This book is
affectionately dedicated to my dear friend HON. LUTHER M. DEARBORN of Illinois
For years the writer of
Tattlings of a Retired Politician has enjoyed a somewhat wide and intimate
acquaintance with those men who play the game of politics and who have, in
various degrees, demonstrated their skill and leadership in that kind of
contest. He has listened with unfailing entertainment to the anecdotes,
stories, and incidents of their struggles for place, power and preferment. But
most of all has he enjoyed the bits of homely philosophy, the picturesque
aphorisms and the shrewd observations which have dropped from the lips of these
Americans who, from varied and complex motives, have been drawn into the game
of popular government.
To focus this phase of
American character as faithfully, as vividly and as entertainingly as possible
into the following pages has been a pleasing and a fascinating task. Looking
back upon it from the final word, the author believes that the actual motives,
conditions and methods that obtain wherever a caucus is held or a ballot box
opened have been fairly portrayed and that the viewpoint he has presented is
the one actually taken by any American who has had a wide and first-hand
experience in practical politics.
This is not so much
because many of the stories embodied in these familiar letters from William
Bradley, the retired political veteran, to his friend Ned are drawn from actual
experience and have a substantial foundation in fact, as because the
observations of the former legislator, Congressman, Governor and United States
Senator reflect the spirit of the practical politician and reveal his motives,
methods and characteristics.
That form of literary
expression known as the "letter" has been chosen for this work
because it affords the most natural medium for terse, homely and unconventional
expression in strict keeping with the character of the subject. In writing to a
familiar friend one may go directly to the theme in hand without formality or
introduction; epigram, anecdote and story come naturally within the scope of
the friendly letter and the handicap of conventionality is less upon the pen of
the writer of such a letter than upon the hand of the writer who uses any other
literary medium.
During the serial
publication of a portion of the papers which make up this book, the writer has
been cheered by expressions of approval and appreciation from many men who have
achieved places of high political distinction.
To this generous and
discriminating encouragement from such authoritative sources he is especially
indebted, for it has helped him to hope, with increased confidence, that, in
some measure, he has been able to put into the letters of William Bradley
something of the humor, the philosophy, the romance and the tragedy of actual
politics as the game is played in every portion of our Republic, and also that
this delineation will have interest for the men who are intimately familiar
with the game as well as for those for whom it has a touch of mystery.
Sincerely,Forrest Crissey. Chicago,
April, 1904.
Being the remarks of
"Bill" Bradley, former legislator, congressman, Governor and United
States Senator, to his younger friend Ned, who has written that he has a cinch
on a re-election and that he proposes to take it easy in this campaign, as
there is no need of hustling. Incidentally the retired "party
warhorse" expresses himself on the irksomeness of "existence by
corporate courtesy" and the delights of retirement.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
Of course I’m glad that
nothing short of an epidemic of sudden death can shut you out of a re-election.
It’s good to be comfortably sure about things of this sort.
But my observation
reminds me that straight roads to the State House have an amazing way of
wandering off into the underbrush and that public sentiment can blow more
different ways, at one and the same time, than the flame of a campaign torch in
a Fall wind. Any good, average ballot-box has thrown down more cock-sure men
than ever won election bets or saw the man that struck Billy Patterson. And you
may draw sight drafts against the fact that when there’s a whole lot depending
on one of these Heaven-insured "certainties" it’s time to get scared
and hustle.
The man who lies down
and goes to sleep on the soft side of a political cinch stands a good chance of
waking up just in time to see his hide nailed to the barn door by the fellow
who couldn’t sleep because he had to whistle in the face of expected defeat in
order to keep his courage up.
Perhaps you’ve
forgotten the story of "Old Gab" Hitchcock, down in Hebron County. He
got his name from his "gift of gab" on the auction block. There hadn’t
been a sale "at public vendue" in his territory for thirty years at
which he hadn’t officiated. He could talk the burrs right off the back of a
Southdown sheep; but there were two subjects on which he was as silent as a
tombstone.
Politics and religion
tied knots in his tongue and when they were mentioned he closed up tight. But
he knew the name of every baby in the three counties that he traveled and how
many teeth each youngone had cut up to the time of his last call; he never
failed to remember the special brand of cookery on which each housewife was
particularly strong, and even the savagest dogs wagged their tails in a
friendly way when Old Gab rode in at the front bars.
But when it came to
politics, everybody counted the auctioneer out and considered that he didn’t
cut any figure. In fact, being a Republican, he seldom took the trouble to
vote, as Democrats were thicker in his district than thistles, and voting was
mighty discouraging exercise. He said he was glad he was on the off side and
belonged to the "hopeless minority," because it saved him the bother
of going to caucuses and the polls, knowing that his party didn’t stand any
more chance to get out alive than a national prohibition bill in Congress.
One Winter, as you will
remember, there was a deadlock in the legislature on the election of a United
States Senator. An actual gain of one vote on the Republican side would have
settled it; but sometimes one bird is harder to bag than a whole flock on other
occasions--and this was one of those times!
Day after day, and
month after month, the thing hung fire. All that money and pull and poker and
highballs could do had been done--and still the joint ballot stuck at the same
old figure! The shiftiest campaigners that ever cracked the party whip had done
their best and couldn’t budge the count. Every dark horse in each party had his
ears pricked up and was ready to snort like a freight engine the minute there
was a sign of a break. But no sign was given, and the big bosses simply held
on, waiting for something to happen and lift the spell.
And, finally, it
happened all right! One morning the member from Hebron County was found dead in
his bed. That left the situation just where it was before, for the Republicans
still lacked one vote of enough to elect and the Democrats had a three-to-one
cinch on electing the member to fill the vacancy.
A special election was
called, but the Republican newspapers sorrowfully announced that there was no
more hope of defeating the enemy in the Hebron district than of raising the
late lamented to life. And the minority party didn’t take interest enough in
the contest to name a candidate--simply conceded the whole thing to the
Democrats and lay down without a kick. Of course, that was in the days before
the new-fangled Australian ballot had entered its appearance on the state
statutes.
Spring plowing opened
up particularly early that year and the contest for the United States
Senatorship had dragged along through the Winter until it had become an old
story.
Generally speaking,
there was more interest in the farming counties in getting in a new crop than
in sending a new Senator to Washington.
About that time, down
in the Hebron district, auction sales fell off to such an extent that Old Gab
Hitchcock had to take to shipping cattle in order to keep up his end, and he
did a right smart bit of riding in his new calling. There wasn’t a road in
Hebron or the adjoining counties that he didn’t travel and he managed to pick
up an amazing number of shipments of likely cattle for the Chicago market.
When the special
election day came he was out in the back towns buying stock, and most of the
farmers of the district were walking in furrows behind their plows. They knew
that their candidate, the Democrat, had a copper-riveted cinch on the election,
for there was no one running against him. So they stuck to their Spring plowing
and made the most of the fine weather.
But about 4 o’clock
that afternoon, the Republican voters began to rattle out of the back towns as
if the woods were on fire. It took an hour for the Democrats at the polling
places to get their systems permeated with the suspicion that something was
doing--and by the time they had waked up, it was all done!
They sent out an alarm
to the Faithful, but before the stay-at-homes could pull their boots on and
hitch up the teams, the polls had closed. There wasn’t even time to put up a
counting-out scheme--and when the ballots were counted a district of frantic
Democrats faced the fact that foxy Old Gab Hitchcock had been elected to the
legislature on the Republican ticket.
The first day he took
his seat he settled the United States Senatorship--and went out of the auction
business for keeps! The party, as you know, has taken good care of him ever
since, and he doesn’t care how many babies are cutting teeth back in old
Hebron, either!
Then, again, after you’ve
hustled hard and got everything into your wigwam, snug and tight, you can’t be
sure that the other fellow will not sneak in, over night, and stampede all your
braves.
If you don’t think this
is true, remember the history of Old Sanctity, who tried to break into politics
up in the city, from Little Danny’s ward. There was a healthy colored
population in that ward and the old man had been running a mission Sunday School
and private bureau of charity so long there that he thought it was easy. He
wanted to shine as a white-enamel reformer, and so he opened the campaign early
and held meetings every night in the Heart of Africa. To all appearances, he
had the whole colony spellbound, and it looked as if he would carry the Dark
Continent with a whoop.
There wasn’t enough
political guile in the old man to keep him from opening a mass meeting with
family prayers, and it was all his campaign committee could do to get postage funds
and hall rent out of him. At his final pow-wow fully three hundred kinky-haired
voters were present.
Old Sanctity, as the
boys called him, dismissed the meeting with a smile of satisfaction and the
feeling that the Mission School had been vindicated as a political power.
But down at the bottom
of the stairs Little Danny had stationed a few business agents whose pockets
bulged with half dollars. An hour later the whole dusky gang was gathered at a
banquet of pork chops and fried chicken, across the street, and every guest at
the board had one of Danny’s fifty-cent pieces in his pocket. After the votes
were counted Old Sanctity hardly knew whether he had been a candidate or not.
Of course it wasn’t
clean politics for Danny to do this, and I only mention it to point the moral
that certainties in politics are about as slippery propositions as greased pigs
at county fairs, and that is isn’t safe to carry elections on the
somnambulistic basis.
There’s a good deal
more human nature than patriotism in the average citizen and when you bill him
on any other valuation you’re going to have a big shrinkage in the ballot box.
Livery hire and
hustlers are cheap in comparison with eloquence and exalted hopes, and the man
who calculates to keep in politics and come out on the heavy side of the
polling list would better make up his mind to spend his money for buggy grease
before the polls close instead of saving it for red fire and Roman candles with
which to celebrate his election.
So, Ned, if you’ve
decided to take things easy, and let the campaign "take care of
itself" this time, as your letter suggests, it will not be necessary to
wire me that the enemy put up a still hunt or there has been an unaccountable
landslide "owing to a revulsion of sentiment on national issues," and
that you have gone down as a victim of the revolt of the people against the
"stubborn attitude of the party leaders on the tariff question." I’ll
understand, without this, that you’ve been catching up on the sleep you lost in
the other campaigns.
You want to know if I
don’t sometimes have a hankering for the flesh-pots of Egypt and long to take a
little hand in politics out here. Not by a jug full! A fellow who has put in
the best years of his life in the political game and has been state legislator,
Congressman, Governor and United States Senator and retired when he didn’t have
to isn’t going out to a new country and begin the game all over again--not at
my time of life. I’m out of it for good and all. I’m just a plain man and
elected for life, too!
You remember how old
General Gully used to look when he came out to the annual encampment ball in
full regalia, with his breast hung with badges and medals so thick they looked
as if they had been pinned on with a choke-bore shotgun? Well; one day when I
was cleaning up to get out of the Executive Chamber, I struck the "Frank
and Pass Department" of my desk. Just for fun, I pinned those badges of
corporate courtesy on the front of my coat. Alongside the picture which I made,
old Gully would have looked as innocent of decorations as an eel. It made me
squirm with shame as I looked in the glass and actually saw that I had been
simply an official scrapbook for petty corporation favors.
By checking up I found
that I did not hold a frank entitling me to breathe through the courtesy of a
corporation.
Perhaps you don’t
recall how the harness of official favors used to gall me. Let me refresh your
memory. Of course you remember John Bent, the "hired hand" member
from Cottonwood Corners. All through the first session he sat over at the
Speaker’s right, surrounded by the gang that came down from the city. When they
found out that he was only a farm hand, the boys who were running things priced
him at about two hundred and fifty. Little Danny was told off to fix John for
the Electric bill. He never did give the particulars of his interview, but he
put it plain that for all time to come it would be safe to pass up the farm
hand and put him down on the other side without any special effort to "see"
him.
Bent didn’t introduce
but one bill in the whole session and that was killed quicker than a water
snake in a swimming hole. From that time on, the member from Cottonwood Corners
had just one interest in legislation: to know what bills were off color and
vote against them. He didn’t make a single speech or offer a resolution; but he
could spot a crooked streak behind a bill as quick as he’d smell a taint in a
batch of butter. That was enough for Bent. Whatever happened, one thing was
sure: John would "vote right."
I don’t know that he
made any particular profession of religion but he stood square on everything
according to the gospel rule, without a shadow of turning.
Although he didn’t give
it out through the papers, he actually returned all passes and franks and he
didn’t ask for the appointment of a single committee clerk or assistant
janitor. All he did was to "vote right," and he came back again for
three terms.
I used to sit there and
envy the man from Cottonwood, who had no sails to trim, no measures to push, no
backs to scratch.
One day I pointed him
out to you and said: "There’s about the only ’real man’ here."
You know I’ve kept my
"hands clean," Ned, but like the boy in the story, I’ve had to
bandage them and tie them to the bedpost a good many times to do it. And when
it comes to trimming sails--well, I have a training that would fit me for
Commodore on a Cup Challenger.
But it’s all over now!
I’m going to bow the knee to no living person excepting the wife and the house
servants. The rest of the world will get its toes tramped on whenever the humor
takes me.
And you can put it down
on the title page, old boy, that hereafter I’m going to pay the freight--and
pay it in hard money! No more "existence by courtesy" for me!
Some time, perhaps, you’ll
come out from among them, too, and be separate, return your passes and taste
the joy of being able to pay for what you get--like the men who sign the passes
and put up the campaign funds.
But if you’re
determined to play the game to the finish, you know you can count on me for any
side-lights I can give. Unless you get out voluntarily, I want to see you win
out; and every forward step in your career will give me as much pleasure as it
will you. I guess I don’t need to say that, do I, Ned?
By the way, are you
still keeping company with Kate Hamming? or have you switched to the young
widow ? From some of the letters that come to the wife, I figure that politics
isn’t the only game that interests you. Come now, ’fess up and make a clean
breast of it!
In which the retired
politician writes to his younger friend Ned, who is still in the political
harness, giving a few practical pointers on the game of "Legislative
Poker," otherwise known as graft.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
I see by the papers
that things are doing in the franchise line at the legislature, this Winter,
and that you stand a good chance of lifting the mortgage off your place if you
practice a little statesmanlike economy.
But, as you never were
any good at Legislative Poker, I conclude that it may strike you as a little
late to come into the game, now.
However, if you should
be tempted to take a hand, let me give you the tip to remember the modern
Parable of the Widow’s Mite and keep in mind that this is the great day of
Consolidation. Both these observations point the same moral: "A bribe in
the hand is worth two in the safe-deposit vault--to which the other fellow
holds the key!"
Probably you have
forgotten the little episode of the Widow’s Mite. It happened that Winter when
the Red School House issue left you at home, along with several other rural
statesmen, to fodder the stock and reflect on the heartless ingratitude of the
average country constituency.
Up to that time every
corporation tub had stood on its own bottom and the "attorney" of
each franchise grabbing scheme had settled his own score in his own way. But at
the opening of that session the lobbyists were thicker than rabbits in a
tree-nursery and the boys had their pockets enlarged to the size of meal sacks
in order to take care of the prospective shakedown.
They had just begun to
get out their clubs--in the shape of bills to regulate the powers and
emoluments of the various corporations, when a hatchet-faced lawyer, with a
Highland Scotch burr in his speech, entered his appearance and made a quick
round-up of the representatives of the corporate interests and vested rights of
the state. He wouldn’t so much as whistle a psalm-tune on Sunday, but he could
dispose of more smooth business on week days than an axle-grease factory.
It was said that the
Gas Company had brought him on from New York to put through the consolidation
bill. Anyhow, he took to the Consolidation Idea easier than his ancestors did
to golf and Scotch Whiskey.
The morning after the
Lairds of the Lobby had met in his room, the word was passed down the line,
among the boys, that things were going to be done on a brand new basis; that
the great Consolidation Idea was the order of the day and that it was a Good
Thing.
Then the fellows who
were running things in both houses were told to get together on the
close-communion basis and be ready to take care of all business bearing the
consolidation tag that came along.
Old Hi’ in the Senate
and Little Danny in the House gave it out that everything was fixed and that
every man who climbed into the band wagon would get his proper share of the
great consolidation water melon--and that it was to be the biggest ever set up
in the history of legislation.
This time, so they told
the boys, things were going to be handled so slick that there weren’t going to
be any stray seeds scattered around to make talk on the part of pestering
reformers and newspapers. For this reason the melon was going to be put away on
ice until the close of the session--when it would be carved the week after
adjournment.
Little Danny was
appointed custodian of the melon fund, and he passed out the word that he had
it put away snug and tight.
Every man knew the size
of the piece he was to get at the end of the session, and all stood pat on the
agreement and delivered the goods on roll call, without flinching.
Day after day little
Danny grew thinner and yellower. But he kept up on whiskey, increasing the dose
as the session drew to a close. In the last days he was as shaky as a new-born
calf; but he hung on like grim death and kept the boys in close line.
Of course most of the
loaded bills were rushed through with a whoop in the last week of night
sessions, and mighty few of the members wasted much time in sleep. So, when the
whole thing was over, all agreed to go home and rest up for three days before
dividing the spoils. Then they were to meet in the city, in Little Danny’s
office, and carve that melon.
But, the second morning
after adjournment, the Honorables of the state were jolted out of bed by the
news that Little Danny had dropped dead in his own home.
His funeral looked like
a joint session of the House and Senate, and there were more statesmen among
the mourners of Little Danny than ever will be got together again outside the
cover of a capitol dome.
For the next few weeks
the black-eyed widow of Little Danny held a continuous reception. Finally she
closed the house and retreated to her father’s home up in The Patch, three
miles away from a railroad, in a back township. But the tide of emigration, on
free passes, followed her, and more distinguished statesmen got off at that
little jerkwater station while she was there than had ever been in the county
before.
She broke all the
records of widowhood on the score of delicate attentions from men who were
entitled to write Honorable in front of their names.
When one legislator met
another he grinned sheepishly and asked:
"Seen the
widow?" or "What’s the news from the Lady in Black?"
Finally, it filtered
along down the line that Mrs. Danny had found a key in the trousers of the
deceased and that in the safe deposit box which it fitted she had discovered a
hundred thousand dollars. Danny had often told her, she said, that he had made
some good investments and a lucky strike or two on the stock market and had
salted down a snug sum.
While she coyly admitted
that she was a little surprised at the size of the pile that Danny had saved,
she was not wholly unprepared for the shock. It was only his quiet way of
providing for his family! In fact he had, in almost his last words, told her,
she said, that she’d find enough to keep the wolf from the door after he was
gone.
At last the anxious
attendants upon the demure and tearful little widow held a grand pow-wow to see
what was to be done.
The first item of
regular business transacted at the meeting was to formulate a water-proof lie
for the widow’s benefit, to the effect that Danny had been the custodian of a
pool fund with which he had speculated successfully and that the money in the
safe deposit vault represented the principal and profits of the venture in
which all were to share.
All agreed to this
except one young man. He stood out. Then some one happened to get a hunch that
he was the only unmarried man in the combination. It was plain that he had
intentions on the widow and planned to copper the whole pile by a matrimonial
coup. The rest of the gang made short work of him. They found out that he was
engaged to a girl in his district. Then they called him into open meeting and
gave him just a week in which to get out the invitations--told him that if he
didn’t make good at the altar on schedule time the young lady would get a
round-robin, or something of that sort, giving him a character that would last
the rest of his life.
He came to taw quick,
but inferred that he should expect to be handsomely remembered by his friends
on the happy occasion. And he was. He received enough pickle castors,
web-footed cake forks, spoons and table ware to stock the best jewelry store
the little town had ever seen--and he opened business right away after the
honeymoon. The other fellows thought they had done something mighty slick.
Then a committee of
three legislators waited on the widow. They thought she’d cry and then
compromise, for she was too wise not to know what Danny had been up to. But she
didn’t. She simply stood pat--told them she’d fight their claim to finish in
open court. That settled it. The boys swallowed their grief, cursed the great
Consolidation Scheme and threw up the sponge.
From that time the
relict of Little Danny was the most offensively cheerful widow in ten
states--especially whenever she happened to meet any of his old comrades of the
session.
So you see, Ned, that
the old C. O. D. plan is the only safe one. If the modern siren of
Consolidation tempts you, remember the parable of the Widow’s Mite and stand
out.
Seriously, old man,
wouldn’t it be a revelation to the dear Trustful People if they could trepan a
legislature and see what’s going on under the skull of their Honorable
Representatives? Just to uncover the real "works" and watch the
secret wheels of legislation go round for the last days of a session would make
them throw bricks at every state house in the country and put up signs over
every Senate and House reading: "This place has changed hands!"
Things weren’t so bad
when we started in--and thank God I got out of it before the boodle disease
became universally epidemic! I couldn’t look my old dog Bluff in the eye if I’d
been mixed up in that sort of mess, Ned, and I’d rather catch my son stealing
scab sheep than see him elected to a legislature. And that’s honest, too!
In the course of time I
hope to live down the fact that I once held a seat in the lower House, back in
the old state. But I’ll have to raise a good many chickens and fancy cattle out
here on the ranch before I’ll quite get the taste out of my mouth!
Write when you get time
and let me know if you’re still in the strait and narrow path.
You’ll be less lonesome
for writing if you are hanging to the old-fashioned notions of square politics
with which we started in.
I see that you are
inclined to hedge in answering my question regarding Kate and the widow. To my
mind that’s as good as a frank confession that the young widow is in the lead,
for there’s nothing that quite equals a blooming young widow, in a heart-to-heart
campaign, excepting a younger and handsomer widow. I shall expect to hear
something from you besides glittering generalities on this score.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Wherein William Bradley
offers Ned his ideas of the kind of moral backbone that is entitled to flowers,
speaks his mind on the subject of official temptations and tells how "Old
Cal" Peavey acquitted himself under the offer of a million dollar bribe.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
No doubt the new
Governor is all of the moral athlete you set him up to be; but somehow I can’t
quite go into spasms of enthusiasm over the chief executive of a great state
who allows his friends to cackle like a bevy of Shanghai pullets simply because
he has managed to turn down a temptation that a Chicago alderman would scorn.
Of course it was a very virtuous performance on the Governor’s part; but he
would pull heavier on my admiration if he hadn’t allowed you fellows to draw
the inference that he had felt any temptation to be resisted.
When a man admits to
himself that he is tempted he marks down his own moral backbone about twenty
per cent.; and when he brags that he didn’t yield to the temptation he
unconsciously puts himself on the bargain counter and classes himself along
with the unsold goods in stock. At least that’s the way a good many
discriminating people, who have had their eye-teeth cut, are inclined to look
at the matter.
In all my recollection,
I can recall just one man who could afford to admit, without cheapening his own
character, that he was subjected to a downright temptation--but he didn’t admit
it! And when the story leaked out, after his death, there wasn’t a man in the
state who didn’t take off his hat to the moral stamina that the Governor had
shown. That little incident made the eulogies of the pulpits and the newspapers
look cheap.
It happened while you
were kicking a pigskin at Princeton. There never was a better campaign than the
one in which Uncle Cal. Peavey knocked out the machine and landed in the
Governor’s chair. It made a bigger rumpus than a fox in a henhouse, and there
was a mighty shaking of dry bones in the fat places on the pay-roll.
Almost the whole press
of the state was against him and he was hounded as an anarchist, a
calamity-howler and a general enemy to society, capital, vested rights and a
whole lot of other sacred and civilized things. But Cal. kept his nerve and
continued to talk right out in meeting. The harder they pounded, the more he showed
his teeth and stuck out his bristles.
That was the Winter
before the United Traction’s franchise expired, and a new charter was simply a
groundhog case.
Times were tighter than
a February freeze. Every cent that the Governor had made in a series of nervy
speculations in city real estate had been put into the big Empire Building,
just before the hard times set in. Tenants were scarcer than rats, rents fell
like snowflakes, and the old man was in the hole for twice what he was worth,
with big payments coming due in the course of the Winter. He didn’t know which
way to turn, as the money market froze tighter and tighter, and it was a
certainty that he stood to lose the fortune he had made in years of hard
hustling, unless some unexpected stroke of Providence should come to his
relief.
But he was made of
stern stuff and never gave out a whimper, although he couldn’t keep his
condition from the wise ones on the street.
Just as he was driving
ahead to the last ditch in his private affairs, the United Traction was making
hay at the session. The Governor wasn’t the only man in politics that Winter
who had been caught in the financial squeeze. Plenty of the legislators were
worrying over mortgages and investments--a fact that didn’t escape the
attention of the Traction Company’s lobby agents.
Although the Governor
and his forces put up a strong and crafty fight against the bill, the franchise
measure passed both houses by a big majority--and the men who held mortgages on
the assets of the members concerned stopped worrying about payments.
Then the calcium light
was suddenly shifted to the Executive Mansion, and the question in every mouth
was: "What will the Governor do?" The situation was strained up to
concert pitch and there were all sorts of speculation as to the course which
Uncle Cal. would pursue. Generally, however, it was agreed that there were
enough votes to pass the bill over his veto and that probably, as a sensible
man who knew enough to know when he was licked, he would let the measure become
a law without his signature. This was considered the proper way for a Governor
to surrender under protest when there were not enough votes at his command to
sustain his veto.
A day or two after the
bill had gone up to the Governor, one of the smoothest mechanics in the fine
art of "fixing" ever on the confidential pay roll of the Traction
Company dropped in at the office of the Empire building for a little chat with
Mike Boylan, the Governor’s business partner and general handyman.
Now Mike had knocked
about town a good deal, been up as late as midnight several times and was
fairly well acquainted with the landscape in the neighborhood of the City Hall;
but for all that he didn’t really know that his caller was a scout for the
Traction Company. In other words, the fellow was the man for the hour; he had
just enough shady reputation to arouse in Mike’s mind a suspicion of his
connection with the company and save awkward explanations. On the other hand,
he had not made himself common so that his name was known to the members of the
gang generally. In short, he was an artist and accepted about one commission in
four or five years, but made that one something handsome.
"Mike," he
finally said, after they had chatted awhile, "if you’re not too busy I’d like
you to do me a little favor."
"Certainly,"
responded Mike.
"I’d like you to
introduce me to the man in charge of the safety deposit vaults of your
building. I want to get the right sort of accommodations, and if you take me in
tow it’ll insure me proper attention from the general-in-command down there in
the basement."
"Sure, I’ll fix
that," said Mike, taking his hat and wondering if it really were true that
his caller was mixed up with the traction people, as he had heard.
They were starting away
from the largest wall-safe or "box" when the new patron of the
institution called Mike into one of the private stalls. On the table were two
good, fat telescopes.
Up to that time Mike
bad been merely an interested spectator; but this move gave him a jolt. Could
it be that the fellow had trapped him into a position that might be made to
reflect on the Governor if it should ever get out?
Mike’s conscience had
been trained in the kindergarten of the street-paving contract business and
never swung a danger signal short of the question "Will it get out?"
Nothing but that possibility presented a moral problem to him. The next
semaphore which was swung by his acute spiritual sensibilities operated on the
question of whether or not a certain course would bring him under the heel of
the law.
"If this chap
makes a straight proposition," reasoned Mike, as his companion was
unstrapping the telescopes, "and it should ever get to the Governor’s
ears, it’ll be all day with me. He’ll raise my scalp."
"I hope you’ll not
think I’m suspicious of the boys down here," said the caller, "but I’m
taking care of a whole lot of cash for a pool I’m interested in; the fellows
who are with me are afraid of banks in these times and insist on planting our
funds in a safe-deposit vault. That puts the whole thing on my shoulders and it
occurred to me that it would be a safe precaution to ask you to come down here
and check up with me the amount I’m planting--it won’t take but a minute."
"You chaps going
to make books on the races?" laughed Mike.
His answer was a
knowing wink and Mike heaved a sigh of relief at the thought that he was well
out of a disagreeable scrape in which a quarrel with the Governor was almost a
moral certainty--and Mike was more afraid of old Cal. than of any other being
in the whole universe. In fact the Governor had become a sort of god to Mike,
although Cal. didn’t know it himself.
Half the packages were
in thousand-dollar bills and the rest in five hundreds, so it was an easy job
to check them up, according to the figures on the paper bands pinned about the
packages. Mike’s eyes fairly stood out of his head as he looked from the
figures on his tab to the currency on the table. One million dollars! He had
never seen that much money in one heap before in his life, and his nimble,
acquisitive mind began right away to figure out the things that could be done
with that money. It almost stupefied him and he made no objection when asked to
help stack it away in the big wall-safe.
Then they started
upstairs and the caller suddenly remembered that he had left his umbrella in
Mike’s private office. He got it, and started for the door, then stopped and
began to draw on his gloves. Mike had not yet come out of his trance. He was
still saying to himself: "A million dollars!"
"You’re satisfied
as to the amount in the vault?" casually inquired the caller.
"Yes;"
absently responded Mike, writing the figures on the desk blotter.
Suddenly the key to the
big deposit drawer fell on the desk in front of him and he heard the words:
"Well--you know
what to do with this!"
For a second he stared
hard at it. Then he grabbed it up and made a plunge for the door and out into
the hall. But his smooth caller had gone down the stairs to the floor below,
taken the elevator which served the side entrance to the building and was gone!
From that time until
Friday afternoon, when the Governor came to the city to give two or three days
to his private affairs, Mike scoured the town for a trace of the man who had
dumped a million dollars of bribe money into his hands. And in that time he
felt more stings of conscience than he had ever known in all his life before.
He was the worst scared man in the city and it seemed to him he’d rather jump
into the crater of a volcano than face the wrath of the Governor.
Or could it be that,
under the certainty of complete financial ruin the old man was facing, he might
possibly weaken? And why shouldn’t he take the money? He would be doing nothing
for it--not so much as signing his name! Hadn’t the Governor fought the bill
tooth-and-nail? And wouldn’t his failure to sign it be a protest against it?
This was just what the Party and the public expected him to do; then why
shouldn’t he keep the money that had been thrown at him?--and without a
possible tracer attached!
But even Mike’s moral
obtuseness was not so great that he didn’t recoil from the possibility that the
Governor might look at the matter in this way. If it should be so, he would
know that there wasn’t a man on earth who couldn’t be reached if all the
circumstances were right.
When the Governor came
in Mike was looking uncommonly pale, but the old man was too preoccupied to
notice it. His grizzled old face was as haggard as if he had just got up from a
run of fever, and his eyes shone with a grim, unnatural brightness.
He slumped into a big
leather chair and, in a shaky voice, said:
"Mike, it’s all
up! I stopped in at the Trust Company’s office on my way from the station, and
they say we can’t have any more time. Then I went over to the other place and
thrashed it out with fellows we hoped might come into the thing as a last
resort. But they’re scared, and nothing can move ’em to furnish the funds."
He choked up for a
minute but finally continued:
"But there’s one
consolation. The property’s worth the money, and no one’ll lose a dollar. And
there’ll be no scandal attached. Thank God I never wronged a man out of a cent
that I know of, but it’s kind of tough to see the work of years swept away in a
second! And then there’s the little woman at home--that’s the hardest part of
it!"
