At the beginning he and I failed to understand each other or to get on together, for our theories of government were radically opposed.

After a couple of months spent in active contests with men whose theories had nothing whatever to do with their practices, Kelly and I found in our turn that it really did not make much difference what our abstract theories were on questions that were not before the Legislature, in view of the fact that on the actual matters before the Legislature, the most important of which involved questions of elementary morality, we were heartily at one.

We began to vote together and act together, and by the end of the session found that in all practical matters that were up for action we thought together.
Indeed, each of us was beginning to change his theories, so that even in theory we were coming closer together.

He was ardent and generous; he was a young lawyer, with a wife and children, whose ambition had tempted him into politics, and who had been befriended by the local bosses under the belief that they could count upon him for anything they really wished.

Unfortunately, what they really wished was often corrupt.