A man should have some other occupation--I had several other occupations--to which he can resort if at any time he is thrown out of office, or if at any time he finds it necessary to choose a course which will probably result in his being thrown out, unless he is willing to stay in at cost to his conscience.
At that day, in 1880, a young man of my bringing up and convictions could join only the Republican party, and join it I accordingly did.
It was no simple thing to join it then.

That was long before the era of ballot reform and the control of primaries; long before the era when we realized that the Government must take official notice of the deeds and acts of party organizations.

The party was still treated as a private corporation, and in each district the organization formed a kind of social and political club.

A man had to be regularly proposed for and elected into this club, just as into any other club.

As a friend of mine picturesquely phrased it, I "had to break into the organization with a jimmy." Under these circumstances there was some difficulty in joining the local organization, and considerable amusement and excitement to be obtained out of it after I had joined.
It was over thirty-three years ago that I thus became a member of the Twenty-first District Republican Association in the city of New York.
The men I knew best were the men in the clubs of social pretension and the men of cultivated taste and easy life.