Then Mike knew that it
was up to him to make a clean breast of the safe-deposit business--and he did
it, too.
The eyes of the old man
seemed to bore Mike right through as the story came out in a shaky voice. For a
minute or two, the old Governor sat with his chin resting in his hands, the
muscles of his face twitching like a spider’s legs.
But it was all over in
a minute. Slowly rising to his feet, the old man pointed his long bony finger
at Mike and in a voice that had the grit of iron in it, he said:
"Young man! I’d
advise you to take better care of that damned scoundrel’s money than you ever
did of any money in your life."
That night the Governor
wrote a veto message on the traction bill that fairly scorched the rails of the
line. Then he called in the real scrappers of his political camp and began a
fight against foregone defeat that ripped up the whole state and made history.
He didn’t stop at anything that came under the head of things "fair in
love and war."
Before the fight was
finished he was forced practically to kidnap two or three weak-kneed members of
the opposition and take them out of the state. And there were a few others that
had to be given a close-range view of the penitentiary before they experienced
a change of heart. But when the vote on the veto was taken the old Governor won
out by three votes--and he celebrated the triumph by surrendering to his
creditors and backers all the property that he had accumulated in fifty years
of harder work than a stone-breaker ever put in.
In less than a year
from that time I acted as a pall-bearer at Calvin Peavey’s funeral and joined
in a subscription to buy the widow a home.
That’s the sort of
moral backbone that is entitled to flowers, according to my notion. And there
isn’t much of anything short of that brand that is. When I go into hero-worship
I’m going to cap my shrine with a bust of honest old Cal.
But I’ve run on to such
a length about this temptation business that you’ll veto this letter without
reading if I don’t quit short off.
The cattle are looking
fine and I’m getting young and frisky, now that I don’t have to keep a gang of
office-seekers in good humor or steer the ship of state between the rocks of
party politics. There’s nothing to put ginger into a man quite up to the
liberty of speaking his mind without figuring on how it’s going to affect the
vote.
Yours ever,
William Bradley.
Replying to Ned’s
letter proposing to follow up one "reform victory" with another bill
to "purify the state" by legislative enactment, the old Governor
frees his mind on the subject of world-spankers and says a few pointed things
regarding professional reformers, that are illuminated by two pertinent
stories.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
My Dear Ned: --
After you’ve shot your
rocket don’t play with the stick. Start something new. Even the importunate
widow of the parable had the good grace to let up after she’d landed what she
was after. And it’s mighty risky for politicians to rush in where widows fear
to tread.
Your little reform game
was all well enough and came out a lot better than most schemes to spank the
world "by statute made and provided." Of course, we’ve got to have
corrective legislation, but three feet of holdback strap, taken on emergency
from the nearest fill of the family buggy and applied at the nerve center of my
youthful conscience, did more to make me a good citizen than all the statutes
in all the books of the Law since the days of Moses or the Medes and Persians.
And now that you open
the way, I’d like to offer a few remarks on the subject of political spanks and
spankers. Your notion that you have a divine call to keep everlastingly at the reform
work puts you on a par with most other spankers. Mighty few of them know when
to begin, and not one in a thousand has sense enough to quit at just the right
point. This spanking business is a good deal like tempering steel--the whole
trick’s in knowing the right minute for cooling off.
When my father used to
start in with the buggy strap I was powerful proud and cocky; I knew that I was
in the right. But as things continued to warm up, my feelings always reached a
point of complete humility. I was licked and I knew it. And what was more, I
knew that I ought to be licked. I "conceded everything to the
opposition" and was willing to come back into the party fold without
asking for any representation on the steering committee. If father had stopped
right there he would have had me in a state of total and unqualified surrender.
But he didn’t. He always kept right on with the reform business, just as you
seem bent on doing.
Gradually, on these
painful occasions, my feelings underwent another change until I didn’t care
whether I was right or wrong. All I did care for was to get even with the power
behind the strap. And generally about that time, I’d let out a yell loud enough
to be heard by some of the neighbors. They usually did hear, too, and then the
news would circulate that I’d been "shamefully whipped." That kind of
sympathy made me swell up like a martyr and feel that I was the victim of the
oppressor.
Now, Ned, the time to
let up on spanking the community is at the humble point. When you keep on until
the victim gets the secret sympathy of the neighbors and is able to pose as the
object of persecution you’re overdoing the job just a little. It’s all right to
be thorough, but stop at a point where you can keep the moral support of the
neighbors.
A good many reformers
are like pointer pups--they don’t get sense enough to work with until they’re
beyond the age at which a bird dog of any other breed ought to have become full
of burrs and honors. I never see a reformer start in, full of his first run of
political sap, without thinking of "Pug" Hansom. They called him that
because he looked as if part of his face had been left off and kind of squared
up in the rough with a meat ax, like a pug dog’s.
He had bullyragged a
fair sized fortune out of the manufacturing business before he was 35. Then he
concluded that he would cover himself with glory by larruping the world into a
state of political righteousness. He was willing to start in a small way, just
for practice, on his own city of more than a million inhabitants. After he had
cleaned that up he would begin on the real job and show the world what he could
do when once he got his hand in.
Just then a new man was
reaching for a foothold on the party ladder and was doing a clever stunt in the
shape of organizing young men’s clubs. When the young world spanker came to him
asking for work, just to save himself from ingrowing patriotism, the request
was granted. The General Overseer said:
"You organize a
dozen clubs in your part of town, get them right where you can change them from
a singlefoot to a canter at the turn of your hand, and then you’ll have
political capital to do business with that’ll start you on a real career."
From that time until he
was all in, this young reformer was busier than a cock partridge on a drumming
log--and he strutted around in about the same style, too. I’ve never seen
anything quite so important of its age as that young chap. But he was a hustler
and he went at the organization of young men’s clubs in his neck of the woods
in the same way that he had invaded a competitor’s territory and put in his own
goods.
According to his report
to the General Organizer, "the work" was coming on in great shape;
the petitions were signed upon sight, and there was enough party enthusiasm
aroused by his oratory to drive a sawmill with lath and shingle machines to
boot. On the surface everything looked all right to the General Organizer and
he had about concluded that he had picked a winner when the great night of the
actual organization and election of officers came on.
There was no doubt
about enthusiasm or activity. Every young man in the party under 80 years of
age was there and doing business. When the ceremony of electing officers was
over the young reformer was so hypnotized by the applause that greeted his
oratory that he actually didn’t recognize the fact that the enemy had come in
like a flood and swept all his work right into the opposition camp. He wasn’t a
high private in the organization that he had built up--and he didn’t realize it
until the General Organizer heard of the news and explained it to him with a
diagram.
Some of these little
things are calculated to give a real politician the feeling that it’s about as
sensible to hunt prairie chickens with a hound pup as to go after votes with a
reformer who wants to make the party into one large bible class, with himself
as teacher and substitute.
I notice that lately
you have been sending up quite a few fireworks directed at the bosses of your
party. What’s the matter, Ned? You haven’t been trying to get frisky with the
old crowd of fellows and ring in new rules on the boys without giving due
notice, have you? When I hear that kind of talk from a man who has been in the
political game as long as you have and has as much horse sense as you usually
carry about, I can’t help suspecting that something like this has happened.
It’s all right to put
up a howl against the boss, but the outcry would be a whole lot more convincing
if it did not come from a throat that has sung in his choir since it was
organized. There has been more nonsense talked on both sides of the boss
question than on the tariff and free silver combined. I guess that I have said
enough to indicate that, to my notion, a reformer isn’t to be accepted as
having a divine call simply because he can pound the pulpit and shout loud
enough to start the nails in the mourners’ benches. I look at it about this
way:
A boss is frequently a
reformer who has finally grown up, got on to the rules of the game and is
willing to play it square. And the professional reformer is often only an
appetite for power that mistakes itself for moral courage.
Since cutting my eye
teeth I have had a good chance to learn considerable about how a reformer can
grow up into a boss, and how a boss can get cocky and exceed his privileges.
One experience has shed a good deal of light on the subject for me, so I give
it to you for what it’s worth.
It was the second year
after I came back to the city. A young married man out in the newer section of
the town saw that certain things in his line of trade ought to be protected by
stricter laws. He kept the drug and school book store right next to the
schoolhouse.
When he asked the local
boss for representation on the ward committee and for some other reasonable
things that would help him to make a strong fight for his reform legislation he
was turned down.
He was green in
politics, but you didn’t have to tell him a thing but once--and sometimes not
at all. Because his was the only drug store in the region and was close to the
schoolhouse, he knew practically every man, woman, and child in the ward. When
the smoke cleared away from the primaries this little druggist had fourteen of
the delegates to the county convention and the local boss had one.
That night the druggist
didn’t feel sleepy, and so he managed to see the fellows who were doing things
on his side of the river. He was just as easy and modest in his way as if he’d
never thought of going out after a little reform legislation. Somehow the boys
who held the whip hand took a shine to him and concluded that he’d play square.
Then they were so tickled over the way he had drubbed the boss that they fell
right in with his plan for doing things in the convention.
When he walked into the
room where the "Big Three" slate makers were figuring out things he
was abruptly asked: "How many delegates have you?"
"One hundred and
thirteen," he answered.
"No; how many
delegates do you control? We’re not asking how many there are on your side of
the river," was the impatient return.
"I control
113--all there are on my side of the creek, just as I said. We all got together
last night, and I’m sent up here to treat with you and find out just what can
be done."
"Done!"
exclaimed one of the veteran bosses. "Why, we can simply control that
whole convention without another vote. Now, what do you want, young man?"
He told them precisely
what things on the ticket would have to go to his side of the river, and he
capped the whole business by demanding that his men must be nominated first.
"Because," he
explained, "you see, this game is all new to me, and I can’t take the
chances that you old hands can."
Right then one of the
big leaders looked up and said:
"I thought that
you were just a reformer--but, by mighty! you’re a boss, and a real boss,
too."
From that time to this
the little druggist has played a gentleman’s game and played it on the square.
Some folks don’t approve of games at all, and others don’t like that kind of a
game, but all are agreed that the way to play it is according to the rules.
So, Ned, if you’re
going to cast your lot with the world spankers, just try and be as decent and
square with your political partners as you have been while just a plain
politician, playing the game for the fun of it and because you like it better
than golf, poker, pingpong, or pinochle. If you do this you’re likely some time
to break your chrysalis, "leave your low vaulted past," and find that
you have changed from a professional political spanker to a boss whose word is
good to the limit of the game with all who know how to play it.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Responding to Ned’s
confession that he has become engaged to Kate Hamming and feels that a wife
will have a "great influence on his career," William Bradley tells
the story of one good woman’s tragic influence in the life of a young
politician--and points the conclusion that one guess is as good as another in a
political situation with a woman in it.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
And so you’ve decided
to take unto yourself a wife in the person of Kate Haming? Good! That part of
the departure isn’t open to debate. And neither is your observation that you
feel your wife will have a "decided influence" on your political
career. But no being short of the Almighty is able to give anything like a safe
guess on whether that influence will be of the sort you are counting on. This
is one of the things as inscrutable as the mystery of godliness.
Any fair sample of
common American womanhood is a prize package for a bachelor politician to draw;
but when it comes to the question of her influence on his career, one guess is
as good as another. And this uncertainty isn’t a matter of the particular kind
of feminine loveliness that the woman in the case happens to represent. She may
be as attractive as a lost bargain and as tactful as brook trout and still
manage to warp your political destiny until it cracks.
I never see a young
politician push his head into the matrimonial lariat without thinking of young
Flournoy, one of the first speakers out here after the territory became a
state. His story shows how a woman’s presence in the background of a politician’s
life can change the whole face of the landscape.
When the Almighty put
the finishing touches to young Flournoy’s makeup and hitched him up for life’s
heat, He checked him high. You remember that thoroughbred Kentucky colt I used
to drive the first year I occupied the Executive Mansion? Head up, ears
forward, set on a hair trigger and ready to shy at a butterfly, and so
sensitive that a harsh word would throw her into the dumps for a whole day? If
I had that little mare now I’d call her Flournoy.
The young man was as
proud as a girl with her first long skirt and as ambitious as Lucifer. He had a
good ranch and kept severely to himself until a little school teacher with
snappy gray eyes, dimples, and a cleft chin came from New York to teach
district No. 10. I never saw a bucket of water bring a gopher out of his hole
quicker than that mite of a schoolmarm brought Flournoy out of his shell! He
spruced up amazingly, and never passed the schoolhouse or the place where she
boarded without wearing clothes that would have graced a wedding.
Right at the start the
young man got it into his head that Miss Dove was made of superior clay and
that her blood was bluer than a royal whetstone. It never occurred to him for
an instant that a good, clean, young chap like himself was worthy to come into
her presence or could be of the slightest possible interest to her unless he
could do some knightly stunt that would specially entitle him to her
condescension. There’s no doubt that the girl was so dead lonesome and homesick
that she would have given her shoes for the companionship of a man like
Flournoy, and would have primped in front of the glass for an hour if she had
been given any reason to suspect that he might call.
But the young rancher
continued to adore at a distance and to lie awake nights scheming about how he
could distinguish himself in her eyes.
There wasn’t much doing
in the way of opportunity for old fashioned heroics just then and there. The
prairies refused to burn, tramps kept shy of the country for fear of being set
to work, not a dog went mad, no villain offered insult to the little school
teacher, and altogether there wasn’t the slightest chance for her knight to
rush in and rescue her from insult or peril.
Perhaps you think
Flournoy didn’t figure on any of these things. That’s because you never saw
him. One glance into his big black eyes was like reading a whole historical
romance at a gulp. You may take my word for it that there wasn’t a dramatic
possibility that this adoring lover hadn’t figured on. He saw the whole
situation through age-of-chivalry eyes, and all he needed to fit him for a
knight was a little scrap-iron clothing and a good deal of bad language.
But in the absence of
any better field of valor, he decided to take to politics. We’ve been told,
until we’re tired of it, that "all the world loves a lover," but it’s
gospel truth just the same--and when Flournoy intimated to the boss of his
district that he wanted to go to the House the old Platt-in-overalls decided
that for once he’d indulge the luxury of a little sentiment. So he put the
thing through and landed Flournoy on the ticket. The opposition was mighty
strong that year, and if it hadn’t been for the quiet way in which the boss put
forward what the literary critics call the "romance element," his
candidate certainly would have been skinned at the polls. But the love affair
caught the fancy of all the old boys and some of the young ones, and Flournoy
found himself elected, addressed as "honorable," and petted by the whole
community.
Before the smell of the
fireworks celebrating his election had been blown out of the main street of
Bullseye, Flournoy began to receive telegrams and delegations from the various
factions fighting for control of the House. He was just wise enough to play
safety and not tie up with any particular crowd, but he was kept so busy
returning the evasive answer that he didn’t have a chance to call on the little
school teacher and throw his future at her feet. In fact, the night when he had
put on his best garments and his statesman’s smile and was walking the floor in
a mild effort to screw up his courage for a call on her, a male siren from
another district dropped in and delicately intimated that stranger things had
happened than the selection of Robert Flournoy as speaker of the House. And
when the political siren closed his dark-horse song he left a book of
parliamentary rules for young Flournoy’s perusal and inspiration.
The poison worked so
swiftly that instead of treading the cottonwood lane that led to Squire Baldwin’s
house, where the school teacher boarded, as he had intended, Flournoy sat
straddle of a kitchen chair, his head resting on its back, and his mind working
on the splendid possibilities ahead. It didn’t take him long to figure that if
a membership in the House was a strong card to play in his suit for the hand of
the school teacher the speakership would be a royal flush. If the stake had
been his own life he couldn’t have been in more deadly earnest, so he concluded
to wait a bit and make a try for the speakership before he showed his hand.
Consequently, he sent
his love affair into committee for future report and struck out for the
capital. There he found things split up into three bunches, with party lines
lost in the scramble for power. The regulars and the insurgents were evenly
divided and three hungry scouts held the balance of power. The scouts stood out
until the last minute before the formal opening of the House, and it looked as
if the deadlock might be good for half the life of the session.
But just then the
hatchet-faced old warhorse of the Insurgents, who had whispered the siren song
to Flournoy, took a grip on the situation and showed that he could spell
organization with a big "O." He had an under jaw like the lower blade
of a rolling mill shears, the sort that snips off steel rails as easy as a
small boy bites stick candy. And his eyes had about as much of the glow of
human kindness as the points of two diamond drills. "Old Jawbone," as
the boys called him, was a seasoned terrier, who had been waiting for years to
set his teeth into a "good thing." He saw his chance and made a lunge
for it.
Suddenly, out of the
chaos of things, came the word that he had whipped the three scouts into line
and with their votes the Insurgents would put young Flournoy into the speaker’s
chair. And they did it, too, in short order, after the state patronage had been
parceled out to meet the demands of the scouts.
Probably no speaker
ever carried into the big chair at the head of a state House of Representatives
a happier heart that Flournoy’s. He fairly perspired beads of joy. A kitten
with a dozen balls of yarn would have made a solemn spectacle alongside the
young speaker. And a kitten presiding over a pack of timber wolves would have
been an example of the eternal fitness of things compared with young Flournoy
as the ruling officer of that House. He had no more idea of the nature of his
job and the powers that were playing with him than a cock sparrow caught in a
cyclone has of the thing he is up against.
It meant just one thing
to Flournoy--the girl! Beyond her he saw nothing, knew nothing, cared nothing.
His sudden political honors were only trophies to be flung at her feet.
Just before adjournment
at the close of the first week he wrote Miss Lucy Dove, asking if he might take
the liberty of calling upon her Saturday evening. And he didn’t lose sight of
the probability that she would be duly impressed by the imposing official
stationery upon which his note was written.
Of course, just what he
said to her that night, as they walked up and down between the two long rows of
cottonwood in the light of the Autumn moon, isn’t of record, excepting as it
was written on his face when he showed up at the beginning of the week. One of
the boys who was in his open secret read the speaker’s face with the remark:
"He’s had his petition hung up in the hands of a friendly committee, with
an intimation of speedy and favorable action."
Sometimes the whole
front of his countenance was hung with the bunting of assured hope, only to be
changed in the space of an hour to the dark draperies of threatening despair.
But the game that was put up to him in the course of the week was swifter than
anything he had ever thought of, and, together with the worry about the young
woman, it wore him to a frazzle.
But at last the members
adjourned for another Sunday at home, and he packed his grip and made for
Bullseye on the first train. The sight of young Flournoy’s face when he
returned was something to warm the heart of a cobblestone. Even "Old
Jawbone" actually thawed for an instant under the radiance of it. The
wedding card was spread on Flournay’s countenance in plainer terms than on the
engraved announcements that were opened by the members. He had won the heart of
the little school teacher as suddenly as he had landed the speakership. There
was an irrepressible "young Lochinvar" look in his eye, and he rapped
his gavel with a new ring of confidence.
"Old Jawbone"
figured that the right minute had come to spring his biggest game on the
"boy speaker," as he sometimes called Flournoy when talking with the
"gray wolves" of the Insurgent gang. Consequently, he had a private
conference with the knight of the chair, and laid out the lines of the gang program.
And the layout was as rotten and high handed a deal as was ever put up by a
bunch of Black Hills road agents.
There wasn’t any more
duplicity in Flournoy’s composition than in an antelope’s, and he shied openly
at the proposition. Then the under jaw of the Insurgent chief set tight and
sudden, and he said: "Give me your last word on this tomorrow noon."
If Flournoy intended to
take his bride into his confidence on the matter he changed his mind and fought
it out inside himself. Probably he was ashamed to show her what a dirty mess
was being brewed among the men who belonged to his political camp. But he knew,
all right, what the thing would look like in her eyes, and that was enough for
him. He stood by the white plummet line of her conscience, as he saw it, and prepared
to abide by the results.
Although he recognized
that he was up against the biggest bout he had encountered since he had gone
into the knighthood business, he had as little conception of what could happen
to him as a baby left on a railroad track.
That noon, after he had
kissed his wife a dozen times and received her promise that she would come to
the House in the course of the afternoon, he cinched up his armor and went into
the speaker’s private room, ready for the joust with the Hon.
"Jawbone." And he had it hot, too! A member passing the door
overheard the voice of the "boy speaker" declaring: "Sir, you’re
a contemptible scoundrel--a disgrace to your state and your race! I’d rather
die than do the infamous thing you demand." And as the eavesdropping
member belonged to the Insurgent gang, he told this snatch of stolen
conversation as a good joke. In five minutes everybody in the House knew that
the war was on.
"Old Jawbone’s"
face was the color of stale liver when he came out into the open--and the
speaker’s as white as a sheet. Flournoy’s legs faltered as he climbed the
stairs to his chair and watched "Old Jawbone" scurrying to the seats
of the faithful, like a pirate passing orders for the scuttling of a ship.
Suddenly the lieutenant
of the Insurgents arose and received the recognition of the chair. With a
sperm-oil smile on his face he slowly and calmly moved the adoption of a
resolution deposing the speaker on the ground of "gross
incompetency."
"Shame!"
"Outrage!" came the cries from the Regulars--and in the next minute
the word went down the line from their leader to vote for the retention of the
man who had been seated by their opponents. For the next few minutes things
centered about the three scouts. As the young speaker stood there, dumbly
holding on to his desk, a dazed, wild look in his eyes, the clerk put the
motion in a foghorn voice. At that instant a smiling usher appeared in the
doorway beside the speaker’s platform, followed by three women. They stopped
suddenly. The speaker’s chalky face turned in their direction just long enough
for one glance. He quivered for an instant, then dropped.
"The motion is
carried," bellowed the clerk--but the scream of the woman who leaped up
the stairs of the speaker’s platform cut the uproar like a knife. It was a good
thing that "Old Jawbone" had made himself scarce before the Regulars
realized what had happened. They would have made short work of him just then !
When the young speaker
was revived it was only to rave wildly about his wife--and she was about as
stark mad as he. It was real tragedy with a vengeance. The strain had snapped
the taut cord of Flournoy’s mentality. He lasted a week--but never saw a sane
minute. And if ever a broken heart looked out of a woman’s face--like a lost
soul--it looked from the face of the little school teacher, the Lady of the
Lost Knight, as I have always called her.
And so, Ned, do you
wonder I say you can’t tell what is going to happen when a woman--no matter how
fine and good--comes into the life of a man who is in the scramble of politics?
Yours ever,
William Bradley.
Ned has written his old
friend and counsellor that the piece of legislation he has just put through
will make him "eternally solid" with his constituents and that
hereafter he has only to say "thumbs-up" and the whole party strength
of the entire district will follow the word. William Bradley replies with the
story of the boss of Pinhole politics who banked on the gratitude of the public
and later saw a great light.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
You seem to feel that
the bill you have put through has given you a mechanic’s lien for life on the
franchises of your constituents. Perhaps it has. But let me tell you this: A
boy who has played hookey and wound up with a secret raid on the jam closet,
and is then called into the woodshed to interview father, is a novice in the
gentle and convenient art of forgetting compared with the average political
constituency. Any ordinary bunch of voters can forget to remember more things
than a village money lender can remember to forget in making up a schedule of
his personal property for the tax assessor. The affections of a frisky girl in
her first year of boarding school life are sermons in constancy alongside of
the fluctuations of popular esteem which are recorded at the ballot box.
Of course, the fellows
who are pushing for the appropriation which you landed have told you that the
passage of your bill would make you eternally solid with the horny handed
voters in your district; that so long as grass continues to grow and water to
run in the old Eighth you could just say "thumbs up" and the votes
would be yours. Then they pounded you on the back, gave you a stag dinner, and
presented you with a gold watch engraved with sentiments from your
"grateful constituents." I’ve had several of these, and my experience
is that they’ll run longer without cleaning than most constituencies will
without a change of heart.
This cow country out
here hasn’t any more than its share of quitters, but a little incident just
occurred over at Pinhole that sheds light on the subject of the amount of faith
a man is warranted in placing on the political constancy of a constituency to
which he has given the one thing that it desired above all others. Now, Pinhole
isn’t strong on the traditional means of grace; it’s short on churches; the W.
C. T. U. and Y. M. C. A. and other alphabetical agencies of civilization haven’t
been able to cut a wide swath there. But for all that, there is a good deal
doing in Pinhole right along and the people have been accustomed to point with
pride to the fact that its bars, faro banks, and other local institutions are
the best in the state and never turn away the enterprising patron at any hour
of day or night.
At the last session of
the legislature, however, there was a tidal wave of moral sentiment that made
the boys hold their ears to the rails and listen. A good many of them concluded
that the "water wagon" was coming in earnest and they couldn’t see
much difference between a blue ribbon and a ballot. The W. C. T. U. forces
certainly did make a powerful showing, and for a while it looked as if some
mighty restrictive legislation would go through. That was the time when
"Big Mike," the member from Pinhole, took off his coat and began to
saw wood. He knew that his town would look like a Sunday school after that kind
of legislation had begun to get in its saving work. A big delegation of
business men came on from Pinhole to make a showing. They were sure scared and
begged Mike to turn back the enemy at any cost. He buckled right down to
business, sacrificed everything else, and traded right and left for anything
that would cut into the votes of the reform party. And he was a shrewd trader,
too!
If the missionaries who
have gone out to spread the gospel had worked half as hard as "Big
Mike" there wouldn’t be an unconverted heathen on the earth. If he had
sworn not to eat or sleep until he had killed that bill he couldn’t have
hustled harder. Day and night he was on the rampage, cutting out a member from
the reform bunch at every possible opportunity and putting the Pinhole brand on
him.
When the final roundup
came he had picked up enough strays, by hard riding, to defeat the cold water
measure. Judging by the noise that Pinhole delegation made over him, you would
have expected to see "Big Mike" sent to congress. They loosened the
underpinning of the capitol building and painted the town until it looked like
a horse show poster. And the whole thing was done over again when Mike made his
triumphal return to his own town. All the brass bands in the county were there
and the blowout that was had in his honor went down in history.
A few months later a
young stranger with a baritone speaking voice, a smile that made the dogs wag
their tails, and a string of good stories, struck the town and opened a law office.
When the municipal election came around the opposition ticket nominated him for
mayor. Then the "business element" waited on "Big Mike" and
asked him to run in order to "save the day." They assured him that he
was the one man who could snuff out the young invader without batting an eye.
Of course, being mayor
of Pinhole looked like small potatoes to a man who had held the center of the
stage through a whole legislative session and who had his eye on a seat in the
State Senate. But the boys begged him to make the sacrifice and urged that the
mere use of his name would put the other man out of the running. Finally he
yielded. The music which had celebrated his triumphal return was still sounding
in his ears and he looked upon the whole municipal campaign as a matter of
form. In fact, he didn’t consider it necessary even to remind the people that
he had given them the one thing they wanted. They could never forget that! So
he just kept on handing out hardware to his customers while the young lawyer
worked his smile and his stories from one end of the street to the other.
Somehow, before anybody
particularly realized it, there was a sort of general inquiry as to whether
"Big Mike" ever would be able to satisfy his appetite for office.
Even one or two of the men who had been in the Pinhole delegation that went up
to the capital during the session for the purpose of holding up "Big Mike’s"
hands and giving him moral support were heard to insinuate that the political
leader of the business element so hated to see an office get past him that he’d
be running for justice of the peace or constable next, rather than have some
other fellow fill the place.
Then the women and the
dudes of Pinhole society began to whisper that it would be real nice to have a
mayor who didn’t spit on his shirt front and who used at least three
handkerchiefs in a week.
Well, before the polls
opened you could walk from one end of the street to the other without hearing a
solitary word on the subject of how "Big Mike" had stampeded a whole
legislature and saved Pinhole from being crushed under the wheels of the water
wagon bill. But every time you listened in at a little political talk you were
dead sure to hear how many spots were once counted on "Big Mike’s"
shirt bosom and how tiresome a thing it is to see a man make a political
glutton of himself.
"Big Mike"
didn’t hear much of this talk, and he simply snorted with complaisant contempt
at the stray fragments of it that did reach his ears. He allowed that a man
could wear a shirt front of solid plug fringed with one-cut if he could only
give his constituents their heart’s desire and give it to ’em quick--when they
called for it.
The people, he said,
knew all about him, and he knew the people of Pinhole so well that he didn’t
have to get out and run a campaign with a dude on a shirt front issue. But a
bear on a floor sanded with carpet tacks would be a calm and peaceful object
compared with "Big Mike" when the ballots were counted that night and
the election of the smooth young lawyer announced.
Mike plowed up both
sides of the street in his wrath, sold out his business, and moved into another
frontier town in an adjoining district, which had been as much benefited by his
work in the legislature as had Pinhole. Then he started in for a long campaign.
He is working at it now, day and night, and you may depend upon it that he will
be back again in the legislature with a long knife out for any legislation that
the Pinhole district may want. He says that he is now a reformer--and that the
first thing he proposes to reform is the memory of his dear friends, the people
of Pinhole.
All this, I admit, is
discouraging to a man who has put up really a great fight for a good measure
that ought to entitle him to an eternal mortgage on the support of his district
for anything he may choose to ask. However, there may be a sneaking streak of
satisfaction to some fellows in the fact that a constituency is about as quick
to forget his sins and blunders as his triumphs of statesmanship in their behalf.
Perhaps you have
forgotten the episode of "Gumshoe Smith," in the session when you
were laid off. Let me jog your memory. Gumshoe represented one of the river
districts. Although he had a whole lot of farmers in his bailiwick, he was out
for any substantial assets he could fasten on to without making too much noise
about it. And, what’s more, he didn’t hold himself at a cheap price, either. He
always stuck for something worth while, and if he did not get it he was a bad
man to deal with. He had the courage of his immoral convictions and showed a
daredevil nerve when any of the corporate interests tried to throw him.
One of the biggest
franchise bills that came up during the session was engineered by a
transplanted New England Yankee who hated to see a cent slip through his own
fingers. This made Gumshoe mad, and he fixed a price on his support that threw
the Yankee into the cramps. They dickered and haggled up to the last minute
before the bill was to come up for third reading; but Gumshoe wouldn’t budge an
inch or discount his price a dollar.
At the last ragged
minute before roll call that Yankee, who was hid away in one of the committee
rooms, turned to a young fellow from his own town, whom he had put on the pay
roll, and handed him a long envelope containing $5,000 with the remark:
"Just hustle into the House and quietly hand this to Mr. Smith. It
contains some papers he wants to use right away."
The young fellow was as
green as a June pasture, so far as his knowledge of inside legislation was concerned,
and besides that he didn’t have any more than his share of brains, anyway. He
slipped into the House and asked the doorkeeper, "Where is Mr.
Smith?"
