Machine Politics 147 



due to our absolute freedom from caste spirit. 

 Among our chief workers were a Columbia College 

 professor, a crack oarsman from the same institu- 

 tion, an Irish quarryman, a master carpenter, a rich 

 young merchant, the owner of a small cigar store, 

 the editor of a little German newspaper, and a couple 

 of employees from the post-office and custom-house, 

 who worked directly against their own seeming in- 

 terests. One of our important committees was com- 

 posed of a prominent member of a Jewish syna- 

 gogue, of the son of a noted Presbyterian clergyman, 

 and of a young Catholic lawyer. We won some 

 quite remarkable triumphs, for the first time in New 

 York politics carrying primaries against the ma- 

 chine, and as the result of our most successful strug- 

 gle completely revolutionizing the State Convention 

 held to send delegates to the National Republican 

 Convention of 1884, and returning to that body, for 

 the first and only time it was ever done, a solid dele- 

 gation of Independent Republicans. This was done, 

 however, by sheer hard work on the part of a score 

 or so of men; the mass of our good citizens, even 

 after the victories which they had assisted in win- 

 ning, understood nothing about how they were won. 

 Many of them actually objected to organizing, ap- 

 parently having a confused idea that we could always 

 win by what one of their number called a "sponta- 

 neous uprising," to which a quiet young fellow in our 

 camp grimly responded that he had done a good 

 deal of political work in his day, but that he never 

 in his life worked so hard and so long as he did to 



