“I suppose,” their representative told me, “that since this would be a favor to the mill, and you were opposed by the mill owners, you will hand it to us in this matter.”
“Why should I?” I asked. “Don't you think you ought to have this alley?”
“Certainly we do, or we wouldn't have asked for it.”
“Do you think the city needs the alley worse than you do?”
“No. It is an alley only on paper. There are no residences there and nobody needs the alley but us.”
“But you think because I am a labor man and you are a mill owner, and you and I have had many hot fights over wage questions, that I will fight you on this just for spite?”
“Well, I am not spiteful. Many a time I have made the men mad at me by being fair to you. Spite and malice should have no place in dealings between employer and employee. If you had a chance, would you give the men a dirty deal just for spite?”
“We're business men,” he said. “And we never act through malice, but we often expect it from the other side.”
“Well, don't expect it from me. As a city official my whole duty is to the city. If we give you that railroad switch it will help the mill and can't hurt the city. Without your mills there would be no city here, and all the alleys would be vacated, with grass growing in them. If I took advantage of my city job to oppress your mill business, I would be two kinds of a scoundrel, a public scoundrel and a private one. I favor the vacation of the alley and when the council meets next Wednesday I am sure they will do this for you.”
I played the game fair throughout my term of office. I hate dishonesty instinctively. I like the approval of my own conscience and the approval of men. This is egotism, of course. I claim nothing else for it. I am no prophet. I do not claim to be inspired. The weaknesses that all flesh is heir to, I am not immune from. I write this story not to vindicate my own wit nor to point out new paths for human thought to follow. I am a follower of the old trails, an endorser of the old maxims. I merely add my voice to the thousands who have testified before me that the old truths are the only truths, and they are all the guidance that we need. I am an educator of the young, not an astounder of the old; and it is for the boys and girls who read my book that I thus point the morals that life's tale has taught me.