"Right down the
aisle there," answered the doorkeeper, pointing. "Standing with his
hand on his desk."
The young fellow
slipped quietly down the aisle and laid the envelope on the desk indicated.
Before the roll call actually began Gumshoe slipped out of the door and began
to look anxiously about. In a moment he found what he was looking for, and he
and the Yankee held about two minutes of mighty animated conversation. Then the
young man who had been sent with the envelope came up. The Yankee grabbed him
by the arm and asked in an undertone: "You gave those papers to Smith,
didn’t you ?"
"Yes," answered
the young man in a scared voice.
Then Gumshoe turned on
the little fellow and said:
"You’re a liar,
you never gave it to me. You’ve salted it down in your own pocket, you little
thief."
"You?" was
the astonished response. "Of course I didn’t give it to you. I gave it to
Mr. Smith, that grizzle-headed little old man with the whiskers, on the right
hand of the center aisle, third seat down."
In one second Gumshoe
made a rush for the meek little old farmer from the southern end of the state, who
hadn’t said a word during the whole session excepting to answer on roll call.
About half of the members hadn’t discovered that his name was Smith--and those
who had distinguished between him from the other Smith by giving him his right
surname, while they always spoke of the main Smith as Gumshoe. This was how the
doorkeeper happened to send the innocent young man to Farmer Smith instead of
Gumshoe from the river district.
With a fierce grip on
the old farmer’s shoulder Gumshoe blurted out:
"Here, you old
pious sneak thief, just fork over that stuff right quick or I’ll smash every
bone in your body."
With a shaking hand the
scared farmer made a dive into his inside pocket, pulled out the long envelope,
and handed it over. When Gumshoe saw that it had been opened he gave a nasty
laugh and said:
"If you ever peep
on this I’ll teach you that there’s such a thing as honor among thieves."
On the roll call
Gumshoe voted for the bill, and voted hard. As several of the members sitting
near had heard snatches of the conversation an inkling of the story leaked out
and got into the newspapers. Of course, Farmer Smith put up the defense that he
wasn’t going to keep the money.
Some believed this and
some didn’t. Anyhow, both of the men were roasted to a crisp in the newspapers
and any one would naturally have concluded that neither of the Smiths would
ever dare to run for pathmaster. But the records show that they were both back
again in the House inside of four years and Gumshoe, as you probably remember,
was later sent to the Senate.
And so, Ned, you will
see why I don’t put quite as much confidence in the memory or the constancy of
the ordinary constituency as your letter leads me to think you do. The average
American king can forget benefactions and forget crimes about as nimbly as any
other kind of a king. My advice is: Don’t scrimp your next campaign fund
because you have turned a good trick for your people; get hold of some new
issue and convince them that it’s their only salvation and just as necessary as
the thing you have already landed.
I’m mighty sorry that I
can’t be on hand for the wedding; but I want to say that I’d rather see you
married to Kate than witness your entrance into the United States Senate. You
may think the latter is a long way off--and so it may be--but I like the way
you’ve trotted your trial heats and I’m expecting more of you than some fellows
who can’t see beyond the lines of a printed pedigree.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
The new joys of home
life have caused Ned to feel the responsibility of making substantial provision
for his family in the way of going out after a fat Federal job--and he
intimates that he has a political pull which will do the work of a steam
derrick. This spurs the old Governor to offer a few observations on the
reliable uncertainty of pulls in general and proves his point by a story of a
pull that outdid all expectations.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
I’m mighty glad that
you find the present joys of your new home better than any picture of a future
paradise painted in the sermons that Elder Ripp used to preach to you in the
little old Free Will church those Sundays when you opened the campaign by
taking up your devotional duties again. I always did think you were put on the
light running domestic order and that you’d drop gracefully into the
responsibilities of married life.
Consequently, I’m not
surprised to have you write in a strain that shows you are disgustingly happy
and that you have some earthly interest beyond the glory of representing a
constituency and being an exalted errand boy for a bunch of folks you wouldn’t
hire out to for day wages. It’s good for you to feel that there’s something in
life beyond pulling and being pulled--and for that which "profiteth
not."
Your decision to make a
try for some good fat appointment that will put you in position to provide for
your wife is a practical resolution--but it recalls to me a certain speech
which you delivered at Canada Corners, on the fourth of July, in which you
magnified the glories of an elective and representative once and dealt out high
scorn for the "political pot hunters" who "prostituted ambition
for public service and made it a matter of ignoble commerce."
Those were your words,
Ned; but I can forgive your change of heart when I remember that you were
dealing a side cut to the boss of the other machine, who let the other fellows
take all the elective, bandstand places while he dropped quietly into the kind
of a nest you are now looking for. Then, again, you’re just married--and that
is enough to account for almost any sort of a stampede in the direction of
settled income and "secure tenure of service."
But the man who can
plunge into matrimony and at the same time stake his future on the efficacy of
political pulls is so full of faith that he ought to be talking from behind a
pulpit instead of prancing around on the stump.
In all the calendar of
"long shots," the political pull is the rangiest and most cocksure
uncertainty. Of course, you’re going to come back at me with the statement that
the political pull may be depended upon not to realize more than the candidate’s
expectations. Generally that’s so--but such is the consistency of this splendid
uncertainty that I’ll have to tell you what happened to my friend Driggs, just
over the state line. He’s recently been out to visit me, and so the matter is
fresh in my mind.
Now, Billy was always
on the other side of the fence from me, politically, and I used to rally him
about being always out in the cold. But he kept right at the mourner’s bench,
leading the faithful and exhorting the political sinners to come forward and
get the true light. And all this time Billy’s law practice continued to grow
lighter and his line of credit and longtime notes heavier.
Well, as you know, his
side finally came in on the great tidal wave. I never saw a pastor who had
prayed and sowed and watered and waited for the increase who was more surprised
when a real red hot revival actually opened up right at his feet and made the
rafters ring with the shouts of the saved than was Billy when he heard that the
country had gone his way. Naturally, he had the pulchritude of a singed cat.
What came out of his face, when he talked to a crowd, however, was so much beyond
the promise of the face it came from that the people took to him like women to
religion. It seemed as if they had tired of the handsome, "black
eagle," imposing type of political hero, and were ready to find relief in
the plain, red headed, pug nosed, freckled, and sawed off sort of a leader that
came under the head of Billy Driggs.
Anyhow, he was given
credit for carrying his part of the state--and his other line of credit began
to pick up considerably, too, as the war horses gathered at the county seat and
talked over the office that Billy would probably be appointed to.
Well, he finally went
on to Washington with all the pulls that he could scare up working overtime in
his behalf. He had made up his mind to strike high and ask for the position of United
States marshal for his end of the state. The marshalship paid $6,000 a
year--and that was more money than he had handled in six years. Every little
while, before Billy went up to Jerusalem to the great feast of the chosen, he
would stop and say to himself, "Too good to be true! Too good to happen to
me!"
Now, while Billy had
always been a twelve hour laborer in the vineyard, he was so absorbed in the
conversion of sinners that he didn’t know what the fat places on the circuit
paid--and he had to ask what was the best paying appointment ever held by a man
from that district before he knew what to apply for. "Topnotch or
nothing," was his battle cry when he went out for the indorsement of the
party leaders.
He had seen so many
lean years of faithful service when the enemy held the corner on all the
official cribs that, now in the days of his party’s fatness and of his own
righteous reward, the habit of good, honest hustling stuck to him, and he lined
up an array of pulls and indorsements that made him swell with happiness every
time he went over the list. "Some folks have to die before they can get
that sort of thing," he would say as he tapped the bundle of indorsements.
In Washington he kept
right on hustling just as if he’d only started out with his petition. The
public men seemed to take to his style of beauty, and even the President was
uncommonly gracious to Billy when Congressman Skipp introduced him. The wise
ones told Billy that he was all right, and that nothing short of an O. K. on an
application ever went with that peculiar brand of smile.
But somehow the
appointment didn’t come out quite as quickly as Billy had hoped--and this delay
only made him hustle the harder. His only antidote for "hope
deferred" was more hustling. And he did it in a quiet, unobtrusive way
that didn’t stir up opposition.
One day, however, when
Billy was about to cinch himself up again for another "pull"
campaign, he got word that something was going to happen at the Senate that
afternoon which might be of particular interest to him. He was there in the
gallery listening to every word that fell from the lips of the oracle of the
chair. Finally he heard his own name read off in connection with the words,
"To be collector of the port."
Billy jumped to his
feet in a minute as if he were back home in a county convention and some Indian
was trying to commit the party to a hopeless heresy.
"It’s a
mistake," he started to shout, when the friend who was with him laid
violent hands on his coat tails, yanked him back into his seat and said:
"Shut up, you
fool! What if it is a mistake! Don’t you know the collectorship pays $12,000 a
year! Mistakes of that kind don’t happen to anybody but fools and the elect--and
you’re not anybody’s fool!"
Well, it turned out
that Billy’s appointment stuck, and he made good in such a way that a bunch of
big fellows in his party took an interest in him and put him in the way of
making more money than he had ever dreamed of seeing. And he made it honestly,
too. Then his fame as a party oracle spread with the growth of his bank account
until now he is known in every state in the union among the solid moneyed men.
I hope, Ned, that your
pull will be of this "thirty baskets of fragments" kind, but I’m
afraid that you’re not quite enough of a singed cat to have a claim to that
kind of luck.
When it comes time to
put on the screws and really come to a showdown, I hope you’ll not have quite
the experience that came to a young chap from my old home town, who went out
into the sheep country, made friends as fast as he lost money, and finally
landed the comfortable little job of reading clerk in the house.
Jim had a voice like
the sound of many waters, the presence of a Presidential possibility and the
nerve of a goat. He fitted into the place as handy as a hoe into dirt, and made
friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness right and left. Before the session was
fairly under way he had done a trick or two that made him solid with the strong
minority and he was considered a sort of consulting pilot for any difficult
piece of legislative navigation that came up. Beside him, the Wobbly Willie
speaker was small potatoes.
One day a member came
to him and said:
"Jim, how in
tunket am I going to get that bill of mine through creating the office of state
oil inspector? You see, they killed my measure in the Senate, and I got even by
burying the Senate bill, to the same effect, here in the House."
"Looks a great
deal as if the state would worry along awhile without an oil inspector,"
said Jim, "but if there’s a ghost of a show to, I’m going to help you out,
Tom, for I’ve made up my mind to land that particular job myself."
"Well,"
replied Tom, "my goose is cooked if I don’t get that bill through. I can’t
support you for the place when it’s made; but I won’t do anything in particular
to keep you from getting it."
"There’s just one
bluff that may work," said Jim, "if the measly parliamentary
sticklers don’t catch on to the game. Spring a resolution for a conference
committee of five--two from the Senate and three from the House--and have the
bill revised and put through."
This scheme worked, the
bill was passed, and inside of a week every member of Jim’s political faith in
the House, with two exceptions, went before the Governor in a body and asked
for his appointment to the new position, which was worth $20,000 a year.
"This is the
strongest indorsement any man has ever had for any appointment," replied
the Governor, "and the request of this delegation shall be granted if it
is within my power to do so."
Privately the Governor
explained to Jim that he made this slight reservation for fear that possibly he
might have given the Senator who introduced the "oil bill" to
understand that he was favorably inclined toward a friend of the Senator’s.
Later, Jim was informed that the records of executive correspondence showed no
such entanglement and that his appointment would be made as soon as
circumstances would permit. But, somehow, there appeared to be a regular glut
of executive circumstances, and the big plum still stuck to the tree in spite
of all the shaking Jim could do. Finally, months afterward, when Jim’s bank
account was wasted to a shadow from an acute attack of creeping consumption, he
got a straight tip from a square politician, who had one leg in the grave, that
the Governor had appointed another fellow. Then Jim went up to the mansion and
put his case strong. He got a square in the eye assurance that all was well and
that the delay was simply for reason of executive policy.
Next day, while the man
with the pull of practically a solid party at his back and working overtime was
pondering and guessing, he was called to the chamber.
"Your state needs
you," said the Governor, "in another capacity, sir, and I shall not
take ’No’ for an answer. I am about to make up a commission to exploit to the
world one of the greatest industries of our commonwealth. You know that
industry, as few of our citizens do; true, there is no salary attached to the
position, but your labor will bring you in contact with the great captains of
finance, and the way will speedily open for you to make a great deal of money.
Your sacrifice in letting the other position pass will be only temporary and
you will soon come into your reward."
Before Jim could catch
his breath and get his bearings he had accepted a tinfoil honor. When the
announcement of the appointment was made the state boss came to Jim and
explained:
"You old ninny!
Two months ago the Governor gave his absolute pledge that he would make you oil
inspector, but bound me not to tell you because you might tell your wife and
let the thing leak out before he could fix his fences for the United States
Senatorship. And now he’s worked you into trading $20,000 a year for a tin
horn."
Jim meditated for a
while on the perverseness of dead sure pulls and then started in on a campaign
that cost the Governor the Senatorship.
But that didn’t pay his
grocery bills, and before the next session he saw several hungry days. And I
could tell you a dozen other incidents that show as clearly how a double
riveted pull can taper off into thin air and an empty stomach. So, don’t rent a
new house, buy bonds, or throw over your present job until you have the
commission that you hanker for actually in your hands.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Commenting on Ned’s
surprise that a seasoned politician has "sold himself for thirty
cents," William Bradley gives his notions of grafters and indulges in a
story and a few epigrams to drive home the point, taking his text from his
boyhood experiences in breaking up "bumble bees’ nests."
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
When you size up a
bunch of aldermen or a new legislature, just remember the simple little fact of
natural history that a "bumble" bee is always biggest right after it’s
hatched. The average alderman or legislator--especially if he’s inclined to be
"on the make"--is about seven times larger and more important in his
first term than he will ever be again.
You seem to be
surprised that our old friend Kite sold himself for about 30 cents after having
been in politics for as many years, and that he hates and fights the decent men
who wouldn’t do the same trick. If the corporation had attempted to land him at
that price in his first term he would have been so mad that likely he’d made a
bluff at exposing the attempt to tamper with his "honor"; but the
passage of time is likely to make a little shrinkage in most things, including
the importance of an alderman or a legislator. There’s nothing I know of that
loses so much of size in the seasoning process as a politician--excepting a
"bumble" bee and a basswood log.
Your story about Kite
Hendee puts me in mind of a little chapter in the gentle art of grafting that
bears right on this "bumble" bee point and is worth remembering. Up
in the city a plumber was elected to the board of aldermen. He didn’t calculate
to put in his time in the council just to cure himself of hay fever, and there
wasn’t a fresh baked city father in the bunch that felt his oats like Barney
Brennan. The flowers on his desk that first night looked like a composite of
all the Dutch posey beds in Little Germany, and one of the newspaper boys
remarked that the corporations would have to pay for that floral display at
Easter prices.
Being a plumber, Barney
naturally was used to pretty stiff prices anyway, and had acquired the habit of
charging up time from the minute he began to look for his tools till he
returned and had sharpened his pipe cutters ready for the next job.
Now, the little Hoosier
who was looking after the interests of one of the street railroad companies had
broken up enough "bumbles’" nests in his boyhood to know something
about the law of shrinkages, and, as he had been in the house building business
for several years, was fairly familiar with the general habits of plumbers.
There was a little
trick that the Hoosier wanted to put through the council, but there wasn’t
enough involved to make it really a first class object from an aldermanic
standpoint. Consequently, as the council contained a lot of new members who were
mightily impressed with their own importance, the scout for the street railway
company had to figure close and make up in cunning what he lacked in available
coin with which to grease the job.
All the hold-overs that
could be done business with were lined up quick, and at the regular
discount-in-large-quantities rate. But he was considerable short of the
required number of votes, and had to raise his prices in several instances to
get the new men that could be seen at all. He sent one of the old members to
sound Barney, the plumber, but that dignitary sniffed at the offer of $500, and
swore by the great Gas Pipe Cinch that he wouldn’t consider anything less than
$1,000.
According to the little
Hoosier’s score card, the game was up with him unless he could get Barney into
line--but, of course, Barney didn’t know that his vote was the key to the whole
situation. Some of the Hoosier’s advisers got anxious about the situation and
kept asking if he wasn’t going to come to Barney’s terms "just for a
starter."
"Nope," said
the Hoosier, "can’t afford that. It establishes a bad precedent--and,
besides, he’ll come around all right when the time comes."
"Don’t you think
it," said the fellows. "He’s bigger in his own mind right now than
the Mayor himself. You’d better settle with him this once, and after a while he’ll
get some sense and come down to hardpan prices like the rest of us."
But the Hoosier only
shook his head, grinned and said that Barney would drop into line without any
trouble. The night the resolution came up for final vote there hadn’t been a
change of a figure on the little Hoosier’s score card. He confided this to the
friend who sat right behind Barney, and, handing him a long manila envelope, he
said:
"If that plumber
pirate gets up to make a spiel against our resolution, just keep one eye on me;
the minute I take off my eyeglasses and start to rub them with my handkerchief,
you reach around in front of Barney and put this envelope on his desk. I guess
he’ll take a twist on his tiller and round his bow into the wind when he sees
what’s put up to him. I’ll be up by the clerk’s desk with the newspaper
boys."
Things were run quite
wide open in those days in the council and bolder hands had been played than
the showdown the Hoosier outlined. Well, sure enough, Barney arose in his seat
to speak on the resolution. Like most new members he hung on to his desk with a
death grip and seemed afraid the whole floor would slide out from under him if
he should let go for a second. But he had set himself to sail the eagle a
little and at the same time to let the fellows who were doing things understand
that they had a heavyweight to deal with when they didn’t come to his terms.
They couldn’t trifle with his affections without getting a blow with a lead pipe
that would make itself felt!
After his throat was
cleared and the buck fever had got out of his voice, he began to lay the
foundations for a forty minute indictment against the street car company
calculated to put that "bloated incubus" out of business for all
time. He had sunk the piles and put in the underground stonework of his speech
when the little Hoosier calmly took off his glasses and began to rub them with
his handkerchief.
Instantly the alderman
behind Barney caught the signal, reached forward and laid the long envelope on
the orator’s desk. The speaker continued for a few minutes and then paused for
a drink of water. As he did so he stole a glance at the envelope and saw a
figure "1," followed by three ciphers written in pencil on the corner
of the envelope. He put the drinking glass down over the figures and then
proceeded in the same strain. The face of the Hoosier’s friend fell like a
batch of sour dough. And it didn’t change until the speaker paused and took a
new grip with the words:
"An’ now,
gentlemen, this is one side of the situation. There are always two sides to
every case, and a spirit of judicial fairness compels me to present the other
side. Between two evils we must choose the least. While the resolution would
benefit a graspin’ corporation, its defeat would deprive the people of rights
and privileges that are of inestimable value."
Then he went ahead and
put out as plausible a line of argument as the little Hoosier himself could
have furnished. And he wound up with the declaration:
"I have not
hesitated to expose the motives that have influenced this monopoly to ask for
the resolution before us; but, gentlemen, I am compelled to vote for its
passage because it is the best thing for the people. Experience should teach us
that when this hungry corporation gives us three-quarters of a loaf we should
grab it before it is too late."
When Barney sat down
some one nudged the little Hoosier and whispered: "Must have met his
price, eh? Or, mebbe, he raised on you the last minute. But it hain’t fair to
us fellows who stand by you right along to get the small change while the fancy
sums go to these goslins that are fresh from the nest."
"Just you go out
with Barney," says the Hoosier, "and watch him when he opens up his
envelope over in Billy Ryan’s place. Take him into a private stall--you two
alone--and give him champagne until his tongue is loosened. I’ll stand the
bill."
"A wink’s as good
as a nod to a blind horse," said the member as he started for Barney’s
seat and cinched the invitation. After adjournment the two went into retirement
together in one of Billy Ryan’s stalls and opened a few bottles of extra dry
and ate a beefsteak on the side. Every once in a while Barney’s fingers would
stray into his inside coat pocket as if to make sure something was there.
Finally, the friend said:
"Old man, you’re
one of the Ancient and Honorable Gray Wolves now. If you don’t know that they’re
a mighty square set and always pull together you’ll find it out soon. There’s
no squealing and no secrets in the pack. Better pull out that envelope and see
what you draw. I never saw anything so slick as the way you brought ’em to
time."
Barney stiffened up,
said something about being able to play the game if he hadn’t been long in it,
and drew out the envelope. "I guess none of the boys did any better ’n
that," he added, pointing to the figures. "One thousand ain’t so bad
for the first meeting."
"One
thousand--cents!" exclaimed his companion. "I guess you’d better have
your eyes tested for glasses, old man. A decimal point, if it is mighty small,
cuts a big figure in this business, I can tell you, where we’ve got to take
things on their face and count the goods afterwards."
"Cents!"
yelled Barney, ripping open the envelope and dropping a bright, new $10 bill
into his plate. Barney always ordered his steak extra rare but they say that
when he had got done using the Irish language that night his steak was burned
to a crisp and crinkled up around the edges like a German pancake. He made such
an uproar that the other aldermen who had dropped in after the session to take
a little nourishment and sit up and notice things, came rushing into the stall.
Of course, the whole
story was out in a minute--just as the Hoosier had intended it to be, only
without the necessity of giving it away himself.
But you may be sure the
Hoosier spread the gospel of the $10 bill in every precinct club in Barney’s
ward until the alderman couldn’t go up an alley without being grinned at by the
wise ones. Then the Hoosier sent a trim little bruiser who was handy with his
fists down into the ward to finish the job of making a monkey of the Hon.
Barney. The lightweight happened into a place where the alderman was attempting
to recover lost ground by flooding the ward with beer. After an introduction
the slugger gayly started in to joke Barney about the $10 ordinance.
Instantly the alderman,
who was a big fellow, thought he saw a way to make good with his people and he
struck right out from the shoulder. But the little athlete dodged, and when he
finished up with Barney that city father looked like a slice of fresh liver.
That winter Barney
scattered Christmas turkeys among "his people" as lavishly as if they
were sparrows. But the whole ward continued to grin whenever his name was
mentioned, and it was carried against him at the next primaries by a young chap
who had once been a theological student and was suspected of being a half-baked
prohibitionist.
But, to go back to the
"bumble" bee proposition: I’ve broken up enough nests in the old
south meadow, when I was a boy, to prevent me from seeing out of both eyes for
a week; but the lessons I learned while nursing my stings have stood me in good
stead in many a campaign. One of the things that has stuck to me, from those
sore reflections, is the observation that the coward who dodges behind the
fellow that does the fighting is the one that wants most of the honey and howls
loudest when he happens to get stung.
If that isn’t the way
in the world of politics, then I never led a certain fight back in the old
state that is still remembered by the seasoned warhorses of the party! Find a
fellow whose mouth waters to catch the drippings from a piece of political
honeycomb, and who wants the other boys to be contented with "bee
bread," and you’ve got a man that’ll hide behind your back when you’re
under fire. Our friend Kite was of just that sort.
Then, again, the
"bumblers" taught me that when the chief end of existence is to plant
a stinger where it’ll do the most good there may be a whole lot of savage
satisfaction in the process--but it’s sure death to the one that lands the
stinger! The whole highway of politics is scattered with the carcasses of
bright politicians who acquired a passion for stinging; they finally got in
their work but every boy that has broken up a "bumbler’s" nest knows
that the bee that lands a stinger gives up his life along with it.
So, Ned, don’t mind the
Grafters or the Stingers. You’ll outlive them all.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Ned has told his
troubles to his old friend and confessed that he is considerably torn up by the
discovery that there are several traitors and a bunch of weak-kneed camp
followers in his ranks. This stirs the old veteran to vent his feelings on the
subject of the various stripes of politicians to be found in every camp. He
gives his opinion of their relative importance and illustrates his meaning by an
anecdote of politics "up in the Hill Country beyond Judea."
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
I’m glad that my
passing remarks on the general cussedness of grafters and stingers gave you the
consolation they were intended to carry. Judging from the letter before me, you
seem to be learning a good deal in a short space of time about the different
species into which the general family of Politician is sub-divided; and it
strikes me that the particular breeds now claiming your attention are the
Quitters and the Stayers.
The atmosphere of
politics doesn’t seem especially suited to the raising of spiritual orchids;
but there isn’t another field of human effort in which the rougher virtues
shine to better advantage or the meanness of the human mind can crop up in a
more contemptible way. The thing best loved in a politician is that which makes
a burdock the best hated weed on earth--the quality of sticking through thick
and thin. A good old fashioned dock burr is the sort of a floral emblem for me
when going into the ups and downs of politics; no matter whether your campaign
fund is 50 cents or $50,000, the burrs and the real stayers will stick so tight
you can’t separate them from you without individually pulling them into pieces.
The Stayers may want you to go some other road than the one you’re set on
traveling, but they’ll stick with you to the end and not pester you with a lot
of nagging questions and arguments. They aren’t forever reminding you that they
expect you some time to square accounts with them on a Santa Claus basis; and
they don’t rattle off from you like chestnuts after a hard frost, when the
first wind of political adversity strikes you.
I’ve sat up a good many
nights and burned a heap of strong tobacco trying to figure out just where a
Stayer leaves off and a Quitter begins, and I’ve about come to the conclusion
that the line of separation shifts itself about as often as the bed of the
Missouri river. However, I’ve sized it up about this way: When your political
bedfellow personally and at first hand proves to you that he’s more kinds of a
hog, liar, and general all-around traitor than his worst enemies set him out to
be, you’re warranted in cutting him out of the bunch on giving due notice of
your intentions--and the boys can’t rightly call you a quitter for doing it.
This question of the
ethics of quitting and staying was never better illustrated to my mind than in
a township election when I was a boy back in York state. Up in the region
called the "hill country beyond Judea" Luman Dodd, a young buck who
had more relatives in the valley of Gahunda than a rabbit, was the leader of
the choir in the little Disciple church, and figured that, being the best
singer and the handsomest and most numerously connected young man in the whole
hill country, he stood a good chance, in time, to go to the legislature if he
could only get the right sort of a start. But the start was what bothered him,
for it had to be a regular run-and-jump in order to land him in Albany among
the lawmakers.
Over in the valley of
Gahunda, in the same township, was Watt Ely, a solid old Yankee who had run the
Republican politics of the settlement for several years. Young Lume had had
sense to make up strong to Watt and "ride the town" whenever there
was a close fight on, and his tenor voice was a star attraction at every
Republican rally. Old Watt took a shine to the boy and nursed Lume’s political
ambitions, telling him his day would come sometime. And it did come at a
certain town caucus, when Watt got the old boys together and put Lume on the
head of the ticket for supervisor. There was a streak of tenor melody from the
townhouse to Lume’s home as the young candidate left the caucus to carry the
news to his wife.
But after the first
burst of song the leader of the choir got busy meditating on how he was to make
the big start that would give him the impetus for a leap into the legislature.
Nothing commonplace, like a good record, would answer the purpose, to his
notion. He must do something to startle the natives and show them that they
needed a tenor voice in the councils of the state at Albany.
He went out into the
woodshed until the plan of campaign gradually took shape--for Lume’s mind was
about as nimble as a cove oyster’s. But when he had once bedded himself down in
a new set of ideas he was there to stay. At the end of a three hours’ communion
with himself, Lume saw the way from the townhouse to the capital; he would roll
up a majority for himself that would make the other figures on his ticket look
sick and prove that he was the most popular man that had ever showed his head
above the waters of politics in the "country beyond Judea."
And the way he planned
to accomplish this feat proved to himself that he was cut out from the
beginning of creation for a statesman. O, but it was a cunning trick! He was
sure that nobody else had thought of such a smart turn. Moses Siler, who was
named for justice of the peace, had taken a collection at the close of the
caucus from all the candidates and had gone over to Slippery Elm to get the
Republican tickets printed, so they could be distributed among the voters
during Sunday and Monday. But Lume had decided to do a little ticket business
on his own hook, so he sent his younger brother over to the Burg, the other
side of the hills, and had a batch of Democratic tickets printed on the same
kind of paper as the Republican ballots, only the name of Luman Dodd was
substituted in the place of the Democratic candidate’s name. These he’d use
where they’d do the most good.
On Sunday Lume was in
his place at the head of the choir, behind the organ, and he celebrated the
occasion by singing a solo that made some of the sisters wipe their eyes. You
couldn’t have thrown a contribution box in any direction in that audience
without hitting an aunt, uncle, or cousin of Luman Dodd’s--and they were all
proud of the new distinction that had come to the family in the shape of Lume’s
nomination. Out in the horsesheds, after the services, Lume held a reunion of
the male members of the Dodd line, and it was agreed that every one of them
suspected of having the slightest influence in the community should get out and
"ride" from Monday’s sunup until the close of the polls on Tuesday.
Lume told them, of course, he’d be elected--no question about that--but he
wanted to roll up the biggest majority ever carried by a candidate in Bethlehem
township.
On Monday he started
out to ride the township himself. All was smooth sailing until he struck the
valley of Gahunda and drove in at Mose Siler’s bars to discuss the outlook and
plan for some special hustling on Tuesday. In about a second after Mose planted
his foot on the hub of the buggy he took from his wallet one of the special
Democratic tickets that Lume had hired a tin peddler to distribute among the
wives of the hill country Democrats along with some bright new dippers and
nutmeg graters.
"Lume," asked
Mose, "do you know anything about this? Ever see one of these before or
have anything to do with the printing or peddling of these ballots?"
Not being a quick
thinker and, knowing that he’d got to speak up right quick or stand convicted
of party treachery in the eyes of the candidate for justice of the peace, Lume
swallowed hard and then answered:
"Never; some one
is trying to throw dirt into my grist. Do you think, Mose Siler, that a young
man who has sung tenor in the choir of the Disciple church as long as I have
and has got the chances that are in front of me would do this kind of a
thing?"
"I’ve got my
i-dees on that subject," said Siler, "but all I’m going to say right
now is that some one’s done it and that that feller’s a scurvy hound, and
unless I find some one who won’t deny it I’m going to lay it to your door--and
my friends in Gahunda valley will strip your hide off tomorrow at the
polls."
That was all,--and Lume
continued his ride, the most disconsolate man in the whole hill country beyond
Judea. But, as Siler’s threat kept filtering through his mind, he caught at one
phrase in it that gave him a ray of hope: "Unless I find some one who won’t
deny it." It was an hour before his mental mill had ground this grist and
brought him to a decision. He turned his horse around and started for Watt Ely’s,
clear at the lower end of the long valley. By the time he was pounding on Watt’s
door with one hand and keeping off the watchdogs with a whip in his other hand,
it was 4 o’clock in the morning. Old Watt wasn’t dressed for company, but Lume
pushed inside without waiting for an invitation. Then he unburdened his soul in
double quick time and made a clean breast of the whole business. Before Watt
could open up Lume began to whine for quarter.
