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. Kelly
defied them, fought the battles of the people with ardor and good faith,
and when the bosses refused him a renomination, he appealed from them
to the people. When we both came up for reelection, I won easily in my
district, where circumstances conspired to favor me; and Kelly, with
exactly the same record that I had, except that it was more creditable
because he took his stand against greater odds, was beaten in his
district. Defeat to me would have meant merely chagrin; to Kelly it
meant terrible material disaster. He had no money. Like every rigidly
honest man, he had found that going into politics was expensive and that
his salary as Assemblyman did not cover the financial outgo.
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