it was as simple as rolling off a log. A firm of liquor dealers had agreed to back him--form a stock company and give him a third interest to manage it. He had spoken to them of me and said he'd do it if they would make it a half interest and give us each a quarter. "But good Lord, Dan," I said, "we'd have to swing a lot of business to make it go." "Never you worry about thot, mon," he said. "I'll fix thot all right if I'm elicted to the boord." "You mean city contracts?" I said. "Sure." I began to see. The liquor house was looking for more licenses and would get their pay out of Dan even if the firm didn't make a cent. But Dan with such capital back of him as well as his aldermanic power was sure to get the contracts. He would leave the actual work to me and my men. I sat down and for two hours tried to make Dan realize how this crowd wanted to use him. I couldn't. In addition to being blinded by his overwhelming ambition, he actually couldn't see anything crooked in what they wanted. He couldn't understand why he should let such an opportunity drop for someone else to pick up. He had slipped out of my hands completely. This was where the difference between five or six years in America as against two hundred showed itself. And yet what was the old stock doing to offset such personal ambition and energy as Rafferty stood for?