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 here, and I've met many thousands of them in my long
service in the Legislature. The hayseeds think we are like the
Indians to the National Government-that is, sort of wards of the
State, who don't know how to look after ourselves and have to be
taken care of by the Republicans of St. Lawrence, Ontario, and
other backwoods counties Why should any-body be surprised