In any case, the problem of superannuated officeholders is a political issue outside the scope of this book. I am speaking of the ordinary run of elder citizen, your neighbors, your parents, your grandparents. They may be kind to children and dogs and sweet to look upon in church and at family dinner, but politically speaking the average lot of them are the sorriest bunch of old vultures you will find.

Remember that when you start punching door-bells.I am sorry to say these things. I like Great Aunt Mary's apple pies, her neat grey hair, and her wrinkled smile as well as you do. I had the opinion forced on me.

For example - several years ago I was covering a district which lay, half and half, on the right side and the wrong side of the tracks. I interviewed young and old, rich and poor, men and women. I expected and found certain trend differences in view point on the two sides of the tracks. But I was surprised to find an amazing and almost unanimous similarity in viewpoint on the part of the elderly rich and the elderly poor.

Mellowed and altruistic interest in the welfare and future of the whole community? Far from it! The elderly poor wanted $200 every month, or some other pension which would pay them more income than they had ever earned while working, and they didn't give a hoot what it did to the country! The elderly rich wanted the highest possible return from mortgages, rents, dividends, or other investment income, and they didn't give a hoot what it did to the country!

Naturally they tended to vote for different men and different issues - except when a candidate managed to kid both groups. But the motivation was identical and utterly shameless - blind and narrow selfishness, short range in nature and quite unconcerned with the welfare and future of dieir children and their country.

Nor were they driven to it by hunger. One can forgive the selfishness of hunger, but even on the wrong side of the tracks they were neither hungry nor cold, as it happened to be in a state with, possibly, the most favorable and generous welfare conditions in the country. No, it was the greed of old age.

There appears to come a change in most people somewhere around the age of fifty when they cease to think of the rest of the human race except in terms of what others may be induced to do for them. A divorce from the human race is not a good thing for a man's inner being; it reduces his spiritual life to its lowest common denominator - the animal level. It is absolutely imperative that a man care for something more than for himself for him to remain human. Most tragically, many people, when they have reached the age when their own children are no real responsibility and are thereby not forced to think in terms of the welfare and future of their children, find nothing to replace such interest. The more nearly truly human of us substitute, for a preoccupation widi the needs of our own children, after they are grown, a wider interest in all children everywhere, and the future of the nation and the race.

An elder citizen who has come safely through this difficult transition is a joy to know and is likely to make your best political worker. He will labor until the day he dies for the public welfare as he sees it, without the slightest expectation of personal reward. He usually has enough free time to be very effective, his views are respected, and the physical labor of politics is within die limits, in most cases, of even the elderly and infirm.

I remember in particular one old lady who was the mainstay in a dozen campaigns. She lived along on a pittance and was nearly seventy when I met her. Her first name was Laura. (I never dared call her by her first name.) Not only did she work her own precinct and campaign among her friends, she was usually headquarters manager and handled the field workers and the public with cheerful tact.

Laura wanted to know only whedier it was a private fight or could she get in it, too? She was never indifferent to any public issue; she would study, decide what was right by her values, and start pitching. I recall with pleasure watching her shake her finger under the nose of the chairman of a school board while scolding them all. "You gendemen should be ashamed of yourselves! To have the temerity to sit there and tell me, a citizen and taxpayer of this state, that you do not intend to carry out your sworn duty!"

The fight was none of hers; it involved discrimination against a group in which she had no remote interest. But Laura won the fight; the school board backed down.

(Incidentally, keep your eye on school boards; they tend to disregard the constitutional rights of the public even worse than do judges.)

Churches, women, and elderly people have come in for quite a lambasting in diis chapter; it is gratifying to emphasize that from these very groups you will get your most effective and altruistic volunteer workers. Embattled grandparents, militant housewives, and crusading clergymen will be your best shock troops. The rank and file of your organization will be young people, usually less than thirty-five years old - a man under thirty-five who cannot be induced to take any action for the welfare of his community and nation is morally dead and blind to his own personal interests; it is usually easy to interest young people in volunteer political activity. They have not yet acquired the case-hardened selfishness of their elders; they are enthusiastic, energetic, and they believe in the future.

But of the four groups, the young, the old, women past girlhood, and the clergy, young people are the only ones to be approached with no particular caution. The others are guilty until proven innocent from a standpoint of usefulness in volunteer political work.

Clergymen, although usually worse than useless, make wonderful altruistic politicians when they happen to possess both love of humanity and hard-headed realism. Too often the ones that are bright aren't good and the ones that are good aren't bright. Catholic priests are usually both and you can work with them to limit the issues in which you both see eye to eye. If you happen to be Catholic yourself the problem is simple.

The same may be said of rabbis, to a lesser extent.

"Politicians are usually crooks."

This statement is false; it is likely that no other canard has done more harm to the United States of America.

The statement is false even when it is limited to machine politicians and bosses. Political bosses are not more crooked than the average run of non-political laymen; they are less crooked.

I know my statement runs contrary to popular prejudice. I am aware that graft, bribery, nepotism, special privilege, and outright official connivance in crime and racketeering have stained and continue to stain our public life. I still stand by the statement.

Consider how a political boss operates. His purpose is to stay in power not this term, but next term, and the term after that. To do that he has to have a majority of satisfied customers - the public - you! Despite all stuffing of ballot boxes, despite thuggery and intimidation at the polls, there is i-arely (I am tempted to say "never") a time when aroused citizenry cannot throw him out of power and sometimes into jail as well. He cannot operate with the impunity of a Hider. On the average he has to please you.

The successful political boss has to stay fairly honest. Just how honest that is depends on how honest the electorate is. His success depends on delivering to the public what the public really wants; not what you the public say you want when you are busy complaining, in private conversation, about those crooks in die city hall.

Have you ever had a traffic ticket fixed? Have you ever slipped an underpaid building inspector ten or twenty bucks not to report some violation of die building code? Have you ever patronized a prostitute? Have you ever taken a drink of bootleg liquor? Have you ever patronized a black, or even a light grey, market?