The fact is that a reformer can't last in politics. He can make a
show for a while, but he always comes down like a rocket. Politics
is as much a regular business as the grocery or the dry-goods or the
drug business. You've got to be trained up to it or you're sure to
fail. Suppose a man who knew nothing about the grocery trade
suddenly went into the business and tried to conduct it according
to his own ideas. Wouldn't he make a mess of it? He might make a
splurge for a while, as long 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.