This was his beginning in politics.
In the Assembly at Albany, he presently made discoveries. He
learned something about the crooked politicians whom the stay-at-
home reformers had denounced from afar. He found that the Assembly
had in it many good men, a larger number who were neither good nor
bad, but went one way or another just as things happened to
influence them at the moment. Finally, there were some bad men
indeed. He found that the bad men were not always the poor, the
uneducated, the men who had been brought up in rough homes,
lacking in refinement. On the contrary, he found some extremely
honest and useful men who had had exactly such unfavorable
beginnings.
Also, he soon discovered that there were, in and out of politics,
some men of wealth, of education, men who boasted that they
belonged to the "best families," who were willing to be crooked,
or to profit from other men's crooked actions. He soon announced
this discovery, which naturally made such men furious with him.
They pursued him with their hatred all his life. Some people
really think that great wealth makes crime respectable, and if it
is pointed out to a wealthy but dishonest man, that he is merely a
common thief, and if in addition, the fact is proved to
everybody's satisfaction, his anger is noticeable.
Along with his serious work in the Assembly, Roosevelt found that
there was a great deal of fun in listening to the debates on the
floor, or the hearings in committees.
Pages:
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40