there's no excuse for stealin' a cent. The point I want to make is
that if there is some stealin' in politics, it don't mean that the
politicians of 1905 are, as a class, worse than them of 1835. It just
means that the old-timers had nothin' to steal, while the politicians
now are surrounded by all kinds of temptations and some of them
naturally-the fool ones -buck up against the penal code.

Chapter 8. Ingratitude in Politics

THERE's no crime so mean as ingratitude in politics, but every
great statesman from the beginnin' of the world has been up
against it. Caesar had his Brutus; that king of Shakespeare's-Leary,
I think you call him-had his own daughters go back on him; Platt
had his Odell, and I've got my "The" McManus. It's a real proof
that a man is great when he meets with political ingratitude. Great
men have a tender, trustin' nature. So have I, outside of the
contractin' and real estate business. In politics I have trusted men
who have told me they were my friends, and if traitors have turned
up in my camp well, I only had the same experience as Caesar,
Leary, and the others. About my Brutus. McManus, you know, has
seven brothers and they call him "The" because he is the boss of
the lot, and to distinguish him from all other McManuses. For
several years he was a political bushwhacker. In campaigns he was
sometimes on the fence, sometimes on both sides of the fence, and
sometimes under the fence. Nobody knew where to find him at any
particular time, and nobody trusted him-that is, nobody but me. I
thought there was some good in him after all and that, if I took him
in hand, I could make a man of him yet.

I did take him in hand, a few years ago. My friends told me it