"I’ve stood by you
and rode this town night and day for you, Mr. Ely," he said, "and a
good many times I’ve run the risk of ruining my voice in order to furnish your
rallies with campaign music. You’re the chairman of our county committee and
the boys will stand by anything you say. All Siler wants is to find some one
who won’t deny fixing up that Democratic ticket. You’re so strong in the county
that a little thing like this won’t hurt you a bit--but, Lord, a’ mighty! it’ll
ruin me for all time."
"Look here!"
cut in Watt. "You’ve done as dirty a trick as ever was put up by a low
down politician. But you have rode for me when the fight was close. Besides, I
want to show my gratitude to the Almighty for not making me responsible for the
spoiling of your voice. So you can just go ahead with the lie you’ve started
out with and I’ll not deny fixing the ticket to Mose or anybody else--not until
election’s over. Does that satisfy you?"
Lume was so overjoyed
at this that he didn’t quite catch the full force of the qualifying clause and
he rode back home feeling that there was still hope. His first move was to send
word, in a roundabout way, to Mose that he better take his question to Watt
Ely. He did, and the county chairman’s answer was:
"Well, what of it?
I don’t deny it. Lume says it’s so, an’ he sings in the Disciple choir, an’ is
a mighty respectable member of the community."
That gave Lume a new
lease of life. He caught at the straw that Watt had thrown out, and in an hour
was telling his excited uncles and cousins that the county chairman had
"done him dirt"--probably for the reason that he wanted to kill him
off once for all. The whole township was torn up by the fight, and the result
was the heaviest vote that was ever polled.
Meantime, Lume, who was
considerably green at lying, began to hear from his conscience and grow white
around the gills. And when the votes were counted and the footing of the tally
sheet was announced he had a mighty sickly looking smile of triumph on his face
for a man who had run ahead of his ticket.
After the election
clerks had put up their papers old Watt mounted a cracker box in the general
store. There was a light in his eye that meant business, and the boys knew it.
"Before I begin to
talk I want any man here who thinks I’m a quitter or who has ever known me to
break my word in any political deal to speak right out in meeting."
Not a man spoke, and he
took a swig from the cider pitcher before going ahead. While he was clearing
his throat Lume slipped out of the crowd, saying he’d forgot to shut the
henhouse door. But the thing he’d forgotten was the qualifying clause in old
Watt’s promise.
"I jest want to
remark," continued Watt, "that having a whole nation of good, honest
kinfolks sometimes won’t save a man from doing things that would shame a
polecat, and that a tenor voice hain’t any particular guaranty of truthful
lips."
Then he laid open the
entire circumstances regarding the loaded Democratic ticket. That night the
news traveled the length and breadth of Gahunda valley and all over the hill
country beyond Judea.
The next afternoon
every relative of Lume’s in the whole region was attending another family
reunion at the horsesheds. Lume bawled and begged, but the Dodds were made of
hardy stock and didn’t propose to have their good name dragged in the mire of
Gahunda without letting the natives know that he wasn’t upheld by his kinfolks.
When they got through with him he had been officially thrown out of the church,
the choir and the Sunday school. They took his resignation from the board of
supervisors and packed him off to Ohio, bag and baggage.
The last I heard of him
he was doing a turn in a minstrel show that was making one night stands through
Missouri and Arkansas--which is some different from throwing a tenor voice at
the speaker of the House in Albany.
Whenever any one
mentions the subject of Quitters and Stayers somehow I can’t help thinking that
old Watt Ely got about as near the right dividing line as most of us can. There’s
such a thing as being an over-stayer--and it’s almost as bad a breed as the
easy quitter. But one thing is sure, the politician who don’t make his bare
word better than a first mortgage on an Illinois farm don’t know the first
principles of good politics.
He can smash the moral
law into kindling wood in a lot of particulars, but if he keeps this one
commandment sound he will have more followers than a wagonload of fodder in a
pasture of hungry steers. And the funny part of it is that a good share of the
modern white ribbon "practical reformers" who have kept the whole
moral code from their youth up seem to forget this one tenet the minute they
break into politics, while the boss who would shake down a railroad without
winking makes this the one plank in his confession of faith.
Now, Ned, if you don’t
want me to run on at such a rate you mustn’t write me the things that stir up
all my old political dander. Just keep pruning off the Quitters and grafting on
the Stayers and you’ll yet land the big job you’re after.
The cattle are doing
fine and the ranch is the best place I’ve struck yet for solid comfort. It
beats the executive mansion and a seat in the Senate all hollow--for I’ve tried
’em both. Give my regards to your wife.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Touching Ned’s
announcement that he has the congressional nomination "spiked to the
rails," the old Governor replies with the story of how Little Danny once
loosened a political cinch and sprung a surprise, at the eleventh hour, that
made his political future.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
My father used to say
that he never knew of a horse being stolen excepting from a barn that had been
locked by a boy--and generally by a boy who had that very night been back,
after starting for the house, to wiggle the padlock and "make sure."
Most of the good, sound
political drubbings that I’ve seen administered have been in the nature of
eleventh hour surprises. In one respect, at least, the arrival of the new
political victor and the last coming of the Lord are strikingly similar; both
are illuminatingly described in the words of scripture reading, "like a
thief in the night" and "in an hour when ye think not."
This is by way of reply
to your statement that there isn’t a gap, a weak rail, a rotten stake, or a
split rider in all your political fences; that you’ve got everything inclosed
seven rails high and are only waiting for the congressional convention to drive
the delegates right into the "stanchels" and have them counted.
Now, Ned, if all
political cattle were exactly alike you might safely go and visit your wife’s
relatives until the morning of the convention; but if the old district is
anything like it used to be when I rode it in an open buggy and kept a list of
the farm dogs’ names it is a safe plan to go out every hour or two and wiggle
the padlock on the barn door and put in the rest of the time patrolling the
line fences. After you’ve turned yourself three times around and bedded
yourself nicely down into a political situation, like a young hound in a
haystack, make up your mind that it’s time to hit the trail again and to hang
to it until the pelt of the fox is nailed to the barn door.
And it’s surprising how
trifling a thing it takes to confound the mighty and turn a political certainty
into a reminiscence. Perhaps you didn’t know the Hon. Xavier Flynn--they called
him "Salve" for short--up in the city; but there’s a powerful parable
in the story of his fall. It came like a sharp frost out of a cloudy sky and
struck so deep down to the roots that it hasn’t got thawed out yet. Salve had
run things in the old Fifth Ward so long and with so high a hand that he didn’t
dream anything on earth could unseat him. Not that he got careless and didn’t
keep his promises--he was too good a politician for anything of that sort--but
he acquired the habit of putting up business blocks on the west side and always
lacked a little of paying for one.
This was mighty
stimulating to his sense of thrift, but somehow it kept him constantly paring
down his campaign fund until some of the young bucks in his camp, who did the
heft of the hard work, got tired of this passion for economy that had gradually
taken possession of Salve. Tan Finnegan was especially sore, as the alderman
had turned down some of his pet schemes in the council and had refused to
refund a thousand dollars that Tan had scattered along the levee in the course
of the preceding campaign.
Right then and there
Tan notified Salve to count him out and consider him as unattached; he might,
he said, do a little work and he might conclude to go over to the enemy.
"Anyhow, you’ll hear from me one way or the other." Well, after the
new campaign opened Tan kept mighty still and appeared to be as completely
absorbed in holding his seat on the fence as a boy who is waiting for the
circus parade to pass. All his interest in politics appeared suddenly to have
oozed out of his toes and he was given the credit of being as disinterested a
spectator of the political field as the most aristocratic
millionaire-by-inheritance on Brownstone avenue.
This didn’t rack Salve
with grief to any great extent. Since his mania for business blocks and economy
had grown on him the old alderman had come to regard Tan as a prodigiously
expensive luxury. To be sure, Tan always got results; but if rentals on
business property were as high as the expense of Tan’s results, Salve figured
he wouldn’t need to stay in the council to keep his property up in good shape.
So long as Tan didn’t line up actively with the opposition the alderman was
glad that the young ward hustler was not distributing his money.
Just the day before the
election, after old Salve had looked over all his fences and pronounced his
work good, Tan took $50 to the bank and had it changed into dimes. Then he
started out and began to hit up the old trail, making the rounds of all the
river saloons. In every one he came across a few loafers with whom he was
personally acquainted. These he called up to the bar and treated them to one
round of beers, while the newcomers and strangers glowered and swore in thirsty
rage.
"Drink
hearty," he would say, "to honest old Xavier Flynn."
But Tan’s finishing
touch, which marked him as a master in the creation of political discontent,
was in solemnly handing a dime to every one of these loafer captains, as they
were wiping their lips after the one drink, and saying:
"Now, boys, get
out early and put in your best licks for Flynn. He’s got to be returned. The
opposition is throwing out lots of coin to put him out of business; but he knows
he can depend on you, coin or no coin!"
This sort of thing was
repeated in practically every saloon in the river ward--and a trail of curses
on the niggardliness of old Flynn followed from one groggery to another--for,
of course, the loafers all thought Tan was still the accredited distributer for
Flynn. But curses were not the only followers that Tan had. He had secretly
arranged with the heelers of the opposition to make the rounds right after him
and spend a dollar for every dime that had been put out in the name of old
Salve. You can bet there wasn’t a dry throat in any place where these heelers
stopped, and instead of dealing out dimes to the loafer captains they handed
over $5 bills.
Meantime Ald. Flynn was
comfortably casting up his greatly reduced election expenses and was glad that
Tan was not sowing his money in the barrel houses. He had weathered so many
storms and turned so many sharp corners that it didn’t occur to him it was
possible to unseat him. Such was his confidence in his position that, after he
had been told that Tan had been out doing a little work for him, he didn’t
suspect that some sharp practice was going on.
Well, when the votes
were counted, in that election, Salve was buried so deep that they had
difficulty in finding his figures on the poll sheet. And it took the old
alderman about a month to find out the real nature of the brickbat that had hit
him.
But when it comes to
turning sharp corners at the eleventh hour the trick that gave Little Danny his
start in politics puts all the others in the shade. Little Danny wanted to
break into the council, but he lived in a strong Irish Democratic ward, where
Republicans were scarce as hens’ teeth, and the old alderman was up for
re-election. He had the whole rolling mill influence at his back, and he made
no bones of saying that so long as he had the mill foreman and bosses solid he
could "yell for Queen Victoria," and still be elected.
This incidental remark
reached the ears of Little Danny and he made it the subject of meditation and
prayer. The more he thought about the boast the madder he was--but he had to
admit that it was gospel truth so far as any election records to date could
show. The night before election Little Danny had as much chance to come out
with a whole skin as a sour apple in a hog pen. As he was walking the floor,
jouncing a croupy baby, he suddenly saw a great light. Some say that it came so
quick he dropped the baby into the coal hod, but I don’t believe that, for
Little Danny was never known to lose his head--and, besides, he was as tender
as a woman when it came to handling a child.
But, at any rate,
Little Danny turned the baby over to his wife and made a dash downtown. Between
2 and 4 in the morning, when all the world, including policemen on their beats,
sleeps soundest, Little Danny made a sneak to the cottage of Big Tom, his
opponent. When he left, a life size bust picture of her majesty Queen Victoria
occupied the lower sash of the alderman’s front parlor window, a window in
which the shade was never raised excepting on rare company occasions.
Now, this same window
fronted on the street along which every hand going to and from the rolling mill
must pass. Another pertinent fact which had entered into Little Danny’s
calculations was that just then the Irish troubles were fierce in Parliament
and the old sod of the Green Isle was the scene of evictions and riots that
would make the modern American strike look like a game of pingpong. A big
collection for "the cause" had just been taken in the rolling mill
district, and an orator, fresh from Parliament, had held a dozen
"Emmet" meetings in the ward, with the result that, in the language
of a mill foreman, the feeling was "right up to heat and ready to
pour."
Little Danny’s
inspiration had taken note of all these incidentals, and he calculated that the
chromo of her majesty was about as well calculated to do the pouring act as
anything that could be put up in that neighborhood. With his unfailing cunning
he had also taken into account the fact that the men leaving from the night
shift would vote on their way home, but that those on the day shift would be
given a special "knockoff," during the day, in which to deposit their
ballots. In other words, every rolling mill hand would see that picture of
Victoria Regina before going to the polls. Then, too, he had put up the picture
so cleverly that it looked as if hung from the inside.
When the shifts changed
and the dinner pail brigade passed the alderman’s house a mighty rumbling
began, and it grew louder and louder as the sun rose higher. Before one of the
alderman’s children discovered the portrait, every loyal Irishman on the mill’s
pay roll had seen the picture and a good share of them had vented their wrath
at the polls by a vote for Little Danny, the "opposition" candidate.
Of course, the old
alderman sent his hustlers to every precinct and scattered money and
explanations right and left--or at least attempted to do so. But, with all the
help the big men at the mill could give him, he couldn’t explain fast enough to
check the landslide of votes that sent Little Danny to the council with a
bigger majority than his defeated opponent had ever been able to muster.
Some experiences and
observations of this kind, Ned, make me a little sensitive on the subject of
sure things. When I get to feeling that there’s nothing left to do but count
the votes and send up the skyrockets of victory I take an extra hitch in my
belt and go out to see that some frisky steer doesn’t get scared at a rabbit
and stampede the whole bunch at the last minute before the count.
As I said in a former
letter, if you’ve got any sleeping to do, better stand yourself off with a few
catnaps until the polls close and take your beauty slumber after the close of
the celebration. I hope you’ll win, for I think you deserve it, and, besides, a
term or two in congress will be good for you, and your wife will enjoy it--if
she spends most of the time visiting among your constituents instead of going
to Washington and finding out how small a figure a green congressman cuts among
the real lawmakers.
When you get down
there, Ned, remember that I’m open to all the garden seeds that you can send
and that I’m a redhot advocate of all the irrigation legislation that you can
frame up for this part of the country.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Being William Bradley’s
notions on the "law of compensation" in practical politics--and also
the account of how old Judge Worthy Millring rendered a decision, ruled the
political destinies of his district, indulged in romance and finally
"settled his score with the fiddler."
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
There’s nothing like
the whirligig of time to take the kinks out of a crooked politician. Somehow I
can’t quite get over the notion that, sooner or later, we have to pay the
fiddler in politics as well as in other things.
However, there’s a lot
of powerful cunning men who’ve made a big killing in politics and scored their
heaviest hits by doing dirt to every man that came near enough to get tarred
with their stick. These fellows don’t believe in the fiddler doctrine. They
seen to hold that so long as they keep their batting average up to a certain
pitch they’re entitled to a clean bill of exemption.
But, Ned, I can’t see
it that way. You’ve played I-spy enough in the village horse sheds to
understand what I mean when I say that the man who makes his way in the game of
politics by lying, cheating, and throwing down his friends isn’t justified in
expecting to hear the final call of "all in free." Sooner or later he’ll
have to take his turn at being "it" while the others are getting even
with him.
These political scamps
who climb to high places on the shoulders of the men they’ve betrayed and then
expect to escape scot free, remind me of old Benage Tew’s defense of the will
left by the infidel, Keth, back in Busti. The way in which the old man
distributed his property--which was the largest in the township--didn’t appeal
to the natural heirs, in spite of the fact that, during his lifetime, they had
consistently impressed the old codger with the fact that they regarded him as a
moral monstrosity whose fiery calling and election were already sealed.
Consequently, the
bereaved heirs went up to the county seat and took counsel of a young sprig of
a lawyer, who had a reputation for being uncommonly foxy. And they came out of
the conference smiling, for he told them that it would be dead easy to break
the will on the ground that the old man was of unsound mind when he made it.
"But how will you
prove that?" one of the heirs had asked.
"I guess there isn’t
a court or a jury in this region," the lawyer had replied, "that won’t
accept the old man’s infidelity as a proof of his mental unsoundness. All we’ve
got to do is to establish that fact. The religious sentiment of the community
will do the rest."
But one old friend of
the deceased, who was a large beneficiary under the terms of the will, hired
old Benage Tew to look over his interests in the case. Now, old Benage was as
rough as a shag bark hickory but as sharp as a cooper’s adz. While he knew
about all the law that had ever been introduced into Cowbell county, he paid a
heap more attention to the jury that he did to the law. He didn’t introduce a
particle of evidence to rebut or soften that establishing the rank infidelity
of the deceased, and his client finally took fright and ventured to remind him
of this oversight. But Benage was a hard-bitted and crusty old sinner and
simply told his client to "shut up."
Right up to the last
words of old Tew’s speech to the jury he ignored the main issue. Then he
disposed of it in these words:
"Gentlemen, it has
been alleged that the testator was an infidel. I admit it. I don’t hold to his
views of the Deity and the future, and neither do you. But as I look into your
honest and intelligent faces, I am willing to leave with you the question:
Shall the maker of this last will and testament be adjudged crazy simply
because he did not hold, with the persons who are seeking such a verdict, that
through his lifetime a man may consistently break the ten commandments, smash
the moral law into flinders, and on his deathbed assign to the Savior and cheat
the devil out of his honest dues?"
It took the jury just
ten minutes to bring in a verdict upholding the soundness of the will. And,
Ned, I can’t escape the conclusion that there’s a law in the eternal fitness of
things that brings the scalawag in politics around to face the music and settle
with the fiddler for the tunes to which he has danced, just as you say the Hon.
Bill has had to settle in your bailiwick.
Whenever I hear
anything said about the law of compensation in politics my mind goes back to
the career of Judge Worthy Millring, back in Coon county. That’s while you were
at college, and so I’ll refresh your hearsay recollection of the affair. A
finer looker than the old Judge never wore ermine or handed down an opinion. He
was as tall and toppy as an elm by a meadow brook and judicial dignity hung
about him like the halo of a saint in the family Bible. When he rubbed his
spectacles with his silk handkerchief, after a closing argument, you felt that
the voice of Justice was about to utter the last word on the subject.
But, just the same,
every man who was mixed up in politics in his circuit knew, in his heart, that
the old Judge had thrown down his best friends, sacrificed the men who had made
him a political power, and smilingly lifted the scalps of the veterans who had
been singed in fighting fire for him.
Just previous to each
judicial election there was a murmur of revolt; but the old Judge smiled on the
younger men of the party--the ones who really did the work--played the gallant
at a few church sociables throughout his circuit, and carried the convention as
easily as he decided a case. This went on until his long hair was white as his
old fashioned "choker," and all thoughts of unseating him had
practically been abandoned by the men who had felt his stiletto under their
political ribs.
One day, however, a
red-headed lawyer came to court to defend a young woman against a suit brought
by her husband for the custody of their little boy. The man looked as if he’d
steal the pennies out of the child’s bank and beat the mother for protesting
against it. You could set a dozen such heads as his on the bottom of an old
fashioned sap bucket and still have room enough to play checkers.
There’s no denying that
the woman was uncommonly comely; but the courts in our state hadn’t held that
this was proof of bad character. However, the husband had enough of his
relatives on the stand to make out a circumstantial case against her, while his
lawyer made a strong point of her handsome face and her alleged weakness to
flattery, insinuating that her ability to sham would make her a success on the
stage. His whole contention was that the mother was an unfit person to have the
custody of her child.
There was a hush in the
court when the Judge polished his spectacles and gave his decision, ordering
that the child be taken from the mother and given into the hands of the
grandmother on the father’s side. Then the woman slowly arose, took the little
boy by the hand and walked down the aisle--a strange, unsteady light in her
eyes. Reaching the bench fronting at one end the Sheriff’s room and at the
other the Judge’s chamber, she dropped down and gazed vacantly about.
The Sheriff offered the
little fellow an apple, and, as the child stepped forward shyly and took it,
picked him up and dodged quickly into the private room, snapping the lock
behind him. This aroused the woman from her stupor. She leaped forward and
fairly flung herself against the door.
Just then the old Judge
stepped to the door of his chamber. With a cry the mother made a rush for
him--but again threw herself against a closed door! She was beside herself when
the bailiffs and her lawyer led her away. I never heard what became of her--but
I can give you a few pertinent particulars about that red-headed lawyer and old
Judge Millring.
The papers commented at
length upon the "painful incident," but praised the "clearly
judicial and impartial" nature of the decision, and added that the county
was "fortunate in being able to furnish the circuit bench with so distinguished
and scholarly a jurist, one that would be an ornament to the highest tribunal
in the land." That was the first gun in the judicial campaign--but not the
last.
The red-headed lawyer
had his dander up, but kept it under cover, and started out, quietly, to make
things merry for the old Judge. But that unsuspecting ornament of the bench
simply continued in the even tenor of his way, living the life of a solitary
and scholarly old widower in the big mansion on the hill, cared for by a
half-deaf housekeeper whose smile would have soured fresh milk.
Secretly the young
lawyer organized into a band of insurgents a choice lot of the men who had been
tricked, shammed and deserted by the Judge in years past. Then he bought the
Blade, the new county-seat paper, published in the Judge’s own town. When he
had acquired the property he coyly suggested to the Judge that, as he needed a
little ready money just then, he would be willing to sell a two-thirds
interest. This bait caught the Judge instantly, and he drew his check for the
required amount, charging it up to campaign expenses. Then he went into the
city for a few days’ rest, a habit he had fallen into in late years. He liked
to come in contact with bright minds, he said, and keep in touch with the great
world of affairs; it kept him from "getting rusty."
There was no open
contest against the Judge in his own county; the new paper printed a few
columns of conventional praise of "our distinguished and learned
fellow-townsman," and the red-headed lawyer rode the country picking out
the delegates to the Judicial convention. He didn’t claim directly to represent
the Judge, and even went so far as to say that he had no objection to letting
any "sorehead" in on the delegation who cared to go to the
convention. This was winked at as a magnanimous and clever thing--and an
amazing number of soreheads took advantage of his generosity.
The convention met on
Friday, the regular publication day of the Blade being Thursday. Somehow the
papers got into the post office uncommonly early that day and in a few hours
the county was in an uproar--for the news spread like a prairie fire after a
drought. In headlines printed in black handbill type, the editor announced the
fact that it had been discovered that the Hon. Worthy Millring was the husband
of a young woman forty years his junior and the father of a little daughter.
The wife was the daughter of a former housekeeper of the judicial mansion.
In proof of the
existence of the wife, the paper published the facsimile reproduction of a registered
letter receipt signed by Mrs. Worthy Millring. No comments were made aside from
the simple statement that it was feared that the neighbors and political
supporters of the venerable jurist would resent the fact that they had not been
taken more intimately into the confidence of their distinguished
fellow-townsman.
That convention was the
hottest that ever convened in the county. The old Judge was full of fight. He
made a bold dash to stampede the younger delegates.
"Just come over to
the hotel," he told them; "meet my wife and then, if you blame me,
vote against me." They accepted the challenge, met the woman--and went
back to fight for the Judge. She was a city woman with a certain social grace
and cleverness that dazzled the young farmers, and, for a time, it looked as if
the Judge’s high play would win out for him.
But a good many of the
delegates had brought their wives to town with them--just to do a little
shopping--and, somehow, the redheaded lawyer managed to meet most of these
women and drop a word with them. And, incidentally, the convention, the stores,
and the whole town generally were well supplied with handbills giving the text
of the Judge’s decision in which he had taken the child from the mother on the
grounds of "unwholesome home influences." More than one delegate was
called out of that convention by his wife--but somehow not a great many women
called on the Judge’s wife that first day of her appearance in local society.
In the convention the
fight was something fierce. The balloting hung on until night and the
insurgents forced an adjournment. That gave the wives of the delegates a chance
to express their sentiments--and the next day, on the eighty-ninth ballot,
there was a break in the Judge’s forces and the nomination went to a dark horse
candidate who was as awkward as a "pip" turkey, but straight and
fairly able.
After that the old
Judge grew thinner and frailer. He held his head just as high as ever when he
took his dignified walks about town, but it was hard work for him to do it. His
deep set eyes sunk further back into their caverns behind his bushy brows.
Before the summer was over, he took to his bed and, in the language of the
red-headed lawyer, "turned up his toes and submitted to the eternal decree
of justice and retribution."
The politicians who,
like the old Judge, made a practice of throwing dead cats in other people’s
wells are divided into two classes: First come those who do it from spite,
because they’re not allowed to draw all the water they want themselves. These
are mean enough, but they don’t trot in the same class with those who do it
just for pure cussedness, poisoning the waters from which their friends must
drink, simply because they are natural political degenerates. And it’s my
experience that this latter class is mainly made up of the men who prate
loudest about political purity.
It’s my notion that the
politicians of this stripe generally get their taste of poisoned waters before
they’re through with the game. And I always take a heap of comfort every time I
see one of them laid out for good.
Tell the wife that if
she’ll cure you of politics and come out west with you there’s a chance for you
to make more money here and get more solid enjoyment than in holding down the
fattest job in the old state.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Containing the
observations of Bill Bradley on the delights and dangers of being a
"committeeman" in high authority and bossing the fight in a big
campaign. Incidentally he relates how a state captain of the party hosts scared
a whole commonwealth full of complacent and self-satisfied politicians,
collected a campaign fund and revolutionized results.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
Your letter saying that
the boys have made you national committeeman from the old state gave me a heavy
jolt. I feel a good deal like the old lumberman who stood on shore and watched
his son go out on the logs to break a big lumber jam. It was the lad’s first
star performance, and the old man remarked: "He’s a fine boy and it’s a
fine job--but if he don’t hit it right this time he’ll never get back to where
he can be licked for his foolhardiness."
By exerting a little
brute force and awkwardness a man in almost any kind of an office can manage to
make a fool of himself, but when he takes the position of state captain for the
party in a national campaign he can sit still and depend upon being made a
monkey of by any one of a thousand energetic hustlers in the organization who
are prancing around nights, apparently for the sole purpose of putting his foot
in the situation. Compared to the opportunities open to a national
committeeman, a legislator, a congressman, or even a governor, stands about as
little chance to do himself harm as a boy with a bucksaw and a big wood pile.
The list of perils that
pestered the Apostle Paul would look mild beside the array of pitfalls which
wait for the feet of those who make straight the paths of party triumph. If the
holder of an ordinary office keeps close tabs on one or two special enemies and
watches his own weak points with particular care, he’s comparatively safe; but
the party general in a big campaign has got to dodge all the sharpshooters on
the other side and give most of his time to keeping his fool friends from
exploding the ammunition magazine in his own camp.
Then, again, he must
have a scent for landslides and storm centers that approximates omniscience.
Back in Busti I used to know a bee tree hunter who insisted that even in the
dead of winter he could hear the hum of a swarm of bees in a hollow seventy
feet from the ground the minute he clapped his ear to the butt of the tree.
That’s the kind of an ear for trouble you’ve got to have, Ned, if you get
through with the job you’ve tackled without making a mess of your political
future. And right on this point of locating storm centers I want to tell you a
story that, in the language of the evangelist, will "bring you to a
realizing sense of your imperiled condition."
I was back in the old
state then, as you know, and taking considerable notice of what was doing on
the inside of politics. Little Doc, as you’ll recall, was the national
committeeman from our state and also state secretary of the state central
committee at the time when the first free silver campaign broke loose. He had
his enemies, but none of them accused him of sleeping daytimes, and I knew he
was like father’s old clay-bank mare in one respect--there was no evidence that
he had ever laid down in his stall, in the fills, or in double harness. He was
keen as a fox and had thrown the dogs off a good many times by running on the
top rail of the fence.
Those of us who were
best acquainted with his habits felt mighty safe when he landed on the national
committee and stood for our state in the chief councils of the party. But there
were a good many of the boys down in the state who didn’t take to him because
his hair curled and he changed his shirt at least three times a week.
Well, anyhow, he was
the captain of the party ship when the free silver flood came in. There wasn’t
a man in our party who didn’t fairly ooze satisfaction. Our candidate had been
nominated, our pet plank adopted in the platform, and the whole organization in
the old commonwealth was as chesty as a peacock in Spring. One morning in June
the faithful in the state were thrown into fits by an interview from our member
of the national committee. The war horses of the party frothed at the mouth and
pawed the air as they read the words of the Little Doc:
"Our state is the
storm center of the national campaign, and we are right now in the Democratic
column. If the election were tomorrow we would be beaten to the finish."
This from our member of
the national committee and the general pilot of the campaign! As that interview
percolated out through the state a tidal roar set towards the city and
increased in volume with every passing hour. Telegrams began to pour in from
the politicians in every part of the state--and a good many of them were
actually paid messages. The fellows who were either big enough or little enough
to speak out in meeting freed their minds, called him all kinds of
"traitor" and "fool," and demanded his resignation from
both national and state committees.
Inside of three days
there was a bushel of letters and telegrams from all over the state, all of the
writers frothing at the mouth and reaching for the scalp of the "fool
committeeman" who had "disgraced the party with his blatant and
cowardly nonsense." They had a great deal to say about Little Doc’s
suggestion that our state was the "storm center" of the national
campaign. That stuck in the crops of the whole outfit, but it especially riled
the members of the state and county central committees. Somehow they seemed to
consider it as a personal slap at them and they laid it down hard and fast that
their rows in the party vineyard had been tended to in a way that put a short
crop out of the question, regardless of weather.
Speaking moderately,
the national committeeman found himself in the position of an "official
forecaster," who would, on the balmiest day in June, hang out every black
flag and alarm sign in the outfit and notify the public that inside of
twenty-four hours there would be hail, sleet, and snow to beat Medicine Hat,
and a higher speed of wind than ever swept Kansas, Missouri, or the South Seas.
But all through this hubbub the Little Doc kept right on smiling--cool and
happy as the cane ring fakir at a county fair. All he did was to call a meeting
of the state central committee and to declare that he had been correctly quoted
in the interview.
Up to that time a
meeting of the state central committee had resembled a reunion of the Gladhand
Brigade, at which the national committeeman figured as the guest of honor. But
this time, when the wheel horses came in from the four corners of the
commonwealth, they didn’t pound the Little Doc on the back quite as hard as
usual. He was just as bright and chipper as if he didn’t know that they were
going to ask his head on a salver in the course of the immediate proceedings.
He represented the First district, and when the ball opened remarked:
"As I seem to have
said too much already, you may pass right on to other brethren and hear their
reports on the condition of the work. Perhaps some of them may wish to ask a
few questions. Then I might like to make some inquiries of them. We’ll all feel
free to speak right out and unburden our souls."
Nick Snively, a banker
from a country district, was the first one called on. He licked his lips and
smiled as he grabbed the lapels of his coat and addressed the committee:
"Gentlemen: So far
as my district is concerned, I am proud to give an emphatic denial to the
strange and alarming rumors that have become current as to the condition of the
party. You may rely upon the old Second district to roll up her usual majority
for the party. She has never failed yet and with the splendid platform and
candidate with which we go before the people, I regard the battle as already
won."
