“For many reasons.  First, I have always tried to tell the voters the truth, and never have been afraid to acknowledge I was wrong, when I found I had made a mistake, so people trust what I say.  Then, unlike most of the leaders in politics, I am not trying to get myself office or profit, and so the men feel that I am disinterested.  Then I try to be friendly with the whole ward, so that if I have to do what they don’t like, their personal feeling for me will do what my arguments never could.  With these simple, strong-feeling, and unreasoning folk, one can get ten times the influence by a warm handshake and word that one can by a logical argument.  We are so used to believing what we read, if it seems reasonable, that it is hard for us to understand that men who spell out editorials with difficulty, and who have not been trained to reason from facts, are not swayed by what to us seems an obvious argument.  But, on the contrary, if a man they trust, puts it in plain language to them, they see it at once.  I might write a careful editorial, and ask my ward to read it, and unless they knew I wrote it, they probably wouldn’t be convinced in the least.  But let me go into the saloons, and tell the men just the same thing, and there isn’t a man who wouldn’t be influenced by it.”

“You are so popular in the ward?” asked Leonore.

“I think so, I find kind words and welcome everywhere.  But then I have tried very hard to be popular.  I have endeavored to make a friend of every man in it with whom one could be friendly, because I wished to be as powerful as possible, so that the men would side with me whenever I put my foot down on something wrong.”

“Do you ever tell the ward how they are to vote?”

“I tell them my views.  But never how to vote.  Once I came very near it, though.”

“How was that?”

“I was laid up for eight months by my eyes, part of the time in Paris.  The primary in the meantime had put up a pretty poor man for an office.  A fellow who had been sentenced for murder, but had been pardoned by political influence.  When I was able to take a hand, I felt that I could do better by interfering, so I came out for the Republican candidate, who was a really fine fellow.  I tried to see and talk to every man in the ward, and on election day I asked a good many men, as a personal favor, to vote for the Republican, and my friends asked others.  Even Dennis Moriarty worked and voted for what he calls a ‘dirty Republican,’ though he said ’he never thought he’d soil his hands wid one av their ballots.’  That is the nearest I ever came to telling them how to vote.”

“And did they do as you asked?”

“The only Republican the ward has chosen since 1862 was elected in that year.  It was a great surprise to every one—­even to myself—­for the ward is Democratic by about four thousand majority.  But I couldn’t do that sort of thing often, for the men wouldn’t stand it.  In other words, I can only do what I want myself, by doing enough else that the men wish.  That is, the more I can do to please the men, the more they yield their opinions to mine.”