To do this I had to visit the districts, put the case fairly before the men whom I saw, and make them understand that I was really making a fight and would stay in the fight to the end.

Yet there were reformers who shook their heads and deplored my "activity" in the canvass.

Of course the one thing which corrupt machine politicians most desire is to have decent men frown on the activity, that is, on the efficiency, of the honest man who genuinely wishes to reform politics.
If efficiency is left solely to bad men, and if virtue is confined solely to inefficient men, the result cannot be happy.

When I entered politics there were, as there always had been--and as there always will be--any number of bad men in politics who were thoroughly efficient, and any number of good men who would like to have done lofty things in politics but who were thoroughly inefficient.

If I wished to accomplish anything for the country, my business was to combine decency and efficiency; to be a thoroughly practical man of high ideals who did his best to reduce those ideals to actual practice.