A general smile passed
round the long table as Snively sat down, and the lawyer from the Third was
called on to give his testimony. There were several large manufacturing towns
in his district, and only once in the history of the state had it gone
Democratic. He was spoken of as a "bright man" and a "good
talker."
"Friends," he
said, as he slipped the fingers of his right hand in their accustomed place
between the second and third buttons of his Prince Albert coat, "I have
searched the Third district from Coon creek to Scrub Oaks hills, and from
Prairie Center to Cottonwood Corners, looking for a storm center. There isn’t
one in the district unless it’s in the icehouses on Clear lake." This
brought a round of laughter, and the witty lawyer continued: "Down in our
part of the state it has never been necessary to cry ’Wolf ! Wolf!’ in order to
get out the vote. We follow the even tenor of our way and come up with a solid
front for the party when the polls open. This time will be no exception. The
substantial men of the party, the leaders of public opinion, are enthusiastic
for the candidates, and the principles with which we appeal to the
voters."
"You don’t think,
then, that the free silver heresy has made any inroads into the party ranks in
your bailiwick?" meekly inquired Little Doc.
"No, emphatically
no!" responded the lawyer with smiling dignity.
Then the national
committeeman turned to Snively and asked: "You don’t feel that the people
of your district are sitting up nights to worry about the crime of ’73?"
"I should say
not," he answered. "Calamity howlers are scarce down our way. We
haven’t gone stark crazy if--"
"If I have,"
interrupted the Little Doc. "Well, gentlemen, I’m going to make a few
statements right here. If you go home and any of you find things different than
what I say--then you can have my resignation from both the committees on which
I am serving. Right in Nick Snively’s district there are three Silver
Republican clubs; one has 306 members, another 248, and another 160. Every
member is pledged to vote for Bryan and free silver. Of course, they’re secret
organizations, but I’ll give Mr. Snively a list of their meeting places and all
the other vital statistics so that he can check me up and get my
resignation."
Then the Little Doc
turned to Lawyer Pratt and said: "You don’t seem to have an eye for storm
centers. Just go over your district with this list and you’ll find seven good
sized ones--and they’re growing steadily. They’re more Silver Republican
clubs--and if you don’t get busier than a boy killing snakes they’ll make your
election returns look like the report from a banner district in Mississippi.
But there are other districts a whole lot worse than yours."
"I don’t
believe--" interrupted Snively, and the lawyer cut in with, "How do
you know?"
"When we get all
the testimonies in," answered the Little Doc, "I’ll tell you--for you
have a right to know. But I insist that every man shall make the report which
he came into this meeting intending to make."
The others didn’t put
on the enthusiasm pedal quite so thick as the first ones, but they stuck to it
that party sentiment was "strong and healthy," and that their
districts could be "counted on to roll up good majorities for McKinley and
sound money." Then the national committeeman told just how many weak spots
he could put his finger on in that particular territory, and he closed the
argument by telling the men who had joined in the cry for his resignation that
if they didn’t stir up things from one end of the state to the other the whole
campaign would be lost and the responsibility would rest on their shoulders.
After that he explained
how he found out that Coin Harvey’s book had supplanted the family Bible in
thousands of Republican homes, and that the crime of ’73 and the doctrine of
redemption by free silver had crowded out the old orthodox plan of salvation.
Without consulting any one he had sent out to every county of the state a
picked man whose ostensible business was to gather up crop statistics, but who
talked politics with every man he came across. These men made daily reports,
mailing them to a certain lock box in the city.
In a few days he found
that the deep chested satisfaction of the faithful was blind belief and had no
connection with observation of actual conditions. After he had heard from every
county and knew that enough Republicans had "gone silver" to spell
defeat the Little Doc gave out his famous interview.
When that meeting broke
up the members were a well scared bunch, but the fright didn’t strike clear in
until they began to dig into the holes the Doc had marked and verify his
statements. Most of the committeemen found the Silver Republican clubs had
grown in numbers and membership.
Before, it had been
impossible to raise a campaign fund, and many had said: "What’s the use?
It’s simply throwing it away to spend it for what’s a cinch anyway." After
the scared committeemen had carried the news of the storm center among their
people you couldn’t keep the contributions away with an army with banners. The
money rolled in. But the Little Doc had the same fight to arouse the members of
the national committee that he had in his own state. Finally, however, he got
them on the run, and whenever they could see a storm center they went after it
hard. And instead of being called upon to resign the Little Doc was the king
pin in the situation and the man to whom Uncle Mark Hanna went when he
suspected that the mists of prejudice or complacency were obscuring his vision
and preventing him from spotting a storm center moving down from the Medicine Hat
of political obscurity.
And so, Ned, if you’re
going to run the national campaign in your next year don’t let the assurances
of the country members lull you into complacency; keep both eyes and both ears
open for the signs of the times; put your ear to the butt of every tree that
could possibly hold bees and listen for a buzzing sound from higher up; take a
crop census and find out for sure what kind of scheme of salvation is being
warmed over at the family stove-hearth of the common people.
All this is only
another way of saying: Look out for landslides. The uncertainty of their
appearance is as sure as that of the coming of the Lord--they are bound, as I’ve
said before, to drop in "at a moment when ye think not," and
"like a thief in the night."
I have been dug out of
the edge of one or two landslides, and I can testify that nothing in my
experience ever gave me anything like the same feeling excepting being hit in
the stomach with a baseball batted by a black-smith’s apprentice. And as far as
that goes, Ned, the red schoolhouse issue put you on the shelf for a term--at
least that’s the way you look at it.
Perhaps you never heard
the true inwardness of that campaign which precipitated the worst landslide in
the history of the old state. There was some apparent dissatisfaction with a
school bill that the Governor had signed, but none of the politicians paid any
attention to that for the reason that every religious denomination touched by
it had been represented in the commission that prepared the measure. Of course,
the Governor had signed it and thought that he would never again hear from it,
as it was an agreed bill. But when he was renominated the parochial school
teachers camped on his trail and made it some hot for him.
But, on the other hand,
I never saw such meetings as the Governor had that campaign. When we struck the
city we had fairly to blindfold him in order to make him take in all the
meetings scheduled. His old army wound got to hurting him after he had done
about so much and he’d balk right in the shafts and refuse to budge. "All
right," we’d say, "this is your campaign. If you don’t care about
being Governor again we’ll be glad to call the campaign off right here. But if
you’d like to go back to the mansion there are several thousand men with votes
waiting to see you at the meetings ahead of us. Better drop in and see
them."
This brought him to his
senses and he greeted the boys like a lost brother just returned from the war.
When the votes were in,
we felt that the count was a good deal of a formality, and we put in more time
figuring out how the patronage in the state would be parceled out than we did
in worrying over the result. But when the returns began to come in we felt as
if the top of Pike’s Peak had landed us. Everybody shouted: "The little
red schoolhouse did it!" And they have kept up that cry ever since,
without stopping to figure that the Governor ran far ahead of our national
ticket. He simply got in the way of a landslide that started at the Homestead
mills instead of a red schoolhouse.
So far as I’ve been
able to learn, the geological experts of politics haven’t given out any
authoritative work on "The Law of Landslides," and the campaign
weather department is a little behind on the handbook of "How to Locate
Storm Centers."
When these two things
are figured out to a cocksure scientific certainty there’ll be about as little
fun in playing politics as in shaking with loaded dice. Without an occasional
upheaval in the midst of a calm, politics would become a business instead of
the greatest game that an American gentleman and others are privileged to play.
The campaign manager
who can’t see trouble coming across several states is as poor a politician as
he who thinks that nothing of great consequence, good or bad, can start in his
own commonwealth.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
In which William
Bradley tells a pointed story of the poker table and cautions Ned against the
conclusion that there is a bass under every lily pad or a friendly vote behind
every glad hand.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
It’s mighty good of you
to come straight out and say that whenever we’ve had a friendly difference you’ve
found, finally, that I was in the right of it. That reminds me of an episode
that occurred when I was in the Senate. In a little joint session of select
members representing both houses a dispute arose. The youngest man in the
bunch, who was being tried out by the old hands, was hot about his point of the
contention, and was putting up a spirited argument when in came Senator Bill,
who had been raised in a Mississippi river tavern and learned poker from the
great masters on the old time steamboats.
"Look here,"
suggested one of the players, "Billy knows more about poker than any of us’ll
ever learn if we sacrifice all our salary and perquisites on the altar of the
kitty. I move that we leave it to Billy."
"All right,"
said the new man, turning to the referee. "I contend, Senator, that the
ante man has the right to raise the pot before the draw. Am I right, sir?"
"The chair decides
that you are right," was Billy’s prompt answer, and the game proceeded.
But every few minutes
the new man who had been sustained by the referee would pound the table and
declare: "Didn’t I tell you I was right?" After awhile he began to
contend for other points with the argument: "There you go again! Same old
thing! Can’t you see I’m right? Didn’t the Senator say I was right?"
There was more and more
of this sort of thing until it grew monotonous. Finally the Senator, who had
stood it as long as he could, broke out and exclaimed:
"Look here, young
man. Don’t get it into your head that, just because you’ve been right once, you’re
entitled to get noisy and be a d–d fool for the remainder of your life."
Now, Ned, because you
are big and broad enough to declare me in the right I’m not going to keep on
pounding the table forever and claiming that I can’t be wrong in any position.
But I can’t help remarking that there are a lot of men in politics who, because
they have happened to be right once or twice, feel that they’re entitled to act
like fools for the remainder of their lives.
There is just one
point, Ned, on which I must put all the emphasis of a sad experience, starting
with the board of supervisors and trailing along through the city council, the
legislature, the lower house of Congress, the Governor’s chair, and the United
States Senate: "Put not your trust in the Gladhand Brigade"--and
especially in that contingent of it that has to have its palms crossed with
silver before the charm will work.
The candidate for once
who counts his strength by the number of glad hands he gets in that campaign is
a good deal like the angler who figures out the catch of black bass he’s going
to make by the number of lily pads in sight. And sometimes it takes a long
while for men of a trusting and buoyant temperament to learn that there isn’t
an available black bass under every lily pad or a friendly vote behind every
glad hand.
According to my
classification, the Gladhand Brigade is cut up into traitors, trimmers,
drifters, and stayers. You must have the stayers to draw in the drifters and
the trimmers; the traitors you could get along without--but never do! The
drifters and the trimmers are fair weather fowls, and if you’re caught in a
storm look out for a scattering.
When anybody brings up
the subject of the Gladhand Brigade I always recall what Gen. Logan said to me
one time when we happened to meet in New York. He was on his way to Washington
to take his seat in the Senate, to which he had just been elected after a
fierce fight and a deadlock lasting about six months. He brushed back his
splendid black hair, in his quick way, and said:
"Yes, Bill, I’m
going back. There’ll be a brass band and a lot of job holders waiting with glad
hands at the station to meet me. But somehow it won’t go to the spot as it used
to. You may have forgotten it, Bill, but I was once the Republican candidate
for the Vice-Presidency. Right after the convention that nominated Mr. Blaine
and myself I went back to Washington, as I had been in the habit of doing,
quietly sending word to my private secretary on what train I should arrive.
That was all I thought about the matter until I got into the station and heard
the bands begin to play some unprophetic airs of the ’Conquering Hero’ stripe.
Several thousand department clerks gave me the glad hand until my arm ached,
and then I was escorted, to slow music, back to the hotel.
"Somehow, Bill,
that made my foolish old heart feel kind of good. Just then the thought that
every one of those fellows had an ax to grind did come to me, but I cursed my
own cynicism and said: ’Yes, but they’re American citizens; they’re my kind of
folks and I’ve no right to think their gladness isn’t genuine.’ This was the
way in which I reasoned with myself as I was being driven in the carriage of
honor."
"Well,"
continued Senator Logan, "after that presidential campaign was over and
Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Hendricks had begun making history, I found it necessary
to go back to Washington again and clean things up ready for retirement. As
usual, I wired my private secretary to meet me at a certain train. Somehow, as
I stood on the station platform, searching in vain for my secretary, I couldn’t
help thinking how different the landscape looked from what it did the last time
I had stepped off the train and heard the yells of thousands.
"Of course, all
that might be naturally accounted for; no doubt the boys were considerably
depressed at the prospect of losing their scalps, and perhaps they thought that
brass bands might jar my nerves after the protracted excitement of the
campaign. But if there had been just a few--say, two or three of the boys who
were closest to me--there to meet me at the station the future wouldn’t have
seemed half so dark or the unselfishness of the race so doubtful. When your
private secretary forgets the train at which he is to meet you, make up your
mind that public sentiment on the score of your usefulness and general
consequence has touched the freezing point.
"But, now that I’m
again in position to scratch backs and indorse applications, you will see that
my ride from the station’ll not be as lonesome as it was last time. I’ll be met
by a brass band and a thousand clerks."
That night I had a
telegram from Logan which read: "Two bands, 5,000 clerks in line.
Secretary on board before wheels stopped moving."
However, Ned, it doesn’t
do to get sour and persuade yourself that there’s no balm in Gilead and no such
thing as disinterested loyalty in the world of glad hands.
When I was a boy our
folks used to put me through an annual week of prayer revival season, and it
always resulted in giving me the feeling that everything was going to the
bow-wows anyhow, and that man was the only mistake the Almighty had ever made.
I used to grow thin and peaked under the pressure of this sort of religious
pessimism, until my father would say: "Now, son, just laugh a little and
turn your liver over! It’s a good thing to face the serious side of life, but
when you’ve gone around for a month with the book of Ecclesiastes written on
your face and the feeling in your heart that everybody ought to be damned right
away, then you’d better remember your mother and Aunt Jane and a few other good
folks and cheer up."
So it is on the
question of the Gladhand Brigade. I always feel like tempering my general
attitude with a remembrance of a few good folks. There was little Jimmy Sands,
for instance. You knew him. He rode my district over, the first time I ran for
Congress, and when I tried to hand him something for his actual expenses he
looked really hurt and said he wasn’t doing things on that basis. Of course,
the thought did come to me: "That man’ll strike me heavy for some good job
that’ll be harder to give than money." But in the scramble of a hot
campaign for a big place, and a new one, a man grabs at every straw that comes
his way, without stopping to look at the price mark, so I not only accepted Jim’s
help at the time but routed him out at any time of night that the good of the
cause demanded.
But that wasn’t all. I
mortgaged every postmastership in the district and every other scrap of
patronage that by any possibility could come my way. If some of my promises
overlapped a little I just told the boys that it was my first fling at the
game, and that in the excitement of the moment I must have dealt the same card
twice! But, anyhow, I calculated I’d make good some way in the general
settlement. And I did! But by the time I had worked that puzzle out I had added
ten years to my age and used up every scrap of patronage that could be raised
by haunting the executive office and the departments until they began to call
me the Importunate Widow. However, I landed all who could prove that I had made
them any sort of promise. But there wasn’t even an empty honor for steadfast
Jimmy Sands. I tried to make myself think that perhaps he didn’t want anything,
and that if he had he would have asked for it. There wasn’t a harder job in
connection with that first congressional campaign than dreading to have it out
with Jimmy. At last, however, I faced the music, called him, and explained that
I had been trying to cover a six foot bed of promises with a five foot
patchwork quilt of offices. Jimmy looked a little solemn and admitted that if
he had been offered something that wasn’t above his grade in education he
wouldn’t have refused it. "But," he added, "I didn’t ask you for
anything, Bill."
That was all right
until I came to hustle for re-election. Of course, I wanted to be returned
worse, if anything, than I had wanted to go just once in the first
place--"had important work to finish," as the local paper said. In
other words, I felt a failure to go back would mean disgrace. Consequently, I
needed the help of every stanch friend like Jimmy Sands more than ever. Lots of
gladhanders had given me just as good assurances that they were "all right
and satisfied" as had Jimmy, and had then gone over to the opposition. But
when I made my appeal to him he turned up at headquarters.
"You remember,
Jimmy," I said, "how it was last time that you were left out in the
cold." "But," he said, "I didn’t ask you for anything. My
fault, wasn’t it?"
Then I waited for him
to come forward with a plain proposal as to what he should have this time. He
said nothing, however--simply took off his coat and went to work. All through
that campaign I said to the boys in the organization: "There’s just one
office that I’m going to keep to play with. It’s a matter of sentiment, and if
I can’t win without mortgaging that, then I’ll lose. But I won--and I waited to
see how long it would take Jimmy Sands to come forward and ask for the reward
of an unobtrusive stayer.
He didn’t come,
however--even after some of the best appointments in the district had been
given out. Then I landed his appointment to a place that paid him ten times
what he had been earning and made him a king among his fellows. Jimmy Sands
would have had his hand cut off without wincing, I imagine; but he bawled good
when I broke the news to him at his own home--and how his little wife did hug
him!
But you really don’t
get the full force of the Gladhand Habit until you get into the Senate. When I
made the race there was one politician with a weazel face and a neck about half
the length of his arm who was a trimmer from way-back, but he had some
influence. He’d sneak around and meet me on the sly, protesting that he was for
me, "heart and soul"--but you couldn’t drag him into my headquarters.
He played safety from start to finish, but I worried along and landed without
his help.
I hadn’t any more than
taken the oath of office and warmed my seat in the Senate, when his card was
sent in to me.
"Senator," he
said, blinking his bright little eyes and dipping his long neck, "I’ve
come to ask you for the postmastership in my city."
"And your
indorsement?" I asked.
"I don’t think you
will need any other proof of my loyalty than this," he replied, taking
from his pocket a carbon copy of the message of congratulation he had sent me
four hours after my election.
"That
office," said I, "is worth $10,000 a year and there are just
twenty-nine applicants for it. Every one of them camped in my headquarters and
sat up nights for me. They weren’t afraid to be caught wearing my campaign
button. Now, I have on file just 589 telegrams of congratulations sent by
people who actually were on my side before the final ballot. The man who gets
that job you’re after is the one who’s after your political scalp, and he’s
going to get it if I can help him--for he’s not a coward or a trimmer, and he
doesn’t keep carbons of his congratulatory telegrams."
Above all, Ned, set it
down in red letters that the man who comes to you and asks money for his time
hasn’t influence enough to make his time worth anything. The only thing he’s
good for is to tell the rest of the honey bees where your bank account is. I’ve
lined too many bee trees not to know how that plan works. Just put out some
sweets on a shingle and in a minute a few bees will light. Right away every one
of them will return with mates. That’s the way bee trees are located, and the
only thing that the grafting politician has in common with a worker bee is the
habit of bringing others back with him to fill up. Turn down all the fellows
who come to you straight for money. They’re dear at any price.
Yours ever, William
Bradley.
Being a few remarks and
a story by William Bradley on the usefulness of bull courage in politics and
the sores that come from the kind of man who feeds on fights and feuds and
loves to display his nerve better than a pretty matron loves to show her
dimples.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
Bull courage has its
place in politics, but unless liberally served with brains it’s a mighty
dangerous commodity to have lying around loose in any political camp. The
powder magazine or the dynamite cellar is the only safe place for the kind of
political nerve that feeds on riot and rebellion and hungers for fights between
meals.
If I am not mistaken,
Ned, your chief lieutenant is richly gifted with this sort of capacity for
trouble and I want to give you a jolt that’ll open your eyes before you put him
in a place where he’ll make a magnificent display of his surplus courage and
leave you with a feud on your hands that can’t be lived down in the course of a
natural lifetime.
There are some
politicians--and some strong ones, too--who would rather stand pat in a wrong
cause and bullyrag and face down a righteous majority in a convention, or a
House, than to be right from the very start, and win out without any fight at
all. And those are the men who, in a day, manage to infect a political camp
with more sores than all the salves of diplomacy can heal in a quarter of a
century.
When you find a
politician who likes to display his steel-wire nerve better than a pretty
matron loves to show her dimples, just cross him off your slate of possible
campaign managers. The man who has a secret passion for playing the
Mephistopheles of the Imperturbable Countenance will indulge in this piece of
dramatics at the most expensive moment, so far as the interests of his
associates are concerned.
Every man has his
particular soft spot, and the special besetting weakness of the sort of
politician who appears to be an intellectual marvel and an emotional immune is
generally this tendency to make a show of his magnificent nerve. His only fear
is that he may be thought capable of being afraid; his vanity is that of
proving himself recklessly indifferent to the rights and opinions of others;
his one vulnerable spot is his imperturbability.
A bag of wet sand is a
soft and yielding thing alongside a stick of hard timber. But a lot of us old
soldiers can testify that sacks of soggy sand will stop more bullets than a
barricade of hickory logs. And in politics, the man who has enough
"give" in his makeup to be thoroughly human is less liable to stir up
eternal enmities than the man who wears his face like a mask and would sooner
appoint an enemy to office than allow an emotion to show itself on the front
side of his countenance.
Perhaps you think I’m
harping pretty strong on the subject of belligerent nerve; but I once had this
view of the matter rubbed into me in a way that was considerably illuminating.
It was on the occasion of the first congressional convention I ever attended
that this lesson was brought home to me in a way that raised my hair and made
me think, for the time being, that life in a frontier army post in the Indian
country would be safe and peaceful pastime compared with politics.
The row began, in the
old district where I had been brought up, with the determination of a gritty
young lawyer with green eyes and an ambition like Lucifer the Son of the
Morning, to unseat old Gen. Harnsworth, who had been the representative for so
long that he had become a statesman and fallen into the habit of forgetting to
take care of the boys who were hungry for fat jobs.
These soreheads
concluded that the time had come to elect a politician instead of a statesman,
and so they started out to run a still-hunt in the town caucuses. The old
general had held the whip hand so long that most of the stanch party men had
been awed into the conviction that he was a sort of Gibraltar in a political
landscape and could not be ousted by any sort of an earthquake; consequently
they were in a position of a lot of unruly schoolboys who would like to throw
out the schoolmaster, but didn’t dare to tackle him.
Probably the revolt
would have died out right at the start if it hadn’t been for a few hot-heads
who led the opposition at Blackberry Corners. The caucus was called in Cy Waite’s
little lumber office and Squire Sparks, the leader of the regulars, opened proceedings
with a few facetious remarks that rubbed the fur the wrong way of the grain.
Then a resolution was offered extolling the services of the distinguished
statesman who had so long and ably represented the district in the national
house of representatives and instructing the delegates to use "every
honorable means" to secure his renomination.
Every man in the
opposition had a mighty strong pair of lungs and used them to full capacity in
trying to yell down the resolution. But the Squire declared it carried and then
announced that the room would be cleared and the ballot box be placed in the
open window to receive the ballots for delegates.
Before the boys of the
opposition could fairly catch their breath they were shoved out of the office
and the door locked behind them. This was too much for the fiery temper of
Patrick Henry Huggins, editor of the local paper and head and front of the
opposition forces. He rallied his braves in the harness shop and after three
minutes of consultation he led a flying wedge that would have sent a modern
football team to the hospital for repairs, drove through the crowd around the
lumber office, kicked in the door himself, and grabbed the ballot box.
Five minutes later the
soreheads were holding a caucus of their own in the tavern, where they elected
a full set of delegates, who were sworn not to eat or sleep until they had
"killed Paul." In other words, their dander was up to white heat,
their war paint on, and they started out to ride the country and get the old
General’s scalp. This little scrap was the spark in the tinder box and fired an
amount of opposition sentiment which had not been thought possible by the
regulars.
One cunning old fox who
had long nursed the feeling that his influence and importance had not been
properly recognized by the old General told the boys to do the hustling and he
would sit still in his office, do a little plain thinking, and see if he couldn’t
stack the cards in a way that would bring results.
After due deliberation
he decided that there was just one man in the county who was equal to the job
that the opposition had in hand, for the reason that his nerve was sublime and
he loved to fight a hopeless majority better than an old hound loves to follow
a trail.
This man was old Hiram
Bonney, banker, note shaver, and professional philanthropist. He had been too
busy for some years collecting interest and cutting coupons to take any active
part in politics, but after the situation was carefully explained to him he
decided that here was a chance for some tall fun, and an opportunity to show
the people that he was not made of mush if he did devote a considerable part of
his time to building hospitals and orphan asylums. Consequently he smilingly
agreed to do the work cut out for him provided he should be made chairman of
the convention.
Because of his social
standing, his financial prominence, and his presumably neutral position in
politics, the regulars readily agreed to the proposition that he should be
named as temporary chairman of the convention. As the regulars composed fully
three-fourths of the delegates they had not the slightest fear that they would
fail to have their own way from start to finish.
The proceedings were as
smooth as a rainy day session of a Sunday school until the committee on
credentials brought in its report. As its chairman sat down the editor from
Blackberry Corners arose to his feet, held up in his hand a paper, and began to
stammer something which even those nearest him could not understand.
Right at that instant
my eyes were studying the serene face of the philanthropic chairman. Except for
a peculiar light that suddenly flashed up in his eyes and the shadow of a smile
playing about the corners of his lips his countenance did not show the slightest
change as he quietly interrupted the delegate with the question:
"Do you move that
the names that you have read be substituted for those previously offered by the
committee on credentials?"
"Yes,"
shouted back the delegate, who was answered by a second from another part of
the hall.
With a smile on his
lips and a gleam of hate in his eyes that made me think of Dore’s picture of
the devil, the chairman put the resolution to vote. The shout of the
"nays" made the room shake and demonstrated that the regulars were in
immense majority, but, in a voice as clear and serene as if he were leading
family prayers, the chairman announced: "The ayes have it; the resolution
is carried."
Instantly the
convention was changed into a human cyclone. Every delegate was on his feet and
the whole assemblage crowded forward toward the speaker. Big Tom Fairfield, who
stood 6 feet 4 in his stockings and weighed about 300 pounds, made a dash for
the chairman, swinging his fists and yelling: "Mob the scoundrel! Throw
him out!" Dutch John, the boss of Little Germany, jumped into a chair and
began to talk in English--but the words would not come fast enough, so he
harangued the chair in his native tongue.
Just at that minute I
chanced to notice that the sheriff, a brother-in-law of the chairman, stepped
quickly to the platform, stood close to the distinguished philanthropist, and
reached his right hand around to his own hip pocket. The mob in front of the
chairman also noticed this ominous move and fell back a little.
The convention was
still a howling rage; a dozen men near me were actually sobbing and cries of:
"Kill him! Pound him! Mob him!" came from the frenzied regulars. The
only man not beside himself was the chairman, who instantly put through a
motion that the temporary organization of the convention be made permanent.
Well, Ned, to make it
short, the man of the iron nerve made a new congressman, a new state senator,
and a new machine, but not one of them lasted beyond a single term. He made
something else, however, that has lasted more than twenty years. The party feud
he started that day has never been healed and bids fair to survive unto the
second and third generations. To be sure, the old man made party history with a
vengeance and gave himself a notorious place in the political traditions of the
district for time to come, but most of the men who were mixed up in that fight
have ever since been busy trying to square themselves with the people and live
down their indiscretion.
But just as sure as one
of them shows his head in a hunt for office some one with a long memory comes
forward and remarks that "the ayes have it." That settles him.
This, and a score of
other expressions along the same line, make me a little cautious about giving
full rein to a man whose vanity is along the line of his nerve. Just a simple
little fight in politics is all right and adds spice to the game, but a feud
that rankles for a quarter of a century is a good thing to steer clear of. So I
repeat, don’t give your belligerent lieutenant a chance to show off his bull
courage at the price of perpetual enmity that will be visited upon your head
instead of his own.
Yours, as ever, William
Bradley.
Wherein the old
Governor squares himself for harsh words about the honor of legislators and
draws a distinction illustrated by an experience that once "cut close to
the bone" and left a scar.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
I’m a little surprised
that you should hark back to one of my old letters and confess that you have
kept a sore feeling simmering away under your wishbone all these weeks. I
thought you knew me better than that, Ned.
And so you resent my
statement that I’d rather have a son of mine caught stealing scab sheep than
see him elected to a legislature? Well, perhaps that was putting it strong. In
fact, I’ll admit that I did bear down hard on a whole lot of good men when I
bunched the entire legislative field in that sort of an omnibus knock.
Only the young
reformer, in the first intoxication of his own eloquence, is entitled to the
lofty privilege of lumping humanity into two classes and then taking his place
with the sheep while he makes moral faces at the goats. As I never traded much
in reform stock of the professional sort, I’ll not begin at this late day to
pick up their tricks or preach their sermons. I stand corrected for too broad a
conclusion and failing to draw the distinction that excepts a respectable
number of square and honest lawmakers from the moral bats who somehow manage to
sneak in under every statehouse dome and give a bad name to the legislative
schools in which such men as Jefferson, Clay and Lincoln had their schooling
for a bigger field.
But you can’t
understand how the word "legislature" riles me without knowing of one
or two experiences that burned themselves into my recollection when I first
went down to the assembly with the notion that I was honored by a trusting
constituency and was going to work with a bunch of picked men for the best
interests of the old state. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and
look back upon one or two of those legislative scenes until my eyes swim and my
teeth grit!
I’ve never yet put into
cold words the one experience that cut me closest, but I guess it’s time I did,
for you can’t get my viewpoint on this legislative business without it. And
there’s no use claiming that there was any novelty in what I went through, for
the same sort of a proceeding had been repeated, with variations, under the
shade of every statehouse in the land. But to the story:
You were at home that
session holding down the sheriff’s office, but you will remember that the
corporations made the great fight that winter to break down the bars on the
franchise question. It was war to the hilt, and the Philippine "water
cure" was a mild and Christian method compared with the tactics which the
corporations put into play from the time the speaker took his chair and named
the committees.
Three schoolboys couldn’t
have made up to each other quicker than Big Ed Hammer and Gentleman Joe
Tolliver and I got together. Ed was a veteran--as sound and square as a marble
obelisk; Joe, like myself, was in his maiden term. The minute I caught the
sparkle in the tail of Joe’s eye I knew he was my sort, and Big Ed seemed to
feel the same way, And, besides, a mutual friend had told Ed: "You take
these two youngsters under your wing, give ’em as good a show as you can, and
see that they don’t get into mischief."
Joe had the winsomeness
of a modest and tactful woman, with a clear and nimble mind, that marked him as
a thoroughbred. Every quality he showed was of a sort to mark him as a
gentleman and draw me closer to him. It didn’t take me long to learn that time
isn’t the main factor in forming a friendship; that you can get nearer to a man
in meeting him every day for three months and fighting battles shoulder to
shoulder with him than you could in fifteen years of casual contact under
commonplace circumstances, and that strong attachments, like fierce enmities,
are things of swift growth in the strain and stress of legislative life.
