At the most vital part of my life, when I was to become an American citizen and exercise the right of suffrage, America fell entirely short.  It reached out not even the suggestion of a hand.

When the Presidential Conventions had been held in the year I reached my legal majority, and I knew I could vote, I endeavored to find out whether, being foreign-born, I was entitled to the suffrage.  No one could tell me; and not until I had visited six different municipal departments, being referred from one to another, was it explained that, through my father’s naturalization, I became, automatically, as his son, an American citizen.  I decided to read up on the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties, but I could not secure copies anywhere, although a week had passed since they had been adopted in convention.

I was told the newspapers had printed them.  It occurred to me there must be many others besides myself who were anxious to secure the platforms of the two parties in some more convenient form.  With the eye of necessity ever upon a chance to earn an honest penny, I went to a newspaper office, cut out from its files the two platforms, had them printed in a small pocket edition, sold one edition to the American News Company and another to the News Company controlling the Elevated Railroad bookstands in New York City, where they sold at ten cents each.  So great was the demand which I had only partially guessed, that within three weeks I had sold such huge editions of the little books that I had cleared over a thousand dollars.

But it seemed to me strange that it should depend on a foreign-born American to supply an eager public with what should have been supplied through the agency of the political parties or through some educational source.

I now tried to find out what a vote actually meant.  It must be recalled that I was only twenty-one years old, with scant education, and with no civic agency offering me the information I was seeking.  I went to the headquarters of each of the political parties and put my query.  I was regarded with puzzled looks.

“What does it mean to vote?” asked one chairman.  “Why, on Election Day you go up to the ballot-box and put your ballot in, and that’s all there is to it.”

But I knew very well that that was not all there was to it, and was determined to find out the significance of the franchise.  I met with dense ignorance on every hand.  I went to the Brooklyn Library, and was frankly told by the librarian that he did not know of a book that would tell me what I wanted to know.  This was in 1884.

As the campaign increased in intensity, I found myself a desired person in the eyes of the local campaign managers, but not one of them could tell me the significance and meaning of the privilege I was for the first time to exercise.

Finally, I spent an evening with Seth Low, and, of course, got the desired information.