The Ramrodders Part 14

You'll be up against them. You understand men. I'll only be wasting time in telling you what you'll see for yourself. Do you want to see a man like Enoch Dudley representing this district? If you do, go ahead and write that letter!"

"You'll not do that, Harlan," stated the chairman, with decision. "As it stands now, whatever they say about this caucus will be simply the whinings of a licked opposition. We know how to handle that kind of talk. There isn't a man on our side, from Sylvester to Urban Cobb, who will open his mouth, even if the thumb-screws are put to him. Harlan, are you the kind of a fellow that would hold your grandfather up before the people of this State in any such light? Of course you are not!"

"No, I don't suppose I am," acknowledged the young man. "But I can decline to run."

The State chairman pulled his chair close, and tapped emphasis on the candidate's knee.

"No, you can't. It would give 'em the one fact that they need for a foundation to build their case on. What you've got to do, Harlan, is accept this nomination, just as it is handed to you. Stand up and fight for your election like a man. The thing may look rank to you. Politics usually looks rank to a beginner, who has to get down and fight on the level of the other fellow. But you'll understand things better after you get along a little further. If you back out now you're leaving your grandfather open to attack. Those dogs can only bark, now. If you let 'em past you they'll have a chance to set their teeth in. Harlan, you think too much of your grandfather to do such a thing as that, don't you?"

The three of them sat in silence for a while.

"I hate to say anything just now, my boy," said the old man, at last. He leaned forward, his elbows on the arms of his chair. "Luke has put it to you a little stronger than I should have done. I don't want to beg you or coax you. If you think it's too much of a sacrifice to stand by me--if you want to quit, and can't look at it in any other way, go ahead. I can fight it out alone. I've had a good many lone fights. I'm good for one more. But before you say what you're going to say, I've got a last word to drop in. You know how I've dealt with men in business matters, my boy."

"But why can't you do the same in politics?" demanded his grandson, bitterly.

"It's just on that point that I want to put you right. I know pretty well why you haven't hankered to get into politics, Harlan. You've heard some of the sneers, slurs, and the gossip. You didn't know much about it, but you sort of felt ashamed of me on account of politics. Hold on!

I know. It has been a kind of shame and pity mixed, like one feels for a drunkard in the family. This caucus seemed to you like a spree--and you got mixed into it, and you're angry with me. Listen: there are people in this world who won't allow that a man is honest in politics unless he goes about hunting for all the measures that might help him personally and kills 'em. And the same yellow-skins that howl because he doesn't do that would turn around and cuss him for seventeen kinds of a fool if he did, and ruined himself by doing it. I haven't stolen, boy. I've given my time and my energies to developing this State. I've seen it prosper and grow big. And I've shared in the prosperity by seeing that my own interests got their rights along with the rest. I'm where I can look back. And I can't see where the reputation of being a saint who cut off his own fingers for a sacrifice would help me get endorsers at the bank or find friends I could borrow money from. Harlan, boy, I'm an old man.

I can't live much longer. A little reputation of some kind or another will live after me. I want you to know the right of it. And the only way for you to find out is to be what I have been. Hearing about it won't inform you. I want you to meet the men and play the game. I want you to realize that when I say I've done the best I could, I'm telling you the truth. Harlan, stand up here with me. Give me your hand. Say that you'll stand by the old man in this one thing--the biggest he ever has asked of you. It's a matter between the Thorntons, boy!"

There had been an appeal in his voice that was near wistfulness. And while he talked the wisdom that had come from the mouth of a child that evening threaded its own quaint appeal into the argument of the grandfather. Resentment and obstinacy, if they be tempered with youth, cannot fight long against affection and the ties of blood.

Harlan took his grandfather's hand.

"That's my boy!" cried the Duke, heartily, and he slipped his arm about his grandson's shoulders and patted him.

"It straightens things out a good deal," observed Presson, with the practicality of the politician. "Harlan, you're going to find a winter at the State House worth while. With your grandfather to set you going right and post you up, you ought to make good."

"I'd like to have a little light on one point," remarked the young man, curtly. He felt again the irritating p.r.i.c.k of resentment. "What am I to be down to that legislature--myself, or Thelismer Thornton's grandson?"

"You can't afford to throw good advice over your shoulder," protested the chairman--"not when it comes from a man that's had fifty years of experience."

"Hold on, Luke, don't set the boy off on the wrong track. I know how he feels. Harlan, you're going down there just as I said you're going--with an open mind, clean hands, good, straight American spirit to do right just so far as a man in politics can do right! I want you to see for yourself. If you want my help in anything you shall have it. But it'll be Gramp advising his boy--not a boss, hectoring. Believe that!"

"You needn't be afraid of the city fellows," advised Presson.

Harlan stood up before them, earnest, intense, determined.

"A fellow placed as I have been has this much advantage over city chaps, and I'm going to take courage from it," he said: "I've had a chance to read. There are long evenings in the woods, and I haven't been able or obliged to kill time at clubs and parties. I have read, Mr. Presson. I don't know how much good it has done me. That remains to be found out.

Perhaps a fellow who reads and hasn't real experience gets a wrong viewpoint. But this much I do believe: a man can be honest, himself, in politics, and can find enough honest men to stand with him. I'm going to try, at any rate. For if there's any dependence to be put in what I read there's something serious the matter in public affairs."

"Going to start a reform party, young man?" chuckled the State chairman.

He had seen and tested youthful ideals before in his political experience.

"I didn't mean it that way. I wasn't talking about myself. I'll be only a little spoke in the wheel, sir. But I mean to say that when I get to the State House I'm going to hunt up the men who believe in a square deal, and I'm going to train with 'em." He spoke a bit defiantly. It was youth declaring itself. It was a spark from the fire that Ivus Niles had kindled by his sneers.

