“Henry Shattuck, who was a very powerful and important figure in Boston in those days, called me and asked me if I wanted to run for his place on the Boston City Council,” he once told a reporter. “He told me that for a young man with an interest in public life it was a splendid way to begin. He assured me that the election was a formality, no one but a Republican had ever won before, and he would assure the support of the Republican Ward Committee, and since it was a very heavy Republican area, I agreed. I had an opponent, he did his work and I did not, and I got licked and I deserved to be
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