The tangible rewards came to him, the admiration of his fellow-citizens of the respectable type was apt to be his, and the severe newspaper moralists who were never tired of denouncing politicians and political methods were wont to hold up "business methods" as the ideal which we were to strive to introduce into political life.

Herbert Croly, in "The Promise of American Life," has set forth the reasons why our individualistic democracy--which taught that each man was to rely exclusively on himself, was in no way to be interfered with by others, and was to devote himself to his own personal welfare--necessarily produced the type of business man who sincerely believed, as did the rest of the community, that the individual who amassed a big fortune was the man who was the best and most typical American.
In the Legislature the problems with which I dealt were mainly problems of honesty and decency and of legislative and administrative efficiency.
They represented the effort, the wise, the vitally necessary effort, to get efficient and honest government.

But as yet I understood little of the effort which was already beginning, for the most part under very bad leadership, to secure a more genuine social and industrial justice.

Nor was I especially to blame for this.

The good citizens I then knew best, even when themselves men of limited means--men like my colleague Billy O'Neill, and my backwoods friends Sewall and Dow--were no more awake than I was to the changing needs the changing times were bringing.
Their outlook was as narrow as my own, and, within its limits, as fundamentally sound.
I wish to dwell on the soundness of our outlook on life, even though as yet it was not broad enough.