From the start Ed, Joe,
and I acted together, had adjoining rooms, and were as thick as three peas in a
pod. In fact, the boys soon began to call us the Three Brothers. We didn’t
object to being bunched in this way and accepted the title without protest. But
the most comfortable and important basis of our little three cornered
brotherhood was the fact that we seemed to size up the right and wrong of
things in about the same way. And it doesn’t take a guide post or a special
spiritual adviser to point a man to the right road in lawmaking any more than
in plain business of any sort. All he has to do is to settle it with himself,
right at the start, that he is going to be absolutely square, without any ifs
or ands, and then stick to this through thick and thin. But if he doesn’t draw
the reins tight at the start and if he allows that he will treat every
proposition that comes up individually he can depend upon it that he’s likely
to do a lot of sidestepping before he is through with the game.
We talked all this over
one night together in Ed’s room, and he laid down the law in this way:
"When a fellow makes it up with himself that he’s going to stick to the
straight track from one end to the other without asking his conscience for any
special orders to side track or lay over he’ll pull through all right. That’s
the schedule I’ve always traveled on, boys, and I’m mighty glad to find that you’re
inclined to run on the same orders."
Big Ed was the head and
front of the opposition to the franchise forces, and, although we were only
cubs, Joe and I were commonly regarded as his first lieutenants, in a way. Day
and night we worked together, sifting out the sheep from the goats and building
up an organization that would stick together to the last ditch. It was harder
work than holding a plow on a New Hampshire hillside, but Big Ed was heart and
soul in the fight and threw his whole being into it. Every night we got
together and counted noses. Sometimes this was a mighty solemn proceeding,
because now and then the enemy snatched a man from our forces.
But occasionally there
was a season of rejoicing in our camp when we were able to snatch a brand from
the burning by convincing a weak-kneed fence straddler that he couldn’t afford
to trifle with temptation or do anything short of enlisting with the boodle
fighters.
All through these ups
and downs Ed, Joe, and I stood together like the three legs of a tripod,
without a shadow of difference coming between us.
The first of the two
big boodle bills was close up to a third reading as I entered the house one
morning to begin the day’s struggle with more courage than I had been able to
scrape up since the long battle began. Joe’s seat was almost across the aisle
from my own, and as I turned to speak to him I saw a sight that made my eyes
start and my flesh creep.
There was Joe--but of
all the draggled, besotted, and filthy specimens of drunken humanity that I
ever beheld he was the worst. I felt as if I had been hit between the eyes with
a sledge. For a few minutes I couldn’t have told, to save me, the name of any
man sitting five feet in front of us. Just as I began to recover my senses a
little from the shock Big Ed came in, took one look at the Little Brother, as
we sometimes called Joe, and winced as if he had been stabbed.
Of course, we had him
taken out and carried to his room, but from that minute he slunk away from us
whenever he could get a chance. Our little brotherhood was broken, and he
avoided us as consistently as he had formerly stood by us.
Although Ed and I put
in as much time trying to get Joe sobered up as we did in carrying on the fight
against the corporation bills in the house, he did not see a single rational
hour.
It was as idle to
attempt to reason with Joe in his transformed and besotted state as to argue
with a crazy Indian. He was seldom in his seat in the house and spent most of
his time in the "Black Lodge," the center of the spider web which the
agents of the franchise interests threw out in every direction to catch their
victim.
One day while Joe was
over there at the Black Lodge, in the keeping of the men who had been told off
in the start to run Joe down, and, as the leader of the gang put it,
"break his back," a young woman with big, sad eyes called to see me.
I knew who she was the minute her card was sent up, for Joe had told me all
about her and intimated that they expected to be married shortly after the
session was over.
In a low but shaking
voice she told me how, five years before, Joe had suddenly put an end to a
career of dissipation, settled down to hard work, and after a year of steady
pulling in the harness had proposed to her. Not a hitch in their happiness had
occurred until the morning when I found Joe transformed into a sot. In answer
to a few questions she confirmed my suspicion that the boodle hounds had hunted
back along Joe’s trail until they found his besetting weakness, and had then
deliberately started out to "land" him with drink.
Well, after that every
time I came back to the city the white face of that young woman was waiting for
me behind the iron fence in the big passenger station. But there was little
hope to give her as she lifted her pitifully appealing eyes to me and put the
question: "Is the Little Brother any better?" However, the girl’s
grit never failed her and she hung on like grim death.
The night before the
first franchise bill was to be put to Final vote I came across Joe sitting
sullenly in a lonesome corner of the hotel corridor, his gaze fixed gloomily on
a figure in the mosaic flooring. There was just a suggestion of his old self in
his eyes as he glanced up at me and silently took the hand which I held out to
him.
For a few minutes we
sat in silence. Then I drew my chair closer to him and said:
"Joe, have I ever
tried to control you in anything down here?"
"No," he
answered slowly.
"Have I always
left everything to your own manhood?"
"Yes."
"Well, I just want
to ask you if you’re going to stand square for the right thing on roll call
tomorrow?"
His hands gripped the
arms of his chair, his bleared face grew ashen, and he drew his breath in with
a gasp. For some minutes he stared at the floor. Then, in the voice that a man
uses in crying out to the man within himself, he said:
"Let me go! Let me
go! I’ve got to tell ’em; but I’ll do it. I’ll come back. You stay right
here."
He jumped to his feet
and made a dash to the door, where a cab was waiting for him. Of course, I knew
that he was bound for the Black Lodge, and I knew if he ever pulled himself
loose from the spiders down there it would be nothing short of a miracle.
But in less than a half
hour he was back again, with something like a flicker of his old smile on his
face as he said:
"I did it. I told ’em.
I’m with you, brother."
And he was as good as
his word. When the vote came he was with us, and we knocked out the boodle
bill.
That act, however, was
the last convulsion of his expiring manhood. From that time he was hopelessly
with the enemy body and soul, and voted with them on the second franchise bill,
against which Big Ed led the forces of decency.
There isn’t much to
tell beyond this. Joe dropped down and down until he couldn’t get to his seat
in the house. That ended his usefulness to the boodle gang, and they kicked him
out as they would a sick dog. Ed, the girl, and I nursed him until he could be
taken home.
A week or two finished
him, and then we all went down to put him away. At that funeral, as I looked
from his broken old mother and his wasted sweetheart to a little group of
members who had helped to "break his back and throw him off the water
wagon," the devious ways of modern lawmaking looked pesky mean and hateful
to me, I can tell you! And I’ve seen enough of the same sort of wrecks since to
prove that Joe’s experience wasn’t an exception to the rule. There are hundreds
of other cases like his.
And the memory of those
that have come across my own path always stirs up my bile until I find myself
saying hard things, as I did in that old letter about legislators in general.
But, once for all, let me say that there are hundreds of good men making state
laws in this country, and that I take off my hat to every one of them who is on
the square and doesn’t sidestep from the strait and narrow path.
Yours ever, William
Bradley.
In which Ned gets some
interesting light from William Bradley on the subject of whether the game is
worth the candle and, incidentally, on the importance of His Majesty the
Speaker and of the newspaper men in the making of live congressmen and dead
statesmen. The old Governor makes his point with two stories that show what a
real Speaker can do when he takes his coat off.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
And so, after all, you’re
going to Congress! With the convention already held and the opposition in such
a state of almost infantile helplessness, I don’t see how you can possibly fall
down. Yes, I’ll bear witness to the fact that you’ve always stuck to it that
your ambition would be completely satisfied if you could be sent to Congress
from the old district.
Of course I knew that
wasn’t true, although you thought it was--and think so now. When a good live
American citizen, who has once tasted the blood of public office, sets a stake
for his ambition and says: "Thus far and no farther," and promises
himself perfect content when he reaches that mark, he puts himself in the
position of the old fellow down in Arkansas who lived to eat and insisted that
if he once could get outside of a dinner of terrapin, canvasbacks and champagne
he’d never ask to eat again in this world.
After you’ve once
fairly warmed your seat in the House you’ll realize that you’ve only begun to
live, and that the United States Senate is the only real diamond-pointed
stopping place for an able man’s ambition. Then, after you’ve landed in the
Senate and grown a little familiar with the scenery there, the White House will
be about the only landmark that will loom up on your horizon.
At first you’ll be
ashamed to acknowledge the thought, even in the secret place of your own inner
consciousness. Next you’ll argue with yourself that there have been a whole lot
of worse Presidents than you would make, and that the woods are full of
presidential timber, hollow in the trunk and showing dead limbs at the top. It’s
not the thing we have in hand but the one that’s just ahead of us that we
hanker for in politics, as in everything else.
But you are all right,
Ned, in your determination to make every hour of your congressional service
count, and count hard. You say that you want some advice that gets right down
to brass tacks, and will help you to make good with your people before the
first crop of soreheads has a chance to go to seed.
Before I went into
politics I used to think that Canada thistles were the hardest things in the
world to kill down and the swiftest to spread; but I’ve since discovered that
the political sorehead has a cinch on immortality that makes the thistle a
thing of the passing moment.
I’m told that a queen
bee lays several thousand eggs a day and delegates the tending of them entirely
to slaves--but even at that rate Mrs. Bee is at a decided disadvantage in the
work of perpetuating the species compared with a political sorehead who keeps
reasonably busy sowing dissensions. A social scandal in a country town is a
slow spreader alongside a well directed spirit of dissatisfaction with the work
of a new congressman.
Keep your sorehead crop
mowed tight to the ground and then cover the spot with rock salt every week or
two. In other words, give them the Canada thistle treatment in its severest
form. And even then they’re sure to show their heads in a new place every
little while.
You might as well make
up your mind, right at the start, Ned, to defer being a statesman until after
you’re dead. If you’re a good enough politician while living, your mourning
constituents and the newspapers will take care of your promotion to the
statesman class after you’re gone. This isn’t saying that you are to think of
nothing and work for nothing outside of getting things for your fellows and
holding your seat.
As near as I was able
to size up the situation, there’s a sentiment among the members of the national
House that every Representative is entitled to have one pet hobby along the
line of disinterested statesmanship, so long as he does not allow it to
interfere with his regular duties as a "getter" for his own
particular constituency.
There isn’t much
sentiment in this view of the matter but all the same it works out well in
actual practice. If it eases his feelings any, let the new member regard the
job-hunting and the hustling for special legislation demanded by influential
constituents as the routine drudgery by which he is to hold his job while he
works out his pet scheme of "broad statesmanship."
There’s some
consolation in this view of the matter--but he may be sure that the boys who
are keeping up his fences at home and trying to kill out the Canada thistles,
look at it that he’s entitled to potter around. with his pet theory of
legislation so long as he doesn’t allow it to cut into their interests or those
of his district. A fad for collecting old china, colonial furniture or rare
coins would be tolerated in the same way by these fellows who man the political
machine and keep it going.
If the congressional
recruit can hold his seat long enough to make the people of the country at
large connect his name with a particular line of legislation, his followers
will swell with pride because he has made good, gets his name in the papers and
is classed as an authority. But the congressman who allows himself to think
that his reputation as a statesman or legislative specialist is going to excuse
him from drumming up places in the departments for the boys is going to be left
at home with plenty of time on his hands in which to write reminiscences for
the Eastern Magazines.
So, set it down at the start,
that your statesmanship is a luxury to be cultivated in moments of leisure. Of
course, it’s not particularly stimulating to one’s patriotism to take this view
of the case, but the practical man will square himself to actual
conditions--and if these are not now the conditions, things have changed
mightily since I used to haunt the departments and lie awake nights trying to
pipe lines of influence into the working department of the White House.
Perhaps you may feel
that you’ve fooled around a legislature long enough to get on to all the
important wrinkles that are really worth knowing so far as the general business
of law-making is concerned; but I’ve found out that familiarity breeds
blindness as well as contempt and that a man is likely to overlook an important
point of the game in which he is a regular sitter. So, Ned, I’m going to lay
down the law as it looks to me, on two things that you may be supposed to know
just as well as I do. Anyhow, these tips will come in handy by way of emphasis
to your own observation and will help you to start off your congressional
career along practical lines.
First, square yourself
with his majesty, the Speaker--and keep squared, no matter if you have to sell
your shoes and sit up nights to do it. The man behind the gavel is the keeper
of your destiny and the captain of your congressional soul. The nod of his head
can do more to make or unmake you politically than a dozen speeches that are
cheered from the gallery.
I had my lesson in the
power of a speaker way back in my second legislative term when old Jeremiah
Bless ruled the House. He was a great parliamentarian and his book on that
subject was regarded as the real authority in our state. As you probably
remember, he was the prince of political straddlers, had been ten times elected
to the House and never twice on precisely the same ticket.
That year he was
elected on what he called the Independent ticket--and as soon as he arrived at
the state house he was powerful particular that there should be no confusion as
to the precise complexion of his party affiliations. Oh! But he was a cunning
old fox and had the audacity of a brindle bull dog!
There had been a close
campaign and when we started in to organize the House and line up the members
it developed that the two parties were equally divided and that old Jeremiah
held the absolute balance of power. Of course, there was a quick scramble on
the part of each side to capture the wily old straddler, who had in years past
served one term as sneaker when he called himself a Republican.
But the crafty old fox
refused to give definite encouragement to either side, although he kept up a
constant flirtation with the leaders of both. This deadlock continued until the
House convened and each party placed its candidate for speaker in nomination.
After the eloquence of the nominating oratory had subsided old Jeremiah arose.
Instantly the House became as still as a church during the passing of the
contribution box. With a face masked in almost sober seriousness the man who
held the deciding vote began his speech with the declaration:
"I am an
Independent. My party has a candidate for the speakership of this honorable
House and the necessity of presenting his name and claims devolves upon
me."
This beginning was
greeted with yells--for he was the only Independent in the assembly! For half
an hour old Jeremiah held the House in close attention while he reviewed his
own career and analyzed his own character with an impartiality that was
magnificent. The sublime effrontery of the man simply dazed the members and
carried them off their feet, and when he closed by offering his own name the
cheers from both sides made the house ring.
Well, after the
deadlock had held on for a few weeks and the public at large was howling for
almost any kind of a speaker in order to get at the business of the session,
old Jeremiah fixed up a deal with the Democrats, was elected speaker and took
the gavel for a rule that undoubtedly gave Tom Reed pointers on the proper
conduct of an American Czar. The Prophet, as we called him, ran things that
Winter in a style that was a perpetual lesson in personal dictatorship and made
the authority of an old-time master pilot on the Mississippi look like child’s
play.
Things hadn’t been
going on long before the fate of a big measure turned on the speaker’s ruling.
It was a simple parliamentary problem and the right of the matter was as clear
as a man’s privilege to kiss his own wife behind the pantry door. But the
ruling that seemed inevitable was contrary to the interests of the forces with
which the speaker was training. Naturally we all thought we had old Jeremiah at
a decided disadvantage.
When the point was
raised, however, he ruled against us and never batted an eye as he declared
"The chair decides that the point is not well taken. The bill, therefore,
passes to a third reading."
The words were scarcely
out of his mouth when the leader of our side jumped to his feet and demanded
the privilege of reading from an authority which he declared "The speaker
of the house cannot fail to recognize as conclusive."
"Go ahead,"
said old Jeremiah.
The excitement was
right up to concert pitch as the member finished reading the authority.
"Who wrote that
book?" blandly inquired the speaker.
"The
paragraph," returned the member, with a smile of triumph on his lips,
"which so conclusively maintains our contention, is from the able treatise
written by the speaker of this House, the Honorable Jeremiah--"
A howl of derision
interrupted the member’s remarks at this point and we waited to see how
gracefully old Jeremiah would back water. A thump of the gavel restored order
and the speaker smilingly said:
"The chair does
not recognize the work from which the gentleman quotes as having the weight of
an authority. To his personal knowledge the book abounds in statements and
conclusions that have been repeatedly proved erroneous--and in the opinion of
the speaker of this House there is not in the whole work a more unsound and
mistaken statement than that which the gentleman has read in your hearing. The
decision of the chair will not be revised unless some member can bring forward
a better authority than has been cited."
Some of our crowd were
so mad that they couldn’t appreciate the sublime audacity of old Jeremiah’s
ruling against himself; but it hit the funny bone of most of us so hard that
the sting of unjust defeat died out with the roar of laughter that went up from
every part of the house.
A little later,
however, a situation arose which we thought covered all emergencies and didn’t
leave a hole as big as a pin point through which the old fox could crawl out.
Just before intermission the speaker made a ruling which, when brought to bear
on a measure that was coming up in the afternoon, would kill the progress of a
big railroad bill which the speaker’s crowd was pushing. The trap had been
carefully laid by our boys, who were fighting the bill, and we were as tickled
as a girl with her first proposal when old Jeremiah fell into it and put
himself on record regarding the point of issue.
He hadn’t been in his
room five minutes when the general counsel of the interested road was admitted.
"Mr.
Speaker," said the railroad emissary, "I’m afraid that you don’t
realize that your last ruling will absolutely kill No. 409 dead--and that the
opposition is only waiting to throw your own ruling back in your face within
three hours after you’ve spoken it."
Then after stroking his
beard for a moment the caller added: "And I’ve been informed--reliably, I
hope--that you are not hostile to the measure."
"No," easily
replied Jeremiah, "the bill’s all right, but I am going to show that bunch
of smartie school boys that there’s more than one way to skin a cat and that a
real prophet don’t have to work a miracle and make the stream of parliamentary
practice run up hill in order to leave them in the lurch. You just rest easy and
see what happens when they start in on their little game."
After recess, and just
before the railroad bill was reached, the speaker called an ambitious young
Republican to the chair and then retired to the lounging room. This young chap
had served two or three terms before and had a notion that he knew more about
parliamentary law than any speaker who had ever occupied the chair--and
particularly than old Jeremiah. And besides that, he came from a district in
which the railroad most to be benefited by the bill had its largest shops.
In other words here was
a chance for him to give the speaker’s ruling a black eye and at the same time
give the interests that controlled the politics of his bailiwick just what they
wanted. Of course, there was a howl of rage, but we had to take our medicine.
He ruled against us, and took five minutes in which to explain why he differed
from the ruling given in the forenoon by the regular speaker.
After this experience I
didn’t need to be told that the main thing in making a record as a lawmaker is
to have a line on the speaker. And I also concluded that it’s worth while to
keep in touch with the men who are likely to be called to the chair when the
speaker is absent or taking a little breathing spell.
Then don’t forget that
the press gallery of the House is a most important part of the situation. Many
a Washington correspondent wearing a small hat has done more to make certain
congressmen into statesmen than all the oratory, flowers and game dinners they
managed to pull off in the course of their distinguished careers. Be useful to
the newspaper boys, Ned, and you can afford occasionally to step on the toes of
some mighty important individuals who prance around in the statesmen stables
and consider themselves mighty showy stock.
The only thing that a
congressman can afford to steal is news, and he shouldn’t do that if there is
any harm to come of it. But when he can tip off a good thing to his friends in
the press gallery he’s adding a leaf to his laurels and a line of praise to his
public record as a sure-enough statesman.
You make mention in
your letter of the "fruits of victory." I don’t wholly share the
pessimistic view of the book of Ecclesiastes on this score; they have yielded
me something more than "vanity of vanities," but all the same you’ll
never gather a larger harvest of that sort of fruit than right now, when you’re
reading congratulations and getting your grip ready for the trip to Washington.
After you get into the
harness in the House you’ll find just as much trimming and backscratching as in
the Legislature, only it’s on a bigger scale. Perhaps you think you’re going to
be thrown with men of big caliber who are above petty things.
I thought so too--until
I saw a real statesman, one of the drive-wheels of the House, get as mad as a
hornet over the fact that his committee didn’t get the room he wanted. You know
how a boy acts when he sees his girl on another fellow’s sled? Just make up
your mind that this kind of juvenile history is repeated every day by the
distinguished statesmen with whom you are enjoying the privilege of intimate
association.
I don’t want to throw
cold water on the bare back of your new-born joy, Ned, but in all the fruits of
victory you’ll never taste anything sweeter than the grip of happiness that
clutched your throat that night when you came down from the convention and your
wife hugged you as you tried to tell her how it all happened.
Just give her my best
regards.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Wherein William Bradley
demonstrates to Ned that, while love at first sight is a mighty taking
proposition in the beginning of story book or in matrimonial affairs of other
folks, it has led many a trusting politician to pack his own caucus with secret
enemies without leaving standing room for his real friends.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
Before you have been in
Washington a fortnight you write me that you have formed friendships which you
feel will last for the rest of your natural life.
That’s just like you,
Ned--as impulsive as a setter pup and ready to play tag with the very boot that’s
waiting for the first good chance to kick you off the back steps. It’s too bad
to apply the freezing treatment to a faith as fine and ready as yours, but if
you continue to hand out the coin of your confidence and the currency of your
friendship without collateral or security in kind at the rate you have started
in on, one short term at Washington will be enough to put your political future
into the hands of a receiver.
Love-at-first-sight is
a mighty taking proposition in the start of a story or in the matrimonial
affairs of other folks, but it has led many a politician to pack his own caucus
with a choice assortment of secret enemies, without leaving standing room for
his real friends who would stay with him through flood and fire. Impetuosity is
all right in a campaign speech in which you are pounding the open enemy, but it
is a whole lot safer to put part of it in escrow when it comes to hooking up
with a lot of seasoned old stagers who have played politics at the national
capital ever since you became sufficiently civilized to wear a nightshirt.
On general principles,
the picking of friends is a doubtful and ticklish business, but in politics the
showdown comes so quick and often that the trusting tenderfoot is likely to
find himself all in before he has time to recover anything on his contributions
to the jackpots of experience.
Any politician who has
enough of the gift of prophecy six times in ten to pick a friend and spot an
enemy on sight can have all the official persimmons he cares to gather in--and
all creation can’t stop him. But there aren’t enough of this sort of men with
the real simon-pure article of political second sight under their hats to keep
the history of politics from looking like the report of a convention of
traitors. The higher up you get, the greater is the pressure of practical
necessity, and the board of strategy is constantly obliged to make larger
drafts on the supposition that all’s fair in love and war.
Speaking of leaning too
hard on the shoulders of your love-at-first-sight friends reminds me of the
experience of a young Democrat who saw the first Cleveland boom above the
horizon when it was no bigger than a man’s hand. Mr. Cleveland and his father
had been friends from boyhood, and when the presidential bee began to buzz,
Grover sent for the young man and put him in charge of everything in his state.
This was a nervy thing
to do, for the reason that the state was in the doubtful list, but looked
particularly promising that year for the Democrats. Then, too, the young man
had been in the state but a short time and was not recognized by the regular
machine which had a grip on several of the state offices.
When it got out that
this young man held credentials straight from Cleveland as Captain of the Hosts
in that state and was expected to send an instructed delegation to the national
convention, there was war in camp and the machine leaders cut out their work to
kill instructions and show "the little alien upstart" that he couldn’t
come into the state and run things over their heads.
They knew that the
people of the party were with the young man and sentiment was strong throughout
the state for Mr. Cleveland, but they also knew that in case of ultimate triumph
all along the line the machine would have to stand back and watch the young
friend of the man from Buffalo hand out the official plums and give orders for
future business. This made them smart with resentment and they were determined
to "show the young man," no matter if it cost the nomination of the
only man who could carry the party to a national victory.
The first move they
made was to put through the state central committee a new program for the
coming convention that did violence to the precedents of years and reversed the
order of business in such a manner that the chairman could hopelessly jockey
the question of instructions by a confusion of amended motions.
But the young man saw
just where and how the fight was shaping as well as they did. By long distance
telephone he placed the situation before Mr. Cleveland, mapped out a line of
action and had it approved in detail by the big chief. Then he called a
conference of those interested in tying up the delegation snug and tight with
instructions for Grover Cleveland and passed out the word that the one job on
hand was to agree upon every detail of the fight in the convention so that
there would be no pounding the air, no false motions--every blow aimed and
timed to do the heaviest execution.
Now the young captain
had touched up with the Mayor of his city, who was as smooth as axle grease and
knew every party hanger-on by his front name. And that is only another way of
saying that the city executive had a large list of hungry hunters for office
for whom he had been unable to find places on the payroll.
Somehow Mr. Mayor
managed to snuggle up to the vest of my young friend and warm a nice generous
spot for himself there. As things moved along he brought a whole lot of his
braves into the camp of my friend and gave them recommendations that would have
done a candidate for Sunday-school superintendent proud.
Like yourself, the
young leader thought he had found a friend that would stay with him until the
roof fell in, and he hugged himself every time the Mayor’s name came to his
mind. Every now and then the Mayor would come to him and say:
"John, there’s a
young friend of mine who knows the ropes from deck to masthead and if you’ve no
objection I should like to have him in the conference when we frame up the
program. His advice is worth having, and I’d feel safer if he were right on
hand where we could get the benefit of his knowledge."
"Oh, that’s all
right, of course," was the invariable reply, "your friends are my
friends."
When the night of the
pow-wow came and the conference assembled in secret session, my young friend
looked upon the result of his labor and knew that it was good. As he scanned
the faces in the packed room he caught the benignant and fatherly smile of the
Mayor--and once more gave inward thanks for the aid of so stalwart a friend.
Then his eye wandered over the rest of the assembled faithful; in every
direction he looked his glance was met by the face of some bright young hustler
who had been brought into the field by the invitation of the Mayor.
Yes, it was a great
gift to be able to pick the right sort of friends and do it without the slow
process of time. What was time, anyhow, when it came to forming the real
attachments that hold men of the world together? he asked himself--and answered
his own question with the scriptural line: "One day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day." All this passed through his mind
in a flash as the stragglers were settling down into their seats. There was a
little well-trimmed oratory just to put the meeting into the proper spirit--and
then the young leader arose and outlined the plan of action to be followed.
After a motion had been
put to adopt the scheme as a fighting program in the convention, the Mayor
arose and asked the privilege of "introducing" his views on one or
two points which, he feared, had been "overlooked by the younger adherents
of the cause." He didn’t begin by clearing his throat--not he! He was too
smooth for that. His voice was soft-pedaled down to the pitch of a moonlight
prelude and every word dripped from his lips was coated with emulsion of honey.
Before he sat down he
contrived to suggest that the conference was not a representative one; that the
main spokes in the young man’s machine were not delegates to the convention;
that the person suggested for floor leader was not in touch with the rank and
file of the party; that the young leader himself was not familiar with the
ropes or the men who should manipulate them and that an adjournment should be
taken until a "thoroughly representative body, mainly composed of actual
delegates," could be brought together to determine upon the proper course
of action.
Then, in purely an
inadvertent way, he dropped the suggestion that a certain young man--an oily
little whipper-snapper who had been sneaked into the convention under the Mayor’s
own coat-tails--had that "intimate acquaintance with local men and
conditions which pre-eminently fitted him for the important position of floor
leader in the convention," and that a certain trio of choice scamps from
the city hall gang would make a strong committee that could skunk the enemy and
get an instructed delegation for the Sage of Buffalo before the convention
waked up to the knowledge that it was being worked.
But, in particular, the
Mayor put the emphasis of his finish on the point that the plan of the young
leader to overthrow the order of business outlined by the state central
committee would not only arouse antagonism on the part of the regular
organization, but was wholly unnecessary--as that result could be so easily and
quietly accomplished by the resourceful trio he had suggested as a steering
committee.
As the Mayor took his
seat it was plain to see from the serene smile that oozed from the pores of his
countenance that he expected his proposition would be accepted by the
conference as eagerly as a mold of pigs-feet jelly would be assimilated by a
Dutch picnic party.
Instantly my friend was
on his feet--his eyes lit up like a blacksmith’s anvil in a Saturday’s rush of
business.
"I may not have
lived in this state as long as some people who are not yet buried,"
declared the young leader, "and I see evidences that I am a little short
on a full knowledge of ’local men and conditions’; but I can tell the gentleman
who has just spoken that I put away my teething ring and baby ’pacifier’
several years ago and that my high chair went into the retirement of the family
attic about the time he was first elected to office. There isn’t going to be
any postponement of this conference; I’m going to appoint the steering
committee myself; the plan of action that I’ve outlined is going to be carried
out in the convention to the letter--and he’s going to get out of this meeting
and get out quick. We’ll stop right here while he takes himself away and if
there are any others here of his stripe--and there are--they’ll do well to
follow him through the door. The headquarters of the old organization are over
Siler’s saloon--but I guess he knows the way."
Nothing short of this
sudden show of nerve ever saved the young leader’s bacon, for the oily man from
the city hall had packed the conference with his own clansmen. Then, besides,
there were several weak-kneed sisters in my young friend’s forces, and without
this stock of good fighting grit they would have wavered and faltered.
But that dash put sap
into the whole outfit and they rushed the program through in a hurry and closed
the conference. They had one spellbinder in the bunch who was a power when once
he got on a full head of steam, but it took a heap of fire to get him started.
This conference warmed him through and when, as floor leader, he let go his
oratory the convention was swept off its feet and the instructions went through
with whoop.
The Mayor tried to
crawl back into the band wagon, but my young friend wouldn’t so much as let him
carry a torch in the precinct marching club. Later, after the election had
placed Mr. Cleveland in the White House, the young leader was apportioned to
deal out the plums in the state and the way he handled the applications for
office on the part of the fellows who had been mixed up with his old thirty-day
friend, the Mayor, was a study in the art of neglect.
"Once I believed
in the doctrine of love at first sight," he remarked to me, "but now
I don’t trifle with any friendships that have not been seasoned in the open air
of experience."
From all this some
people might be inclined to draw the conclusion that the only safe thing to do
is to hold all comers as enemies until they prove themselves friends, but you’ve
too much horse sense to go to this extreme, I think. The man who hates at first
sight is almost as likely to make a mess of it as the fellow whose friendship
is set on a hair trigger.
In the last national
campaign I was sent out to Iowa to do a little talking and to fill some
emergency dates under the direction of the state central committee. One day the
chairman of the oratory department said to me:
"One of our
fellows who was billed to speak at Sugar Grove tomorrow night has jumped the
track and I’d like to have you run down there and give them a rousing talk.
Somehow that neck of the woods has been neglected by our folks, who’ve sort of
let it go to the enemy by default. There isn’t another place in the state where
the right kind of a talk would do the good that it would there. Will you
go?"
"Certainly,"
I answered. "It doesn’t matter to me where you send me."
Now the young chap who
hammered the typewriter had evidently taken a shine to me and when the captain
of the spellbinder department stepped out of the room the lad said to me:
"It wouldn’t be
fair, sir, for me to keep still and let you go out to Sugar Grove without
explaining that they’ll mob you just as sure as you set foot in their measly
little backwoods town. That’s why the other man ducked at the last minute.
There’s a gang out there waiting to break the head of any man of our kind that
dares to take the stump inside the county limits. We haven’t been able to get a
speaker to try it since the year of the big fight."
"The big
fight?" I inquired.
