I met with dense ignorance on every hand.

I went to the Brooklyn Library, and was frankly told by the librarian that he did not know of a book that would tell me what I wanted to know.

This was in 1884.
As the campaign increased in intensity, I found myself a desired person in the eyes of the local campaign managers, but not one of them could tell me the significance and meaning of the privilege I was for the first time to exercise.
Finally, I spent an evening with Seth Low, and, of course, got the desired information.
But fancy the quest I had been compelled to make to acquire the simple information that should have been placed in my hands or made readily accessible to me.

And how many foreign-born would take equal pains to ascertain what I was determined to find out?
Surely America fell short here at the moment most sacred to me: that of my first vote! Is it any easier to-day for the foreign citizen to acquire this information when he approaches his first vote?
I wonder! Not that I do not believe there are agencies for this purpose.

You know there are, and so do I.