As it was, so it will be! Labor must hold its own, must organize, must expect discouragement, disappointment, treachery. It will only be felt in politics when it educates the influences without which ''practical politics" would pass away. The remedy is in the hands of the voter. He can close the ruin shop and the gambling hell when he pleases. He can clean the streets, give the city pure water, compel railway and other corporations to serve the people instead of striving to own them, and make Gouldism impossible; have judges on the bench whose election means something more than a large assessment. But it cannot be done by listening to the blandishments of professional politicians. Make it a disgrace to be a professional politician; an honor to be a politician of the Jefferson era, when office sought the man, not the man the office; when the hustings was a tribune, not the shambles. Then we can see what can be done in council with our brethren of all parties to advance the people's welfare.
This paragraph is in the second issue of the weekly newspaper The Standard, on the editorial page. It came in January, 1887, in the aftermath of the November, 1886, New York mayoral election. Substitute for "Labor" "ordinary people," if you like.
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