The situation, thus phrased, called for neither intrigue nor labor on my own part. I had but to stay in my chair, and “reform” itself would drive the people into Tammany's arms.
In those days I had but scanty glimpses of the Reverend Bronson. However, he now and then would visit me, and when he did, I think I read in his troubled brow the fear of machine success next time. Morton was there on one occasion when the Reverend Bronson came in. They were well known to one another, these two; also, they were friends as much as men might be whose lives and aims went wide apart.
“Now the trouble,” observed Morton, as the two discussed that backward popularity of the present rule, “lies in this: Your purist of politics is never practical. He walks the air; and for a principle, he fixes his eyes on a star. Besides,” concluded Morton, tapping the Reverend Bronson's hand with that invaluable eyeglass, “you make a pet, at the expense of statutes more important, of some beggarly little law like the law against gambling.”
“My dear sir,” exclaimed the Reverend Bronson, “surely you do not defend gambling.”
“I defend nothing,” said Morton; “it's too beastly tiresome, don't y' know. But, really, the public is no fool; and with a stock-ticker and a bucket shop on every corner, you will hardly excite folk to madness over roulette and policy.”
“The policy shops stretch forth their sordid palms for the pennies of the very poor,” said the Reverend Bronson earnestly.
“But, my boy,” retorted Morton, his drooping inanity gaining a color, “government should be concerned no more about the poor man's penny than the rich man's pound. However, if it be a reason, why not suppress the barrooms? Gad! what more than your doggery reaches for the pennies of the poor?”
“There is truth in what you say,” consented the Reverend Bronson regretfully. “Still, I count for but one as an axman in this wilderness of evil; I can fell but one tree at a time. I will tell you this, however: At the gates of you rich ones must lie the blame for most of the immoralities of the town. You are guilty of two wrongs: You are not benevolent; and you set a bad moral example.”
“Really!” replied Morton, “I, myself, think the rich a deuced bad lot; in fact, I hold them to be quite as bad as the poor, don't y' know. But you speak of benevolence—alms-giving, and that sort of thing. Now I'm against benevolence. There is an immorality in alms just in proportion as there's a morality to labor. Folk work only because they lack money. Now you give a man ten dollars and the beggar will stop work.”
“Let me hear,” observed the Reverend Bronson, amused if not convinced, “what your remedy for the town's bad morals would be.”