Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-29


I'VE used to talk issues to 'em. too, in the
old days. But they were issues like this:
Who's got the jobs to give If you need em
in the coming hard winter? Who backs
you fellers up against the health board and
the cops? Who can pull things off for this
district? Nobody but us!-'us' meaning the
election district captains. Both sides work
ed the same gag
1T was a good deal more fun. politics in
those days that It is now A good deal
more fun. and. maybe. easier, too. It's
true that some OF US went out in every
campalgn-more than people imagine. 1t
would be quite spectacular If somebody
could ever get together list of the killings
but nobody ever will. We had good poll
ticians In the different departments then
instead Of statisticians who want 10 get
their blamed old figures right all the time,
and election killings kind of got mixed in
with the other mortuary statistics, so that
they didn't look so bad. But what with
every other good politician carrying a gun,
and with the gangs of rough-and-tumule
fighters that we kept as body guards, and
with scraps at the conventions and at the
polling booths. political life back in 10 was
pretty hard on the health of any except
husky men. That's where so many of the
big fellers' butted in. 1t wasn't smart
ness half so much as fists
We utuA nave 10 ne SO very SMART
There wasn't any nasty shadow of state
prison hanging over II man was
merry enough and strong enough, and his
gang was bigger and better than the other
fellows gang, there wasn't much in the
way OF voting all the votes that could be
bought. or counting in a vote II crcum-
stances had prevented you from casting a
big enough one, or grabbing the ballot
boxes bodily and stuffing them full with
wads on wads of votes at the last moment,
10 make sure
IF you didn't get killed or MANNED right
then and there you were safe. The morn
ing after election wiped out everything.
There was no blamed poStmortem in grand
jury rooms. and. II there had been. there
wouldn't have been any witnesses. for
squealing was the most unsanitary occupa-
ton that any man could pick for himself in
those days.
THE best sign Of the changed times Is in
the fuss everybody Is making over the little
outbreaks OF the poor, secondhand gangs
that still exist on the far East and West
sides. To us old fellows who were in the
thick OF Il thirty years ago those imitation
thugs look like kindergartens.
1.-THE gangs of our times were real pow
ers. They voted where and how and as
often as they were ordered. and they were
prepared TO cast every vote over the bodies
of reformers and policemen-not that po-
licemen often laid their bodies in the way
but they old sometimes, and so did reform
ers. and then there was hospital case
There were reformers even in those
days. but they weren't the oyerbearing
kind. What watching they did at the polls
they did under the shadow of polceman's
arm. and they would no more have thought
of venturing away from his side than a
golden-haired chick would dream of get
ting away from the mother hen when there
IS a cat around.
at was manners not to pull reformer
right out from under a policeman and beat
the dust out Of him; but sooner or later In