that dress suits have done in politics. They are not so fatal to young
politicians as civil service reform and drink, but they have scores
of victims. I will mention one sad case. After the big Tammany
victory in 1897, Richard Croker went down to Lakewood to make
up the slate of offices for Mayor Van Wyck to distribute. All the
district leaders and many more Tammany men went down there,
too, to pick up anything good that was goin.' There was nothin' but
dress suits at dinner at Lakewood, and Croker wouldn't let any
Tammany men go to dinner without them. Well, a bright young
West Side politician, who held a three-thousan dollar job in one of
the departments, went to Lakewood to ask Croker for something
better. He wore a dress suit for the first time in his hie. It was his
undoin'. He got stuck on himself. He thought he looked too
beautiful for anything, and when he came home he was a changed
man. As soon as he got to his house every evenin' he put on that
dress Suit and set around in it until bedtime. That didn't satisfy him
long. He wanted others to see how beautiful he was in a dress suit;
so he joined dancin' clubs and began goin' to all the balls that was
given in town. Soon he began to neglect his family. Then he took
to drinkin', and didn't pay any attention to his political work in the
district. The end came in less than a year. He was dismissed from
the department and went to the dogs. The other day I met him
rigged out almost like a hobo, but he still had a dress-suit vest on.
When I asked him what he was doin', he said: "Nothin' at present,
but I got a promise of a job enrollin' voters at Citizens' Union
head-quarters." Yes, a dress Suit had brought him that low!

I'll tell you another case right in my own Assembly District. A few
years ago I had as one of my lieutenants a man named Zeke
Thompson. He did fine work for me and I thought he had a bright