One member of a prominent law firm, an old family friend, did, however, take me out to lunch one day, evidently for the purpose of seeing just what it was that I wished and intended to do.  I believe he had a genuine personal liking for me.  He explained that I had done well in the Legislature; that it was a good thing to have made the “reform play,” that I had shown that I possessed ability such as would make me useful in the right kind of law office or business concern; but that I must not overplay my hand; that I had gone far enough, and that now was the time to leave politics and identify myself with the right kind of people, the people who would always in the long run control others and obtain the real rewards which were worth having.  I asked him if that meant that I was to yield to the ring in politics.  He answered somewhat impatiently that I was entirely mistaken (as in fact I was) about there being merely a political ring, of the kind of which the papers were fond of talking; that the “ring,” if it could be called such—­that is, the inner circle—­included certain big business men, and the politicians, lawyers, and judges who were in alliance with and to a certain extent dependent upon them, and that the successful man had to win his success by the backing of the same forces, whether in law, business, or politics.

This conversation not only interested me, but made such an impression that I always remembered it, for it was the first glimpse I had of that combination between business and politics which I was in after years so often to oppose.  In the America of that day, and especially among the people whom I knew, the successful business man was regarded by everybody as preeminently the good citizen.  The orthodox books on political economy, not only in America but in England, were written for his especial glorification.  The tangible rewards came to him, the admiration of his fellow-citizens of the respectable type was apt to be his, and the severe newspaper moralists who were never tired of denouncing politicians and political methods were wont to hold up “business methods” as the ideal which we were to strive to introduce into political life.  Herbert Croly, in “The Promise of American Life,” has set forth the reasons why our individualistic democracy—­which taught that each man was to rely exclusively on himself, was in no way to be interfered with by others, and was to devote himself to his own personal welfare—­necessarily produced the type of business man who sincerely believed, as did the rest of the community, that the individual who amassed a big fortune was the man who was the best and most typical American.