Indeed,
Pittsburg's story in this respect is hardly as interesting as the
old stories--it is, if anything, more commonplace, more squalid.
But behind all this, there is, of course, a story, and a big one,
as you unerringly divined. Reading between the lines of the dry
recital of facts with which I have been provided, and peering a
little way behind the scenes, I come, I think, upon the real
story, the one that some one should write, the one that some one
should print.
The first chapter, perhaps, is the story of the old political
machines in Pittsburg, and of that interesting, and--in certain
elemental, human senses--strong personality, Chris Magee, the
boss--who has a monument.
Then, there is another personality, of a different sort, in
Blakeley, the district attorney. My accounts are meager and bald,
and yet I catch glimpses of a striking personality. This district
attorney, I should imagine, is a man with the best ideals of the
legal profession, honest, capable, sincere, and unafraid; a man,
withal, who knows life and politics and can play the game without
being soiled in its many contacts. What draws me to him, even at
this distance, is that he seems to have little of the Puritan in
him, as there is too apt to be in prosecutors who convict, and
push their victims within prison doors.
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