Occasionally these men acted with open and naked
brutality. Ordinarily they sought by cunning to evade the law. The Civil
Service Reformers, on the other hand, were in most cases not much used
to practical politics, and were often well-nigh helpless when pitted
against veteran professional politicians. In consequence I found at the
beginning of my experiences that there were many offices in which the
execution of the law was a sham. This was very damaging, because it
encouraged the politicians to assault the law everywhere, and, on the
other hand, made good people feel that the law was not worth while
defending.
The first effort of myself and my colleagues was to secure the genuine
enforcement of the law. In this we succeeded after a number of lively
fights. But of course in these fights we were obliged to strike a large
number of influential politicians, some of them in Congress, some of
them the supporters and backers of men who were in Congress. Accordingly
we soon found ourselves engaged in a series of contests with prominent
Senators and Congressmen. There were a number of Senators and
Congressmen--men like Congressman (afterwards Senator) H. C. Lodge, of
Massachusetts; Senator Cushman K.
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