his progress. In that District Association, from which his
friends had warned him away, he found a young Irishman who had
been a gang leader in the rough-and-tumble politics of the East
Side. Driven by the winter wind of man's ingratitude from Tammany
Hall into the ranks of the opposite party, Joe Murray was at this
time one of the lesser captains in "the Twenty-first" Roosevelt
soon came to like him. He was "by nature as straight a man, as
fearless, and as stanchly loyal," said Roosevelt, "as any one
whom I have ever met, a man to be trusted in any position
demanding courage, integrity, and good faith." The liking was
returned by the eager and belligerent young Irishman, though he
has confessed that he was first led to consider Roosevelt as a
political ally from the point of view of his advantages as a
vote-getter.

The year after Roosevelt joined "the governing class" in Morton
Hall, "a large barn-like room over a saloon," with furniture "of
the canonical kind; dingy benches, spittoons, a dais at one end
with a table and chair, and a stout pitcher for iced water, and
on the walls pictures of General Grant, and of Levi P. Morton,"
Joe Murray was engaged in a conflict with "the boss" and wanted a
candidate of his own for the Assembly. He picked out Roosevelt,
because he thought that with him he would be most likely to win.
Win they did; the nomination was snatched away from the boss's
man, and election followed. The defeated boss good-humoredly
turned in to help elect the young silk-stocking who had been the
instrument of his discomfiture.