"Yes," he
answered, "that was the start of the whole thing. You see, the enemy is
mighty strong there in Shellbark county, while we’re on top in the next county
of Dodd. About six years ago, in the state campaign, some of the Shellbark
boys, on the other side, went into Dodd county to hold a big rally.
"Party feeling was
high and a lot of hotheaded young chaps of our persuasion came down on the
fold, used up all the over-ripe eggs and potatoes in the neighborhood and broke
up the meeting. Then the Shellbark fellows swore that if we ever sent a speaker
into their territory they’d mob him on sight. They’re a mighty rough set there
and we’ve never found a speaker yet who had the nerve to go up against them. It’s
a bad place and I’d suggest that you’d better be too sick, at the last minute,
to go. Better be sick beforehand than dead afterwards, you know."
Although the lad knew
what he was talking about and was tremendously in earnest, I had never flunked
on an assignment and finally concluded that it was altogether too late in life
to begin dodging.
Consequently, I put a
pair of big-bore derringers in my overcoat pocket and started for Sugar Grove.
There wasn’t any brass band at the station to meet me, so far as I noticed, and
the tavern-keeper’s dog skinned his teeth at me in a way that wasn’t exactly
friendly. However, the bills announcing my speech were plastered over the horse
sheds and the front of the blacksmith shop all right, and the fellow who had
charge of the hall said that everything would be ready for the doings at night.
I asked him if he
thought we should have a good crowd, and he replied that he reckoned that we’d
have a crowd all right, but he didn’t say anything about the quality of it.
There were plenty of
fellows hanging about the tavern, whittling and pitching quoits, but not one of
them ventured to make himself sociable with me. By supper time I had come to
the conclusion that I knew something of the feelings of a fellow suddenly
landed on a desert island and surrounded by dusky natives who were waiting for
a good chance to stick him full of spears and call in their friends to the
barbecue. At last I determined to get out and see if I couldn’t shake off the
gloom of the place by a good brisk walk of a mile or two. So I struck into a
lively lope down the main traveled road and by the time I reached the wayside
watering trough I was feeling a little more cheerful.
While taking a drink
from the spout that fed the trough, about a dozen big husky young fellows on
horseback drew up, jumped from their saddles and allowed their horses to drink.
They paid no more attention to me than if I had been a grasshopper, but put in
their time drinking red liquor out of the flasks they carried in their pockets.
Then they mounted and rode on into town.
Right then and there I
made up my mind that I was up against a tougher proposition than I had figured
on, and that this gang of young ruffians and I would have to try each other out
before the meeting was over.
Before I went from the
tavern to the town hall I changed my pistols to the pockets of my undercoat and
made up my mind that whatever happened I should stand pat and give them tit for
tat.
The minute I came out
on the platform I saw that the gang was planted in the front seats and that the
strapping young chap who was evidently the leader had the chair on the aisle
nearest me. I figured that about two jumps would land him on the platform,
provided he felt disposed to get there.
There was but one thing
to do and that I did. Looking the young leader squarely in the eyes, I fired my
remarks straight at him--and I didn’t mince matters either. Now and then my
hand strayed into my side pocket, I confess, and touched up with the derringer,
just for the sake of company.
Every minute I expected
things to break loose--but, to my amazement, there wasn’t a ripple of
excitement and the whole meeting was as quiet as a funeral. Somehow, as I wound
up my speech and stepped off the platform, I felt a little bit of something
like disappointment at the fact that the affair had turned out so tamely.
But just at that moment
the young fellow I had been talking at made towards me--and both my hands
slipped into my side pockets again. He grinned quietly, however, and said to me
in an undertone:
"You’re all right,
Governor. Perhaps you didn’t know it, but the sheriff was a little afraid there
might be trouble up here tonight and so he sent a bunch of us boys to take care
of you if any rumpus broke out. This hain’t the most peaceable place on the
prairies, and there has been a good deal of bad blood here in the past. But I
guess you’ve settled it that your party can hold a political meeting in this
county if it wants to, without a killing. Now I’ll walk over to the train with
you and see that you get aboard all safe and sound. ’Tain’t necessary, I know,
but I promised the sheriff I would."
Up to that time I had
always had the notion that I could spot an out-and-out enemy on sight, whether
I could tell a friend at first sight or not. After that experience I came to
the conclusion that snap judgments on human nature are on a par with snap
caucuses, and that it takes a little time to try out either a friend or an
enemy.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
In which William
Bradley puts it down as a safe rule that, in politics, the man who is worth
tying up with will do business at drop of the hat or not at all and that when a
man who knows when to lay down three aces asks for time to sleep over a
proposition and incidentally to consult a few disinterested friends before
showing his hand, there is trouble ahead.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
Your letter saying that
the fellows who run things in the southern end of the state have asked for more
time in which to consider your proposition for a combination of forces that
would put you in line for the Governorship, calls for a little comment. You may
put it down as a safe rule that, in politics, the man who knows the game and is
worth tying up with will do business at drop of the hat.
When a good, wide-awake
politician tells you that he wants to sleep over a proposition, just put it
down that he is simply playing you for time and intends to throw you down at
the finish. No real political leader will insist upon submitting a prospective
move to his camp followers, his wife and his attorneys, and if he intimates
that something of this kind is necessary make up your mind that the fellows he
proposes to consult belong to the camp of the enemy.
You hear a whole lot of
talk to the effect that the lightning deciders are holding down heavyweight
jobs in the pay of big business houses and corporations, but I have never noticed
any of them who could quite touch the real politician on the score of an
instantaneous exposure of decision. His mental shutters are ready to work at
the squeeze of the bulb and when they don’t work that way you may take your
choice between two conclusions: he has got a better trick to play than the one
you offer or else he’s suffering from a temporary attack of political
spring-halt, politely called conservatism.
Now and then the
readiest and snappiest players of the political game have spasms of acute
caution when they crave the soothing syrup of "consultation." But you
can’t take this kind of medicine without also taking time to sleep off its
effects, and time is the essence of all political contracts, as well as
mortgages, trust deeds and other effective compacts.
A young political
leader can’t put in his spare minutes to better advantage than in watching
himself to see that his attacks of the colic of conservatism don’t carry him
off his feet at the critical turns in his career. But you may depend upon it
that when a crisis is up to him and he needs to meet it with the ready blow of
instant decision, straight from the shoulder, he will feel quivers of
hesitation centering towards the pit of his stomach, and his internal economy
will cry out for the seductive prescription of delay, advice and sympathetic
council--the poppy-distilled potion that has put scores of good politicians to
sleep at the moment when they might have grasped the great prize of life’s
ambition.
Of course, you remember
the big fight that landed Dave Macey in the United States Senate, but you were
not so close to the center of things that you could see all the hands that were
played off before Dave finally managed to tire out the machine and make the
necessary number of balky country members back up to his wagon and submit to
the Macey farm harness. As I was one of the organization steering committee in
that fight, I naturally know a deal of its inside history and I promise you it
is rich in chapters that would bear out the general title "He might have
been."
However, there was one
might-have-been whose history throws light on the subject of misplaced
political hesitation in a way that is calculated to illuminate the path of any
young leader who attempts to flirt with the proud and prudish goddess of delay.
Martin Moore was the
machine candidate--one of the old wheelhorses of the organization who had been
marked for promotion. I suppose United States Senators have been made out of
timber a deal smaller than Mart, who was a shrewd, resourceful and shifty old
boy with that rugged sort of homeliness which is a good deal better than
handsome looks in catching the fancy of the plain people. While Mart could make
a pretty fair talk, he was no spellbinder, and his brand of campaign eloquence
hadn’t enough bubbles in it to enthuse a public that had been educated on
campmeeting and revival sermons with the real fireworks in them.
But Mart had one strong
point in addition to his masterful homeliness. As a barefooted lad he had
driven canal boats. We started him out as the "tow-path candidate"
and expected that this cry would stampede the common people and land him in the
Senate without any particular difficulty. Sometimes the right sort of a
nickname will do more to catch the votes of the masses than a genius for
statesmanship and a record without a hole in it, and often a fortunate phrase
as a campaign cry will get a candidate a bigger crowd of followers than a
spotless life and a righteous cause.
However, the reform
newspapers began to hammer Martin, and they continued to pound his tow-path
clean through his career in the legislature in a way that rather rapped the
romance out of our campaign cry and diverted attention from the barefooted boy
on the canal boat to the man who had been mixed up with a string of legislative
measures that had become decidedly unpopular.
To make matters worse,
the best story teller, mixer and general campaigner in the state decided to cut
into the game and try to land the big prize. We accused him of not having
enough dignity to keep from telling a funny story at a funeral, but somehow he
continued to make headway and gather in a stray member now and then. The other
man in the fight, so far as our party was concerned, was a highly respectable
and dignified citizen who had three mighty handy qualifications--a barrel, no
political record and one of those conservative temperaments that stand at zero
when making love or grabbing off the ambition of a lifetime.
For weeks and months
every faction stood its ground and fought tooth and nail for each inch of
advantage. If ever a political machine was worked to the limit ours was in that
fight. We took slack, sanded the track, threw the throttle wide open, and still
the deadlock refused to budge. In short, we were stuck.
When it was clear that
we had reached the absolute limit of our strength, and couldn’t pull another
ounce with Martin as a candidate he did the square thing by telling us to take
up any other man who could draw enough votes from the other candidates to save
the victory to the organization. We hated to drop him, for he was a stayer of
the old-fashioned sort, but there was nothing else to do but shift to some
fellow who could bring a little strength of his own and pull enough votes from
the others to elect.
It was late in the
afternoon when we reached the showdown stage of the game and the steering
committee met in secret session to pick out a new candidate who could show us
the way out of the woods. After the other fellows had suggested a half dozen
men who were promptly put out of the running by arguments from the assembled
bosses I saw a light and said:
"Boys, what’s the
matter with ’Sugarlips’ Sunridge? He’s strong with the administration; he’s the
father of the Young Men’s Republican League; he’s one of the bright and shining
lights of the bar; the reform newspapers have been sounding his praises ever
since he first showed his head in politics; there isn’t a man in the state who
can fly the oratorical kite with a longer string; his lips drop sweetness on
every fellow who passes the time of day with him; he can tell almost as good a
story as the Insurgent candidate; his dignity would make a senatorial toga get
right off its peg with delight at the chance to fit his shoulders, and--"
"Look here!"
interrupted the real boss. "Just save the rest for the nominating speech.
He’ll do if he’ll jump into the fight and show that he can bring in some votes.
But he’s got to show us first--remember that! Send for him, and have him here
before daylight. If he don’t get on the ground and throw out a skirmish line
before business opens up at the state house he’ll be everlastingly too late,
for there’s going to be a break-up mighty sudden."
I fired a telegram to Sugarlips
telling him to catch the evening train for the capital. Then I sat down and
held a little session with myself. Better than any one else I knew that he had
the elements of strength which would pull the six votes required to elect away
from the other fellows; in fact, I could count up the very men he could be
depended upon to draw into our line.
On the other hand, I
knew that two or three other emergency candidates had also been sent for by the
big boss, and that the agreement among the members of the slate-making
department to keep mum and let the dark horses strike out and develop their own
strength must be observed to the letter. Not one of them was to be told the
strength or the weakness of the organization, and each was simply to be given
the chance to strike out and make a showing on his own responsibility.
Sunridge was my
personal friend. We had read law in the same office as young men and tried
scores of cases together later on. If he were elected I could count on almost
any appointment I might ask for, and could swing an influence that would put me
way ahead in the race I was running. And, besides all that, I felt it in my
boots that he was the only dark horse who could really come in winner on the
home stretch.
You can just bet that
after I had sat for hours with my heels on the table figuring this situation up
one side and down the other I began to wish that I could get behind the train
that was bringing Sunridge and do a little lively pushing, for I knew that
every minute before the morning roll call was precious in the sight of the big
boss and meant heaps of things to me.
At 2 o’clock in the
morning Sunridge walked into the hotel and I grabbed his grip, made a dash for
the elevator and led him away to a high place to show him the kingdoms of the
earth.
As he lighted a cigar I
unrolled the situation to him as well as I could under the limitations placed
upon me.
"It’s as plain to
me," I said, "as a red barn on a sidehill that this is your hour and
you’re the man for the hour. I can promise you that the minute you show us
enough votes from the other camps to elect you with those of the machine our
whole strength will go to you in a jiffy. We’ll make good on the dot, and all
you’ve got to do is to show us the margin. When we used to thumb the same copy
of Blackstone in old Judge Bunker’s office we didn’t dream that you’d have a
seat in the United States Senate within your reach, and that I’d be the fellow
to push it in front of you, did we?"
"N–o," he
answered, lighting a fresh cigar with the tip of his stub. "But, Bill, you
see this is very sudden." Somehow that remark made my enthusiasm splutter
out like the sizzling cigar stub he dropped into the cuspidor.
"So sudden!"
I replied. "That’s what my wife said when I proposed after a courtship
stringing over the space of three years. And maybe you want another year to
consider it in as she did!"
"Not quite as long
as that, Bill," he answered, good-naturedly. "But the fact is I must
sleep over it. It’s a very important step--very important--and you couldn’t
quite expect me to take it without a little consultation with my most
confidential advisers."
The confounded
deliberation with which he drawled this out in his soothing syrup tones riled
me and I was mad in a second--didn’t care much, for a minute, whether he came
into the fight or not. But later I cooled down a little and went the length of
my rope in painting his opportunity in the rosiest possible colors.
"Now, old
man," I said, slapping him on the back, "the thing for you to do is
to rustle a few of the boys out of bed, get them in line and then go down to
the desk and arrange for opening your headquarters at day-break along with the
rest of the dark horses. Do it and you’ll come in under the wire and leave them
among the ’also-rans.’"
"N–o," he
drawled, "I’ll see you at breakfast and give you my decision."
While he was snoring in
the next room I could hear the hoofs of the other dark horse candidates going
up and down the hall and the voice of Happy Dave, the Insurgent, in the room
over my head was busy telling stories to a bunch of country members who pounded
the floor with their boots as he made each point in his yarns. I’d heard those
stories so often I could tell which one was being told by the way the applause
came in.
Well, at breakfast
Sunridge nibbled at his toast and said:
"I’ve about
decided to make the race, Bill, but there are two men I must see before I can
really jump into the fight. I never take any big step without consulting them,
and this is a case which demands the soundest counsel. I’ll be over to the
state house a little later an let you know."
I’ll never forget the
expression on his face as he slipped down the aisle of the House two hours
later and stood beside my desk. The roll call was in progress and three of the
fellows who had previously been with old Stiff-neck, the Conservative, fell
into the Insurgent bandwagon. I remember hearing their haw-haws the last thing
before I dropped asleep about 5 o’clock that morning.
Of course, the Insurgents
yelled like a lot of Thanksgiving football rooters. Then came the break. A
dozen members were on their feet shouting for a chance to change their votes
and the fight was all in.
Sugarlips stood there,
his mouth partially open, and his eyes bulging. "I had come--ah--come to
say I’d do it," he said in a dazed way.
"Well," I
answered, "after you’ve slept over it and consulted your friends, the
members of your family and a few of your social acquaintances, I’d be pleased
to introduce you to the man who’ll sit, for the next six years, in the seat in
the United States Senate that you could have had, at drop of the hat, if you’d
just said ’Yep’ after I’d given you the tip at 3:30 this morning."
His infernal hesitation
put the whole organization out of business for four years, and all the spokes
and wheels of the machine we’d been ten years in building haven’t been gathered
up yet; it set me back eight years on the Governorship and smashed the
political, chances of a dozen of his best friends. But it taught him a lesson,
for a big corporation offered him a position as general counsel, a month later,
and he snapped up the tender before the president could reach for his hat.
Whatever you trifle
with, Ned, don’t attempt to play with the whirligig of Time in the game of
politics. It will throw you quicker ’n a green broncho. Remember the Scriptures
and make peace with the adversary quickly, while you’re in the way with him.
The man who knows when
to lay down three aces will never ask the boys to hold the game open while he
sleeps on the proposition--and incidentally consults a few disinterested
friends.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Wherein William Bradley
offers a new commandment that "He who takes the graft shall also take the
gaff," and tells the story of Senator Soapy, who went after the Assistant
Postmaster General and got what was coming to him.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
So your short
Washington experience has already taught you that men who have acquired the
habit of being much closeted are not always open to the charge of making many
prayers--that is, of the devotional sort--and that it’s worth a new member’s
reputation for common honesty and common decency to be seen in private
conversation with some of the men who hold down seats in the House and Senate.
That’s a good beginning, for in Congress a man is known by the company he doesn’t
keep.
While all of the Ten
Commandments are strictly pertinent to the modern politician, I’d like to offer
a rider to that omnibus bill on good morals in these words: "He who takes
the graft shall also take the gaff."
It’s a long time since
I took a nip of beauty sleep in a Senate cloak room; but there are some
observations that came to my eye there that stick to me like burrs in the coat
of an Irish setter, and all of them seem to be focused in this new commandment.
There was one incident in particular that drove this home to me hard.
The same winter that
gave me a seat in the Senate also elevated to that dignity--and it is a
dignity, too--a dapper and oily gentleman who came up from one of the staid old
states of the East. He made his appearance in a sack coat and a pair of trousers
that would have made a star outfit for a wheel of fortune fakir at a county
fair.
The checks of that suit
simply shouted, and he wore the first fire-red necktie, so I was told, that had
ever invaded the Senate chamber on the neck of a member. The general modesty of
the human landscape which he offered for the inspection of his distinguished
colleagues was emphasized by the glare of a diamond stud about the size of a
marrow-fat pea. To top it all, his head was crowned with a silk hat fresh from
the haberdasher’s. All in all, his get-up was a work of art if its object was
that of giving his fellow Senators a jolt that almost threw them out of their
seats.
They took one look at
him, and then the frost line began to circle around every one of them. He could
empty the cloak room on sight, from that time forward, about as quick as if he
had the mange, so far as the dignified old wheelhorses and the society
contingent were concerned. They gave him a rating, right at the start, that
would have put him out of business if it hadn’t been for the fact that party
lines were drawn desperately close, that Winter, on several measures of immense
importance. The atmosphere that he came into that day would have frozen the
fins of an Alaskan seal.
You know that I have a
weakness for the under dog, Ned, and so I made up my mind to give him a
friendly chance, so far as I was concerned. Then, too, every new member is
likely to feel a bit lonesome and awkward when he first tries to live in the
high altitude of the United States Senate. He knows that it’s up to him to look
like a statesman at work and he feels about as useless, isolated and misplaced
as a Chinese image on the marble center-table of a farm-house parlor.
Naturally this
community of interest drew the new members together like a bunch of yearlings
in a first snowstorm. Huddling together helped to take off the chill and make
us feel that we weren’t quite so much alone in the cold world. And when we
bunched up that way we didn’t ask for references or pedigrees. We were willing
to ask no questions and to find each other out, gradually.
But there was one
member of the Awkward Squad who rose superior to his surroundings in the course
of a fortnight--and he was Senator Soapy, as the pages and clerks soon
nicknamed the new member with checkered clothes and the silk hat. And the boy
who gave him that name had bought experience handing up a dollar to a traveling
soap-fakir whose wagon had invaded his home town. Never was a fitter name given
to a human being for, the minute that fellow was able to get the recognition of
the Chair, he began to play the tricks of the soap wagon; and he kept on
selling soap until--well; I’m getting a little ahead of my story!
Because I didn’t give
him the full force of a Manitoba wave and freeze him stiff the minute he came
near me, Senator Soapy warmed up to me like a brother in distress and told me
the story of his life, in installments. He came, he said, of poor but honest
parents and had made his own way since he was big enough to wear long trousers
and play with a razor. There wasn’t anything in the standard obituaries of
self-made statesmen that had been left out of his early struggles excepting
nights of study by the glare of a pine knot fire, so he confided to me.
Before he left the
district school the fires of oratorical passion had begun to burn in his breast
and he was a seasoned spellbinder at sixteen. He didn’t say anything about
doing stunts at county fairs or serving a long and faithful apprenticeship
under the instruction of an expert soap-fakir, but he did confess that his
first lucrative employment was in the capacity of a traveling teacher of
elocution.
But, according to his
account, he soon tired of mouthing the utterances of other great minds and
decided to enter a profession in which he could find full swing for his
oratorical genius and pour out his soul in the tones with which he had clothed
the thoughts of others, to the delight of thousands.
So he settled down to
the study of law in a country town and before he had been admitted to the bar
he was on the stump making the welkin ring with the noise of his eloquence.
From that time forward, he assured me, he had fought his way steadily onward
and upward until his triumphal election to the United States Senate.
While he didn’t say
that he was exactly expecting that the Presidential nomination would be thrust
on him in about eight years, he indirectly intimated that a good many repairs
would have to be made in the White House in order to make it thoroughly
habitable for a man of his sensitive and somewhat delicate physique.
There was, however, one
fly in his ointment that always bobbed up on the surface whenever he discussed
the favorite theme of his own hand-made career. This was an implacable enemy.
Although he seasoned his talk with frequent hints of this mysterious and
relentless pursuer who had "dogged his footsteps" from the time he
made his first run for the Legislature, I noticed that Senator Soapy was
careful not to call names or give me any clew to the identity of his dark
Nemesis. But he made it clear that this fellow had the vengeful malice of an
Apache Indian.
"But I’ll have his
scalp before long," the Senator would chuckle in his sudsy way. "That’s
one of the things I’m here for. He’ll get the gaff and get it hard if I don’t
turn another trick while I’m here. You just wait and see. Every man who has
ever reached any degree of achievement, I guess, has had some envious dog
snapping at his heels. Of course, I’m beyond his power to harm and I could
afford to ignore him--but I’m human, sir, and I propose to put him where he can
no longer nag me. I intend to have my mind clear for the larger tasks and
responsibilities of my position."
Just about this time I
happened to meet up with one of the Assistant Postmaster-Generals--a tall,
lanky, raw-boned, grass-fed man who made me feel that he was sound to the core
the minute I grasped his hand. He was as handsome as a hemlock slab, and you
could feel the slivers of his aggressive honesty at first touch. Somehow I
cottoned to him right from the start and whenever I got to feeling a little
lonesome for the company of a man who looked at things on my level, had the
smell of the good old country sod about him and hadn’t been coated with
Washington varnish, I would send for Hank Murray and we’d have a heart-to-heart
talk at Harvey’s.
We didn’t swap family
secrets for a long time. He knew how to hold his tongue and I liked him better
for not giving up all he knew. One night, however, we touched up a little
closer than ever and finally, in his shy, awkward way he said:
"I’ve had
something on my mind a long time, Senator, and I guess I’m close enough to you
now, to speak out in meeting."
"Sure," I
replied, "spit it right out."
"Well, I’ll do
it," he replied, putting down his knife and fork and looking me square in
the eye. "You’ve been in Washington long enough to know that one of the
chief branches of business here is knocking; scandal is a fine art in these
parts and the ’poison of asps,’ as the Scriptures say, is one of the principal
circulating mediums. I’ve made it a rule to keep my mouth shut along those
lines, but tonight I’m going to break over and make an exception.
"I’ve noticed that
you train a good deal with Senator Soapy--and, what’s worse, I’ve heard some of
the best men here comment on that fact. He’s a grafter from way back--I know
what I’m talking about--and you’re getting tarred with his stick, in the minds
of some mighty good men who wouldn’t be seen in private talk with him, just by
the mere fact of your association with him. I know you’re not his kind and I
don’t want to see you handicap yourself with a reputation for intimacy with
him."
"What do you know
about him?" I asked.
"I know all about
him," replied Hank, rapping the table with his fist. "I’ve fought him
in his own district from the time he made his first stump speech--fought him
because he was as crooked and slippery as a water snake. He’s spent the best
part of his life since he began to read law trying to kill me out because I
couldn’t be scared or bought into silence on the subject of his grafting.
"I came into his
district and bought a country newspaper about the time he showed his head above
the political waters and began to wriggle his way toward a seat in the
Legislature. Before I’d been in the place two months I caught him, red handed
in a nasty piece of graft that turned my stomach. Of course, I said things in
my paper and washed out a few articles of party linen in the editorial,
columns. That started the fight, and it’s been going ever since.
"But he was as
slick as he was slimy and I couldn’t always head him off. He finally landed in
the Legislature and there he turned some tricks to make a square politician
ashamed of his race. Later we locked horns for the Congressional nomination; he
captured it, but was snowed under at the polls. In fact, the whole state went
against us. He became the leader of one faction in the state and I flocked with
the other. When we went into the Presidential campaign a sort of truce was
patched up and I was made Secretary of the State Central Committee. The fight
was a stiff one but by hard plugging we won out.
"Of course that
cut a considerable figure in the general result and the President indicated
that he’d like to do the handsome thing by us. The leaders of our side went on
to Washington and had a talk with him. They told him that I wasn’t much good in
the log-rolling branch of politics but I couldn’t be scared or bought; that I
was too square-toed to make much headway for an elective position--in short,
that I was just a plodder without any streak of graft in me. The President said
that he was looking for just that stripe of a man for a certain place--and that’s
how I came to be appointed to this position."
"But," I
interrupted, "didn’t Soapy make a fight against your appointment?"
"Oh! yes; a little
one, just to save the point," answered Hank. "But he was glad to have
me taken out of the state so I’d be less in his way. He had some dirty schemes
he wanted to work when I couldn’t be there to watch him. And he worked ’em,
too!
"Then came the
Senatorial fight. All my life I’ve preached against offensive partisanship and
insisted that the men on the government payroll, especially in the Departments
here in Washington, ought to stick to their desks and tend to their knitting
instead of riding the country in the interests of politics. So, you see, he
rather had my hands tied on the score of offensive partisanship and there was
nothing for me to do but stay here and let the other boys make the fight
against him.
"But he played the
soap trick to the limit and finally landed--by the help of every big
corporation doing business in our state. But he can’t last for he can’t pass up
the chance to make a petty graft--and men who are after small graft invariably
get careless and sooner or later play themselves into the hands of justice. All
this and much more to the same point has made me break over and warn you
against Senator Soapy."
Right after that talk
with Hank, I met the Senator at the White House, waiting for an interview with
the President. He buckled his arm through mine and said:
"We’ll go in
together--nothing private in what I want to see His Excellency about."
His Excellency!--that
was just like Senator Soapy. He would have licked the President’s boots in the
presence of witnesses if he’d been given half a chance. His toadying in this
direction later made him the laughingstock of Washington. But to get back to my
story! We went in together and after Soapy had slobbered over the President a
little he came to the point with the remark:
"I’ve come, sir,
to call your Excellency’s attention to a man by the name of Hanky Murray now
holding a position as one of the Postmaster-General’s assistants."
"Senator,"
interrupted the President, "I’m always delighted to have my attention
called to this man. If your state has any more such men I will thank you to
present their names. The public service needs more like him. It would be a
personal gratification to me to advance him to a still higher position, but
that is impossible just now. Besides, his rugged honesty and his plodding
faithfulness are especially needed in the difficult place he now fills.
Personally, I lean upon him heavily, for his loyalty and judgment save me from
many complications and mistakes in the matter of appointments in the post
office service."
That was the neatest
blow from a glove hand I ever saw given in high places. Soap had come to knock
his enemy out of official and political life and the President had taken the
words out of his mouth, put forward the presumption that the Senator had called
to ask for a promotion for him instead. Of course, Soapy was not fool enough to
make any reply to the President beyond a muttered "Thank you, sir." I
remained and as the Senator went out of the room I caught a gleam in the tail
of the President’s eye that showed he had been loaded for his caller and had
given him this shot with malice aforethought.
After that Soapy and I
didn’t spend much time hanging over the garden gate together and the
temperature of our relationship dropped to the zero point--and below. And by
the same token, my friendship with Hank grew and flourished until we were as
thick as two schoolgirls in the throes of a first feminine affinity. When the
new President was elected and took hold of the plow handles Hank said to me:
"The first thing
Soapy will ask of him will be my discharge. That was why he did such hard work
in the campaign and never lost an opportunity to crowd himself into the
presence of the chief candidate. He thinks his eloquence and activity have made
him so solid with the President that he can yank me out of my place on first
call--and maybe he can."
Before the cabinet
officers had warmed their chairs, Senator Soapy was on hand to pour his poison
into the ears of the new President. But it so happened that a private friend of
the Chief Executive had given him a straight line on the two men--and the word
of that friend outweighed, with the President, miles of preferred charges and
tons of Senatorial pull. I have it on inside authority that the setback the
President gave Senator Soapy in that interview was something to shame a goat.
The Assistant
Postmaster General stayed in his place and was made to feel that he had the
confidence of the administration. With this backing he quietly plodded ahead
and soon turned up some big frauds in the department that put a few fellows who
had cut a wide swath in Department affairs behind the bars. While this made a
big mess in politics it put Hank’s stock way up and made him so solid with the
President that a load of dynamite couldn’t have dislodged him,
About the time this
rumpus began to quiet down a little, one of the head inspectors, who came from
the Senator’s state, dropped into Hank’s private office, closed the door and
said:
"There’s something
doing, now, sure. Last night Senator Soapy came to my room and made a--well; I’d
call it a straight proposition."
You can bet the
Assistant Postmaster General pricked up his ears at that and asked for a full
bill of particulars.
"He said,"
continued the inspector, "that some mighty good friends of his were
interested in financing a large industrial enterprise which had just been ruled
out of the use of the mails by a Department order."
"A
get-rich-quick-scheme?" interrupted Hank.
"Yes; and a rank
one, too! Then he explained that they were good fellows, that he was deeply
interested in their welfare and that it would be worth a great deal to him if
the inspector’s report on the matter would be of a character that would lift
the embargo against them and give them the use of the mails again. Incidentally
he hinted that he could do a great deal for me. I told him I’d consider
it."
"Did he say
whether he made the request as a United States Senator or as an attorney?"
inquired the Assistant Postmaster General.
"No, not in so
many words."
"Well,"
returned Hank, rubbing his square rigged under jaw with his hand.
"You go back to
him, get him to commit himself on that point. And have a man who knows him hid
somewhere in your room as a witness."
Two days later the
inspector returned, accompanied by his deputy.
"He said that he
made the request as the attorney of the men--and this man saw him and heard him
make the statement."
"That’s all,"
said the Assistant Postmaster General. "And it’s good for a term in the
penitentiary!"
The Federal grand jury
did its work all right and the gaff that Soapy, the King of Grafters, had
prepared for quiet, honest Hank Murray landed right under his own liver and
there was an empty chair in the Senate and a well-filled cell in a certain
penitentiary. If he’s out now, I’ll bet that his experience with the kind of
striped clothes that are fashionable in prisons has spoiled Soapy’s taste for
loud-checked garments!
And so, again, I say
unto you: "He who takes the graft shall also take the gaff!" I never
think of either of those political perquisites without reverting to the history
of Senator Soapy!
