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thing. Speaking of honor, Al Smith said to me once, “You must never be in a position where you can't hold up your hands and say, ‘search me!’” He got that from his mother. I never heard her say that, but I know that was his mother. I knew her, not well, but I knew her a little and enough times I talked with her to know that that was her fibre. He had that influence definitely as a boy and a very young man.

Charles Murphy was a remarkable judge of temperament and character, I think, from what I saw of his picking and his instruction to people. I guess this is true as any number of Tammany men have told me this, though I'm not positive that Al himself told me, as he'd be too self conscious to do it. Several of them told me that from the very beginning when Smith showed his head in ward politics and began to take a lead in the young people of the club, Murphy spotted him, made inquiries about him, was interested in him, even sent for him and talked to him, saying, “Al, go right along. You work in the Fulton Fish Market and earn your living, and we'll do something for you if you keep yourself straight. But you keep yourself out of everything that could ever be raised against you and we can do something for you. We're looking for young men with no blots in