The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-11-05
How They Get Out the Ballots
of Metropolis.
Same Old System, But Not Same
Old Methods.
THE ISSUES OF OLD
Were Who's Got the Jobs to Give
Out.
Interesting Details Of How the
Precincts We're Mapped Out.
By AN Old DISTRICT POLITICIAN.

BY AN OLD DISTRICT POLITICIAN.
z HEY'RE getting in the vote
for mayor of New Y rk by
the same old system this year
as they did in the years gone
by, but not by the same old
methods. 1t was the same old
system in my tfme-the election dis
trlct captain who worked at hard Ia
Dor all year to gather in the vote,
vote by vote; then the assembly dis
trict leader, who gathered in the vote
brought by the captains and delivered
1T to the chiefs. That's the way they
do today but all, me- the way they
do it is so different
can't tell you better how great that
difference is than by two anecdotes.
Thirty years ago I was at a meeting
OF election district captains. They met
in a back room in their shirt sleeves.
and they didn't settle down to bust
ness tia they had decided a mOOted
point about the best way to perform a
certain horrible bit of mayhem in the
fighting that then was called rough
and-tumbles from which few except
experts ever emerged without being
manned for life.
On the way home two of the cap
tains mixed it up" with a policeman.
and that official person went to the
hospital.
Last week L attended another meet
ing of election district captains. They
met in an expensive hotel uptown.
There were about one hundred and fif-
ty Of thems and they represented all
the districts-the poorest as well as
the richest.
Only seven of them wore ordinary
business clothes All the rest wore
evening clothes, and, what is more,
they wore EN- in a way that showed
that they were used to EN-.
The men who didn't wear evening
clothes all wore dark suits. 1 didn't
see any diamonds. Out of the lot. I
should have picked about forty as be-
ing any good at all in a scrap, and
only about half a dozen looked like
real, old-time tough men, who would
be able to hold their own anywhere.
1t was most depressing sight If a
man hadn't known they We're district
politicians and the real sinew of the
machine too-he might have taken
them for clerks, drUmmers. business
men, or most anything else.
Those men get out the vote, and
they get it out we'll; but how helpless
they would be If they had to get it out
the way we used to do it, Almost as
helpless I guess, as we would be if we
had to get 1t out their way.
Why, they've got to talk issues to
'em nOW-things about municipal own
ership and debt limits and sanitation.
Even the good old backbone of our
city vote, the tenement-hOuse people,
that make it possible to deliver from
forty TO seventy-dve votes from a sin
gle house even they want TO know
about all sorts of stuff that would
have put the same kind of voters to
sleep twenty-five years ago.
The Issues. of Old.
We used to talk issues to EN-. too,
I'm the old days. But they were issues
like this. Who's got the jobs to give
if you need 'em in the coming hard
vinter2 Who backs you fellers UP
against the health board and the
cops? Who can pull things off for this
district2 Nobody but usl"''us'
meaning the election district captains.
Both sides worked the same gag"
it was a good deal more fun, politics,
fn 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 ign-mOre than people
Imagine. 1t would be quite spectacu-
lar if somebody could ever get to-
rether list of the killings, but no
F7oav ever will We had good politi-
clans in the different departments
then. instead of statisticians who want
~ get their blamed old figures right
al the time, and election killings kind
81 got mixed in with the other mortu-
arv statistics. so that they didn't look
30 bad But what with every other
Good politician carrying a gun. and
w-{fh the gangs of rough and-tumble
sEl1ters that we kept as bOdy-guards
Id with scraps at the conventions
10 at the polling booths; political life
@acx In rs was pretty hard on the
1aa1th OF any except husky men
Tshat7s where so many Of the big
,ea77eras butted in 1t wasn't smartness
&eIf SO much as lists
SVe didn't have to be so very smart
There wasn't any nasty shadow Of
Tfsfs prison hanging over US If q
rsn vas Merry enOus5 and strong