Regards to the wife,
Ned, and long life to both of you.
Ever yours, William
Bradley.
Wherein William Bradley
tells a few tales out of school about the underground work of Captains of
Industry in the field of official corruption and illustrates the stages by
which a business man descends from maidenly shyness to brazen recklessness in
the art of "fixing."
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
I am not at all
surprised at what you tell me about the attempt of the corporation president to
reach you and head off your restrictive legislation, or at the brazen way in
which he went about the job. When a Captain of Industry starts in at the fixing
business he’s as shy as an unkissed school girl in her first flirtation; but
after he’s become a little seasoned in the art of subverting official honesty
he gets to be as brazen as the queen of a Dawson City dance hall.
It always riled me to
see the reformers get out after a bunch of petty go-betweens and make more
noise than an old-fashioned township wolf hunt in full swing--only to pull off
the dogs and call a halt when the trail led right up to the door of some
prominent Captain of Industry who was too good to have anything to do with
politics. But if they could run down an insignificant fixer and land him it was
a great moral victory that called for fireworks and the election of the
prosecuting officers to some fat office, as a reward of merit.
The stages by which a
fairly square business man descends to the moral plane of buying men right and
left without a twinge of conscience, or consideration of anything but the
price, are not generally known. I always wanted to take the lid off and look
into the mental machinery of a man who had gone down that kind of a moral
toboggan slide; and finally the chance came to me in a curious way. For six or
eight years one of the slickest lobbyists that ever attended a session was
hanging around the legislature. He was a mighty likable chap and had a way with
him that got right in under your vest. But for all the fact that I cottoned to
him from the start, I tried to land him and, session after session, had him
watched and shadowed. But he was too cunning for me and sprung every trap I set
for him without leaving so much as a hair behind to tell the story.
Then, he suddenly
disappeared from the face of the earth and I didn’t see a thing of him for
years. In fact, I had almost forgotten him when, at the close of a campaign
speech, in a Western town, he pushed through the crowd and shook hands with me.
"I’ve got a whole
lot to tell you, Governor," he said, "and I want you to come up to
the house, meet my wife and stay all night."
I was a little lonesome
and the idea of spending the evening in a home instead of a hotel just fitted
into my mood, so I accepted. His wife was a mighty sweet and comfortable little
body and it was easy to see that she worshipped the ground Jim walked on.
When she went upstairs
to put the children to bed, Jim and I repaired to the library, lighted up, and
settled down to a regular heart-to-heart session. We’d never been intimate in
the old days, but somehow he warmed up to me that night as if we’d been college
chums.
"Governor,"
said Jim, "I’m mighty glad to have this chance to tell you some things
that may make you think a little differently of me than you used to. You led me
a lively dance when I was in the fixing business and I was busier dodging your
shots than a lame rabbit chased by a pack of beagles in full cry.
"But now I’m out
of all that kind of game--and out for good. What did it? The little woman! When
I met her and got a line on her way of looking at things I saw a great light
and dropped the whole business like a hot potato. Not that I didn’t always hate
it--I despised it. But I was born into it. My first job was as a page for a shifty
old Senator who made a pet of me. Before I was fifteen all the dirty tricks of
official life were commonplaces to me and I lived in an atmosphere that made me
feel that the only question about such tricks was whether they were done in a
smooth or a bungling way. And as soon as the men about me found out that I was
up to snuff and as clever as any of the old hands at the game, I was pushed to
the front fast.
"Because I was
young and everybody seemed to take to me, the capitalists who had dirty work to
do put the business up to me as swift as I could take care of it. Sometimes the
jobs were pretty rank and I rebelled. Then they would simply put it cold that
my hands were already dirty and that they could make it mighty hot for me. In
other words, they had me; they knew it and I knew it, and they put the screws
to me until I was ready to do anything they demanded.
"But you can bet
on one thing, Governor--that I despised every psalm-singing hypocrite in the
whole bunch of ’em. The boodle business starts right at the doors of the
Captains of Industry, and those who are the loudest in howling for morality and
reform are the meanest in the bunch. If men of their stripe didn’t set out to
get things fixed there would be precious little boodling and the professional
fixer would be out of a job."
"Did you ever have
a good chance, Jim," I asked, "to watch the way in which a capitalist
starts into this game and develops as he goes along?"
"You bet I
have!" he answered. "And it’s funny how they change their tactics as
they get seasoned to the game. There was old Donald McNeil--worth a million and
as canny a Scotchman as ever sung a psalm. He sent for me to come to his house
at eleven o’clock and ’rap lightly on the glass of the front door.’ I did so,
and he let me in himself. Evidently, all the other members of the family were
in bed. Then he spent fifteen minutes preaching about the awful depravity of
the gang of office holders that compelled respectable business men to resort to
such ’doubtful means’ to protect their interests. Then he haggled about the
price--a petty $300--thought $200 ought to more than satisfy the ’public
leeches.’
"Naturally I
expected him to hand out the currency and finish the matter up. No, sir-ee! He
put his voice way down and confided to me that if I would go into the writing
room of a certain hotel, the next day at sharp noon, I’d see a man, at the
desk, wearing a speckled carnation. I was to wear one of the same breed. The
man would probably get up and go as I came in and I was to take the place he
vacated at the desk and look under the blotter for an envelope. There was a
scheme that, as a non-conductor of incriminating evidence, was worthy of a
sophomore detective, and I’ll bet it had taken Old Don a week to figure it out.
In spite of the fact that he was mighty nervous when he whispered the plan to
me, the faint smile on his lips as he finished his directions told me that he
thought it was about as cunning a scheme as was ever hatched.
"Well, it went
through like clockwork; the carnation man was there at the writing table, took
a look at my speckled posey and then got up and left. I dropped into his seat,
picked up the envelope from under the blotter and then went to deliver the
goods.
"A few months
later I received a telephone call from Old Don asking me to meet him the next
Sunday, in the park, at a certain hour. He was on hand and we took a walk into
the open where there could be no eavesdroppers. This time he didn’t waste any
breath in sermonizing about corrupt office holders, but plunged straight at the
business in hand. I told him how much it would cost--a thousand dollars--to fix
things up as he wanted them. After kicking on the price a little he finally
admitted that the amount was just what he had figured on. Then he suddenly
switched the subject, pointed to a distant tree and asked me if I could tell
what kind it was. A minute later he said he must go and started away. I said I’d
walk back to the cars with him when he incidentally remarked: ’Didn’t you drop
something?’
"On the ground was
a long manila envelope and I was just about to spear it with my cane when he
remarked: ’Oh! I wouldn’t do that.’
"Of course, I
tumbled then and picked up the envelope that he had dropped while I was looking
at the scenery. This was a little bolder step, and I wondered how long it would
take for the old capitalist to get actually careless.
"Not more than
three months later, my telephone rang and old Don’s voice called: ’Come over to
my office right away.’ I went and found my cunning, cautious old Captain of
Industry in a howling rage. He used a good deal of language detached at random
from the scriptures. After he once got it into his head that the only thing for
him to do was to put up and put up heavy, and that it would take at least
fifteen thousand dollars to grease the deal that he had in hand, old Don went
to the vault, brought out several packages, broke the seals and counted out the
money in bills of big denominations. As he lifted the last bill he exclaimed: ’Well
here goes fifteen thousand dollars to hell--and, damn their hides, I’ll never
give them another cent!’
"’No so loud!’ I
interrupted. ’You don’t seem to be quite as careful as you were at the start.
In fact, I’d call it just a trifle reckless--the way you’re carrying on today,
leaving your office door wide open and handing out the goods in plain sight.
Better use a little of the caution that you were so lavish with in the
beginning.’
"’The infernal
pirates!’ was all he answered, as he fished around and found a shoe box for me
to carry the money in.
"But it occurred
to me that, while all of us concerned in the dirty mess were pirates all right,
he was not only the captain of the crew but the chief enlisting officer. And if
I’ve been on the inside of one such deal I have in a hundred of ’em. There are
plenty of clean men at the head of big businesses, as there are lots of clean
men in politics--but I’ll tell you, Governor, that these reformers will never
bring the real forces of corruption to terms until they train their guns on the
Captains of Industry and quit throwing away their shells on the smaller fry who
are simply the errand boys of the capitalists."
Jim said a whole lot
besides this before we broke camp and went to bed that night; but the best
thing about it came out when the little woman joined us in the library and Jim
incidentally took hold of her hand and said:
"She knows all
about it, Governor; I made a clean breast of it before we were married. And she
didn’t have to do any private preaching or special exhorting to convert me to
her way of looking at the business, either. My moral senses had been stunted in
the atmosphere which I’d breathed from a boy up and I could justify every trick
I’d ever turned by a mighty handy and plausible line of philosophy--that is, I
could until I began to get in touch with her conscience. Then my moral eyes
began to open and the rottenness of the whole thing stood out before me so I
could really sense it. In fact, I could almost taste it. Right there I threw it
up, took to plain business and married the girl. I haven’t made more than a
quarter the money I used to when I was single and serving under the Black
Flag--but I’ve kept in the straight and narrow path and I never knew before
what it meant to be a man."
The wife gave his hand
a little squeeze and I thought I could see signs of mist in her eyes.
"Did you have any
of the money left over from the old chapter to begin the new one on?" I
asked.
"I should say not!
That kind of money doesn’t stick. If any one tells you that there isn’t any
difference in money, don’t you believe it, Governor. There’s just as much
difference in money as in folks. I didn’t believe that once, but I know it now.
You may put bad money--I mean money that comes in a crooked way--in a burglar
proof safe and it’ll get away. Mary and I’ve seen some rather tough times
scraping along, but all the money that we have had has been clean."
While I couldn’t bring
myself to feel with Jim, that about nine-tenths of the moral responsibility for
a corruption deal should be assessed to the capitalist as against one-tenth to
the fixer and the one fixed, I tell you, Ned, the boy is right in shouldering
the heft of the blame upon the Captain of Industry who is bound to have his
taxes reduced, his "interests protected," and his net income
increased no matter how many men he has to bribe to accomplish his purpose.
When your fighting blood is up and you want to get out after big game these
suggestions may be of service in pointing the way to something that is
practical and will hit the "great gilded God of Corruption" (as old
Cal Peavey used to say) right where he lives.
I’m glad that Kate
doesn’t like Washington life first rate. It shows she’s made of good sensible
stuff instead of being filled with the kind of sawdust that goes into the
regulation society doll. Give her my best regards.
Yours faithfully,
William Bradley.
In which Ned is told
several stories to show that a whole lot of well-meaning reformers fire their
guns at half-cock because they can’t get it through their systems that kissing
goes by favor--especially in political life--and that the system of reciprocal
backscratching has put through more doubtful legislation than was ever paid for
in the coin of the realm.
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
And so your committee
appointed to investigate the shocking irregularities of your distinguished
colleague from the old state has ordered a new whitewash brush and is going to
bring in a report to the effect that it finds nothing beyond the regulation
exchange of legislative back scratching--and that always has been and always
will be a stock article in the assortment of Congressional courtesies. To be
sure, it’s considerably shelf-worn and a trifle damaged, but there’ll never be
a time when it will fail to pass as current coin on the floor of any House.
A whole lot of
well-meaning reformers fire their guns at half-cock because they can’t get it
into their systems that kissing goes by favor. Unless human nature has changed
a good deal from what it was in the days when I used to occupy a bench in the
old school house of District No. 10, alongside Kitty Nolan and the red-headed
Crane girl, the same rule holds good today and has fewer exceptions than almost
any other rule in existence.
The reason why the
reformers and real investigating committees strike so many false leads and
blind trails is because they forget this interesting fact of human nature and
set it down that every kiss is marked in plain figures and is settled for in
cold coin or its equivalent in listed securities.
I’ll never forget a
little experience I had along this line, myself, in the days when I was
decidedly inexperienced in the devious paths of legislation. It was in my first
term in the House, back in the old state. The leader of the House had taken
good care of me in the matter of committees and, for all I knew, he was doing
business on the square. Consequently, I generally consulted him on anything
important that came up and, with few exceptions, acted on his advice. Probably
some of the other fellows put it that I took my orders from him.
One day he came to me
and said: "Here’s a bill for the opening of a street through the property
of a widow, in Riverville; I’ve talked with a fellow from there who says they’re
trying to do her. Now, I’m not much of a philanthropist, but my mother was a
widow and I like to see all of ’em get a good fair shake."
"All right,"
I replied. "I’m not very busy and I’ll see the boys and ask them to help
knock it out."
In a short time I had
enough votes herded to kill out the measure. Then it passed out of my
recollection altogether.
A little later a mighty
innocent looking bill incorporating a bridge company with rights to construct a
bridge across one-half the big stream at Riverville had slipped through first
and second reading. Somehow I just happened to notice it one day and began to
suspect that there was a crooked streak behind it. I knew old Simon Burns, the
king pin of Riverville politics, and, on the impulse of the moment, I wired him
to know if some of the fellows weren’t getting meat out of it. He answered:
"You bet. Don’t let her slip through. I’ll be there tomorrow."
There was a circus in
town when old Simon arrived and a good many of the livelier members were absent
from the House watching the girls in gauze shoot themselves through the hoops.
"We’ll spoil the
fun of that bunch over the river, all right," said Simon. "They’re
mostly from across the state line anyway. Just move the amendment that I’ve
fixed up and we’ll make their cake into dough in a jiffy."
The amendment simply
substituted for the original incorporators the names of a bunch of solid
business men in Riverville.
I saw that the right
minute had come and I sprung the amendment without waiting for another word of
explanation. It went through by unanimous consent, as slick as grease, and that
settled it. I thought nothing more about it excepting to enjoy the joke on the
fellows who had hatched the measure and left it without a home guard while they
went to the circus.
About a fortnight after
the close of the session, when I was wondering where my next law case would
come from and how I would pay the office rent, I received a telegram from old
Simon telling me to come at once to Riverville. He wasn’t given to sending out
any false alarms and so I responded. From his place he took he into a new
building, to an office that looked spanfired new and as neat as wax. Pointing
to a handsome walnut desk he said:
"Young man, that’s
your desk. You’re the general counsel of the Riverville Bridge & Iron
Company and your job is to keep the company out of trouble until the
construction work is finished. The salary will be $100 a month--and by the
looks of things I guess you’re likely to earn it all right. If you can’t keep
the coast clear we’ll lift you out bodily and get some one who can, in double
quick time. All you’ve got to do now is to wait for something to happen. Better
put in your leisure time talking with the superintendent and getting an idea of
what has been done and what’s likely to turn up."
Just then a hundred
dollars a month looked bigger to me than a thousand does now and I was mighty
anxious to hold down that job, I can tell you. The second day of my stay,
before I had more than located the points of the compass, a fellow came rushing
into the office, shouting for the "lawyer man." After he’d caught his
breath I managed to get out of him that the company’s whole force of workmen
had been arrested on a charge of riot and were on their way to a justice shop,
down the river.
Of course, I knew this
was a move of the men who had put up the scheme in the first place and who had
been knocked out by my amendment to the legislative bill of incorporation. When
I reached the justice shop, I found it packed and the lawyer for the other side
waiting to open up the legal battle. The law was as plainly on our side of the
case as my nose is on the front side of my face, but as fast as I could put up
the legal points, in the preliminary skirmish, the justice proceeded to turn
them down. There’s some chance of getting an opening with a packed jury--but
with a packed justice of the peace the unanimity of opposition is not only
oppressive but overwhelming.
It didn’t take me long
to figure that my salary of $100 a month was the real issue in the case and
that I’d get my dismissal in short order unless I could take a new twist on the
case--and take it mighty suddenly. Under the circumstances that "assured
income" loomed up on my mental horizon like a lighthouse in a fog. I did
some quick thinking and decided that the only thing to do was to spar for time
in the hope that some way out would open up in the natural course of proceedings.
On this plan I jockeyed along and took occasion to contest every move and
statement brought forward by the opposition.
The fight had been
drawn out by this plan of petty skirmishing for about an hour without the
slightest change in the situation, when a man leaned over my shoulder and said:
"Well, Bradley,
how are you making it?"
For my life I couldn’t
call the fellow’s name, although his face was familiar.
"Can’t quite place
me, eh?" he continued. "I’m Sam Evans--served in the last House but
didn’t make any particular noise, so I don’t blame you. But what about this
case?"
"The cards are all
stacked against me--the judge knocks out every point I raise without regard to
rhyme or reason. I guess the other side has got him all right--and this little
fight makes a whole lot of difference to me, too."
"It does,
eh?" he answered. "Well, I can tell you that if the judge knew you he
would give you a fair chance all right."
With this Evans left
me, went forward to the judge’s desk, chatted a moment with him and then
beckoned me to come to the desk.
"Judge
Heffer," he said, "I want you to know my friend and colleague, Mr.
Bradley. He’s the man who knocked out the bill in the legislature, to grab off
the widow’s property by putting that street through it."
"Glad to meet you,
sir," responded the Judge. "That bill was a most infamous attempt to
rob my sister of her rights--but I suppose we must go on with the case
now."
For a few minutes the
opposing lawyer seemed to have things his own way, but suddenly, when a vital
point arose, the Judge gave him a knock-out ruling. My heart gave a new thump
of hope and I took another grip on the salary proposition. In an hour the
tussle was over and I came out with a slick and clean victory. As I walked back
to the office the old saying, "kissing goes by favor," kept running
through my mind like the lines of an old song.
Later I had the nub of
that saying rubbed into me good and hard. It was the winter when old Shellbark
was governor. He could spit tobacco juice farther than any man on the state
payroll and he could certainly read and write in a fashion of his own--but he
didn’t take to either of those pursuits just by way of pastime, for that sort
of scholarly exercise was too much like work for him. Consequently he was
inclined to get as much help as possible along those lines.
That session the
General Assembly ground out more bills than were ever put through the Senate
and House before at any sitting. There were simply hundreds of them and they
were carried over to the Executive Mansion in bushel baskets. Among those bills
I had a measure that the people of my district wanted hard. It was straight as
a die, although local in its application. During the whole session I had
consistently put in my time snuffing out the loaded measures that came up--and
it so happened that a good share of those that I succeeded in burying were
engineered by Wash Peters, a little freckled runt of a for-revenue-only
statesman from a slum district, up in the city. Naturally my pernicious
activity made him sore and he swore he’d get even with me before the game was
finished. It made him especially mad when the boys gave me the name of
"the snake killer."
After the session was
closed I thought that everything was snug and safe and so I went home on the
first train. But Wash was in no hurry. He hung around the Executive Mansion
with his side partner and managed to be on hand that afternoon when the Governor
sat down to tackle the last bushel basket of bills. Shellbark sighed as he
started in on his long job and found the reading mighty slow work. Finally Wash
casually remarked:
"Governor, if Ed
and I can give you a lift by reading off them bills and handing ’em up to you,
we’re at your service--don’t want to crowd the mourners at all but--"
"Sure!"
interrupted old Shellbark, "draw right up and give me a boost."
In a short time the two
volunteer helpers were simply reading the titles and before the basket was half
emptied the Governor was signing bills on the say-so of the boys, and about as
fast as they could hand them up. Occasionally they would strike one that they
knew the Governor was not in sympathy with and it would be handed over with the
remark "Here’s a snake."
Along towards the last
Wash struck my pet bill, and quietly passed it over to Shellbark with the crisp
comment: "Another snake."
"Killed,"
answered the Governor as he put his veto upon it and reached out for the next
document.
Those two scoundrels
did more work that afternoon at the Governor’s desk than they’d done in a
week--but they taught me another lesson in kissing by favor as a fine art.
When you get right down
to brass tacks there’s a whole heap of variety in this kissing business, and I
never was more impressed with this than by the experience of Lemuel Horton, who
looked after the legal interests of a big corporation up in the city. He was as
bright as a new tin dipper but hadn’t had any particular experience in greasing
legislation. The boys got out after his company with a healthy assortment of
sandbags and he was sent down to kill off the bill. Like a good many of the
reformers he failed to take into consideration the fact that kissing goes by
favor and he calculated that it was a plain matter of buy and sell from start
to finish.
One of the first men he
struck was " Bull" Kelly, a senator who held the whiphand in most of
the underground work.
"You need just
four more votes in the Senate," said Bull, "to kill out the measure.
I’ll see the right fellows and tell you tonight just what it’ll take to cover
the bunch."
That night he reported
that $5,000 would do the business and that the necessary "Texas
steers" had been rounded up on that basis. The money was paid to Bull and
the bill was sidetracked.
When the session was
over, Lawyer Horton was one day surprised to receive a call from a go-between
who intimated that some of the senators who killed the objectionable bill had a
powerful poor opinion of the way one Lemuel Horton played the game.
Now Horton was a
sticker for honor according to his lights and he immediately invited Bull and
the three senators whose votes had been delivered to meet him in a certain
restaurant. They all entered appearance, had a good dinner and were just on the
point of leaving when Horton turned to Bull, and looking him straight in the
eye asked:
"Did I give you
$5,000 for your own vote and that of these three men?"
Without batting an eye
Bull replied:
"Sure you
did."
"And did you pass
any of it along to them?"
"Not on your life!
Let me tell you, sir, that I wouldn’t insult the honor of these gentlemen by
offering them a bribe. I asked them to vote against that bill just to oblige a
friend and they said they’d do it. And they did it, too. There isn’t a stain
upon their honor, sir, as big as a fly speck and I’ll defend them against the
slanders of the world."
Then, with a smile,
Bull buttoned up his coat, said "Good bye, boys," and walked out of
the door--fairly chuckling at the faces, blank with astonishment, that he left
behind him.
No, Ned, the history of
legislation can’t be written without due attention to the text of "kissing
by favor," and those who overlook this fact have yet to learn the game.
Yours as ever,
William Bradley.
Ned bas been elevated
to the United States Senate and William Bradley is much moved by this big jump
on the part of his protege. The old Governor cogitates on the question "Is
the game worth the candle" and concludes that it is "If you play it
square." Also he tells a story and points the moral: "Don’t get
toppy; don’t get sloppy, and don’t forget to put out an anchor to the
windward."
Brokenstraw Ranch,
----, 19--.
Dear Ned: --
Whew! but how things do
move! It doesn’t seem but a few months ago when you were all torn up the back
over the prospect of going to Congress. Now, before you’ve fairly had time to
acquire the Washington habit and get a line on the main features of the landscape,
the senior Senator from your state up and dies and your Governor promptly
appoints you to fill the vacancy, with four years of unexpired term to your
credit.
Of course it wouldn’t
look well in print, and I’ll have to haul you over the coals a good many times
to offset it, but I’m moved to remark, Ned, that the part these two statesmen
have played in your promotion constitutes, in my opinion, the most
distinguished and useful service they have ever rendered their state or the
nation at large--and I’ve known them both fairly well for a good many years, at
that.
When I opened your
telegram I flung my hat to the top of the haystack and let out a regular
old-time campaign yell. Then I went out to the cottonwood grove and sat down on
my "drumming log" to think things over. And as the breeze had fun
with the leaves and the sun snuggled down to the edge of the horizon line, I
couldn’t help doing a little figuring on the old question: Is the game worth
the candle?
After due debate I’m
prepared to answer: Yes--if you play it square! And, as Sister Buck used to say
in conference meeting, if I know my own heart I’m ready to answer at the last
roll-call for the deeds in the body. Occasionally I’ve come dangerously near
fighting the devil with fire and I’ve showed traces of Indian blood at times,
but I’ve played the game square according to Hoyle, and I say it without shame.
Some good people have only one rule for playing the game of politics--and that
is: Don’t play it at all. On that basis I confess judgment; but not on any
other.
I’ve kept a close watch
on you, Ned, right from the start, and I’ll confess that you’ve stood the test
straight from the beginning. According to my notion you’ve touched the top
notch in American politics for any man who has sense enough to know that he’s
neither weak enough nor strong enough to become President. For a real, live
statesman, a seat in the United States Senate is as fine a field in which to
start a furrow as he could find. But even there, you can’t shut your eyes to snags
ahead and you’ll have to face several of them.
Did you ever stop to
think that just two epitaphs will fit the tombstones of nine-tenths of the
politicians and statesmen that ever lived or will ever die? One is "Kicked
out" and the other is "Dead." The number of those who have
played the game and retired from choice wouldn’t make up into a respectable
snap caucus. The next four years will go past you like a scared jack rabbit and
then you’ll be a heap fiercer for a return to the Senate than you were for the
appointment you’ve just landed.
You’ll hanker for
"vindication at the hands of the people" as the hart panteth for the
waterbrooks--and besides that you’ll be loaded up with more unfinished business
than an open session of a woman’s club. Of course, right now you feel pretty
sure of your ground and the snags ahead are as far below the angle of your
vision as a divorce is to the bride who hasn’t shaken the rice out of her new
clothes. But just let your Uncle Bill offer a suggestion or two that may come
in handy four years from now, when the legislature meets to divide your
garments.
Don’t get toppy; don’t
get sloppy; and don’t forget to put out a few sheet anchors to the windward.
Along at the beginning
of my legislative service I had a mighty poor spell, weighed just a little more
than my shadow and found it hard sledding to sit up and take notice during the
day time. I guess I looked like one of Uncle Seth Wheeler’s lattice-work horses
after being turned out to browse on hazel-brush for a winter. We had a new
Speaker that session and he came to me, right at the start, and said:
"Young man, you’ve
got to favor yourself or you’ll go under. Here’s a key to my private room.
There’s a big lounge in there and I want you to make good use of it. Don’t be
afraid that something’ll slip through on the floor that you’re interested in. I’ll
keep a sharp eye out for you and when you’re needed I’ll send a page after
you."
That act of
thoughtfulness went right home to me, for I wasn’t cutting any wide swath then,
our party had a big working majority and I had been for another man for Speaker
in the caucus. In fact, Fire-eater--as we called the Speaker--hadn’t much to
gain by any attentions paid to me, and so I gave him credit for plain
friendliness without any discount on the score of policy. And everything he did
proved that he wasn’t toppy or inclined to throw his front feet. Well, I used
his room and saved my strength when I needed all of it I could muster.
The next year we were
due to elect a United States Senator and things were badly cut up on party
lines, especially in the city. I stood in with the big man in city politics and
he let me have my way about a good many things and listened to my advice about
others. There was one district in which we’d never elected a man and couldn’t
hope to. One of the Crane boys, from my home town, had settled there and was
running a big tin shop. He was strong with the Labor element and took a lively
interest in politics.
"Tom," I said
to him one day, "how would you like to go to the State Senate?"
"Why, of course I’d
like to--but I never thought of it as possible."
"But it is,"
I answered. "You get the Labor nomination and I’ll see to it that enough
of our men vote for you to beat the enemy. We can’t elect a man outright, but
our votes, combined with your own party strength, will put you through all
right."
He was wise enough to
know that there was something behind this move and so he came straight out and
asked:
"And then,
what?"
"Just this: if we
need your vote for a good man for United States Senator you’ll give it when I
say the word--and not till then."
"All right. I
guess I can trust you for that," he said. He landed the nomination and the
votes I threw his way elected him.
The first count of
noses when the new members were rounded up on the skirmish for organization
showed that we had just enough votes, to a man, to elect. But one of the
senators, who had been in the House where Fire-eater had given him a deserved
snub, gave it out that he wasn’t going into the caucus for, if the former
Speaker should get the party nomination, he wouldn’t vote for him under any
consideration and all kingdom-come couldn’t force him to, either.
As I was chairman of
the State Central Committee, it was up to me to bring him into line and, at
first, I tried persuasion. But the more I argued the higher he tilted his nose
and the louder he swore that he’d stand out ’till grass sprouted again.
The morning after the
gathering of the clans at the capitol Fire-eater sat down at my table in the
hotel and told stories all through the breakfast. As we arose he said:
"Bill, I’d like to see you up in my room sometime this morning."
"All right,"
I responded, "but there’s one thing I want to say to you now."
"No," he
interrupted, "save it ’till later."
"But I don’t wish
to," I insisted. "You haven’t said a word to me about your position
on the Senatorial fight, and before you do I’m going to tell you that I’m--for
you!"
He grabbed my hand with
a squeeze that made me cringe and said:
"Never mind about
coming to the room. Just tell me if you’ve got a list of our new fellows."
I handed him out the
document and his eye took in the names with a sweep. Then he pulled three
letters out of his pocket and filled in the post office address, commenting:
"These were the
only ones I missed out of the bunch. All the others are reading their letters
of congratulation by this time."
That was Fire-eater all
over! He was right on the dot every time. The old Senator put in his appearance
two days later and said: "Give me a copy of the list in the next few
days--no hurry." And, seeing he felt that way about it, I didn’t hurry,
either.
Well, Fire-eater
skinned him to death in the caucus, and then the lime light shifted to the
obstreperous State Senator who had staid out of the caucus, breathing
threatenings and slaughter against the regular nominee.
No one of the men in
the party beside myself knew of the card that I held up my sleeve in the shape
of my friend the Labor senator. First I made sure he would stand up to the rack
if I called him--then I went up to the bolter’s room for a little chat.
When I asked him if he
hadn’t concluded to back into the fills and be good he bawled out:
"Never!"
"Look here,"
I came back at him, "You’ll vote for him--and on the first ballot, too, by
Mighty! And after that you’ll get just what’s coming to you, which is small
potatoes. You’ll shed your importance in about a minute."
Meantime the situation
was strung up tighter than the G-string of a fiddle and the one who felt the
strain most was the little wife of Fire-eater. She was in the gallery when the
show-down came in the shape of the roll-call. Tom’s name came before the
upstart Senator’s. I walked to the tinsmith’s desk and simply whispered to him:
"Pass for the present." As the bolter saw me do this his face turned
gray with rage. Then his name was called. He stood up, balked, and finally said:
"Under protest and in the interest of harmony--" The little woman in
the gallery jumped plumb out of her seat when the renegade voted--and he was
never allowed to finish his explanation.
"I’ve a good
notion to vote with you anyway," Tom said to me as the applause died down,
but I told him to hold off as it wasn’t necessary to go against his party.
For the rest of the
session I took solid comfort in handing out sackcloth and ashes in liberal
portions to that renegade Senator who tried to throw us--and when he came up
for re-election I finished up the job by seeing that he was left at home. But
it always scared me to think of what would have happened to us that year if I
hadn’t put out an anchor to the windward in the way of the deal that elected
the little tinsmith to the State Senate on the Labor ticket.
Remember some of these
things when you face the fight four years from now--and don’t forget to let me
know when you’re going to make your maiden speech in the Senate--for I want to
be on hand. And tell the wife I’m not a bit ashamed of the boy who dodged the
widow and has patiently stood for a whole lot of advice from an old stager.
Yours ever, William
Bradley.