"Boy," said the old man, cheerfully, "you're prancing just a bit now.

But you needn't be afraid of me, because I said I'd help you. The first thing I'll do will be to take you around and introduce you to the men down in the legislature who are proposing to reform the State. So you see I mean right!"

The State chairman seemed much amused. He chuckled.

The Duke walked to the end of the porch and gazed up at the Jo Quacca hills, where the dim, red glow still shone against the sky.

"So it took down three stands of buildings, did it, Harlan?" he called.

"Did you tell the boys we'd settle promptly, and for them to keep away from the lawyers?"

"I arranged it the best I could and got their promise. But they seem to know the fire was set on purpose, and are pretty gruff about it."

"Of course the fire was set on purpose--and I have a right to clear my own land when I want to. But I know how to settle, bub, so as to turn their vinegar to cream. For when I square a political debt, whether it's pay or collect, there's no scaling down! Full value--and then a little over!"

He came back and as he pa.s.sed he tweaked Harlan's ear.

"It's been a hard day, boy! Come on, let's all three go to bed."

CHAPTER IX

IN THE CENTRE OF THE BIG STATE WEB

Chairman Presson, going his way next morning, had to confess to himself that he did not have much to do with the workings of the Fort Canibas caucus. But it was worth while to see it. It revealed the character of the opposition throughout the State. And he did a notable job in the publicity line immediately. That was his opportunity of "rallying to the flag." The Duke had got his blow in first; the chairman of the State Committee got his news in first--for the State machine controlled the princ.i.p.al newspapers.

First news, put right, wins. The caucus in Fort Canibas exposed the methods of "so-called reformers"--as the report of it was set forth in print. And that news was a tocsin for town committeemen who had been dozing.

Thelismer Thornton, House leader, party boss, knight of the old regime, and representative of all that the reformers had been inveighing against, still controlled his district. That fact was impressed upon all. And the more vociferous the resulting complaints of the opposition, the more apparent it became that it was no mere skirmish party that had been sent out against him; he had whipped the generals themselves. His methods were mentioned discreetly; his results were made known to all men.

The fact that it was his grandson who had been nominated was not emphasized as an item of general knowledge. That "Thornton had been nominated" was. It was the essential point.

It was accepted as a tip by the many who were waiting and wondering just what this reform movement would accomplish in actual results--and that means ability to own and distribute plums. It s.h.i.+fted the complexion of many caucuses, or rather fixed that complexion, without any one being the wiser; for the managers of districts had been waiting for tips without saying anything in regard to their uncertainty. That's an essential in practical politics--being able to wait without letting any one know of the waiting. It gives a man his chance to cheer with the winner and declare himself an "original." The convert is never half as precious in politics as an "original." It is in heaven that the joy over the sinner who repenteth is comforting and extreme. In politics the first men on the band-wagon get the hand and what's in it.

And yet, as the tide of caucuses swelled and reports of results flowed into State headquarters, Chairman Presson and his lieutenants found themselves unable to mark men with the old cert.i.tude of touch. There was a queer kind of slipperiness everywhere. It was evident that the Canibas result had stiffened backbones in many quarters, but more new men than usual were coming forward with nominations in their fists. Many of these men were not telling any one how they felt on the big questions that were agitating the State. Some announced themselves with the usual grandiloquent generalities. It is easy enough to say that one believes in reform and good citizens.h.i.+p, for one can construe that later to suit circ.u.mstances.

The reformers were making a great deal of noise, mostly threats. They were pa.s.sing to candidates specific questions as to their stand on the larger issues. Many candidates who had subscribed and declared themselves dodged up to headquarters on the sly and a.s.sured the State chairman that they had pledged their positions because it seemed to be a reform year, and they had to do something to shut up the yawp of the reformers. When they privately a.s.sured Presson that they would be found on the right side just the same after election, he took heart for a moment, and then was downcast after they were gone; it was tabulating liars--an uncertain job. Presson listened and took what courage he could, but the asterisks in his lists confessed his doubts.

"There's a line of stars down those lists that would puzzle the man who invented political astronomy," he told his intimates. "But I don't dare to go looking for the trouble right now. It'll be like a man looking for measles in his family of thirteen; it'll break out if it's there--he won't have to hunt for it."

The Republican State Convention was called for late June. The party managers believed that it would clarify the situation somewhat; "it would afford an opportunity for conference and free debate on the big questions where division of opinion existed," so the party organs a.s.sured their readers day by day. Chairman Presson asked them to drum this idea into the heads of the people.

But what he told himself and the secret council was that there needed to be a round-up where some of the wild steers could be thrown and branded before they should succeed in stampeding the main herd. It was a situation that called for one of the good, old-fas.h.i.+oned "nights before." For a practical politician knows that speeches and band music do not make a convention; they merely ratify the real convention; the real convention is held "the night before," behind closed doors at the headquarters hotel.

There were two candidates for the gubernatorial nomination. The natural legatee of the old regime in his party was in line, of course. He had been in line for ten years, as his predecessors had waited before him.

He had served apprentices.h.i.+p after the usual fas.h.i.+on: had given his money and his time; he had won the valuable t.i.tle which only he who has suffered and has been bled can win, that of "the logical candidate."

But that seemed not the halcyon year for "the logical candidate."

The inevitable had happened in the matter of political succession. There had been too long a line of successors. The machine had become too close a corporation. A machine, over-long in power, by the approved process of making itself strong makes itself weak. It must pa.s.s around the offices. When it picks the best men it makes enemies of all those it disappoints. That includes princ.i.p.als and followers. For a time these "best men" have enough of a personal following to repel boarders. But party "best men" must make enemies in fortifying themselves and their friends.

Every time a matter is decided between factions, or a political seeker wins a subordinate job, a rival and his friends are sent away to sulk.