"IN THE FIRST PLACE"


The old-timer, a lean, retired pantaloon, sitting with loosely
slippered feet close to the fire, thus gave of his wisdom to the
questioning student:

"Looking back upon it all, what we most need in politics is more good
men. Thousands of good men _are_ in; and they need the others who
are not in. More would come if they knew how _much_ they are
needed. The dilettantes of the clubs who have so easily abused me, for
instance, all my life, for being a ward-worker, these and those other
reformers who write papers about national corruption when they don't
know how their own wards are swung, probably aren't so useful as they
might be. The exquisite who says that politics is 'too dirty a
business for a gentleman to meddle with' is like the woman who lived
in the parlour and complained that the rest of her family kept the
other rooms so dirty that she never went into them.

"There are many thousands of young men belonging to what is for some
reason called the 'best class,' who would like to be 'in politics' if
they could begin high enough up--as ambassadors, for instance. That
is, they would like the country to do something for them, though they
wouldn't put it that way. A young man of this sort doesn't know how
much he'd miss if his wishes were gratified. For my part, I'd hate not
to have begun at the beginning of the game.

"I speak of it as a game," the old gentleman went on, "and in some