In this story my aim has not been primarily to depict conditions in American politics. This work has already been done far better than I could do it by several writers, among others, by Mr. Brand Whitlock, whose novel, “The Thirteenth District,” shows a remarkable insight and fidelity. I have merely used a familiar condition for the purpose of tracing some of its purely social and human complications. The contrast between the standards a man may follow in public life or in business and those he maintains at home, with his wife and children, seemed to me to afford material worth the attention of the story-writer.

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