"What tells in holdin' your grip on your district is to go right down among
ways they need help. I've got a regular system for this. If there's a fire in Ninth, Tenth, or Eleventh Avenue, for example,
any hour of the day or night, I'm usually there with some of my election district captains as soon as the fire engines.
If a family is burned out I don't ask whether they are Republicans or Democrats, and I don't refer them to the Charity
Organization Society, which would investigate their case in a month or two and decide they were worthy of help about
the time they are dead from starvation. I just get quarters for them, buy clothes for them if their clothes were burned up,
and fix them up till they get things runnin' again. It's philanthropy, but it's politics, too-mighty good politics. Who can tell
how many votes one of these fires bring me? The poor are the most grateful people in the world, and, let me tell you, the
have more friends in their neighborhoods than the rich have in theirs."