Albert Payson Terhune

“ Then he went down under an avalanche of Conover rowdies, giving and taking blows as he was borne headlong to the floor. Through the tumult, the pounding of Bourke’s gavel upon the table was like the unheeded rat-tat of a telegraph ticker in a tornado. It was fifteen minutes before a semblance of order had been restored. By that time there were on every side a kaleidoscopic vista of bleeding 203noses, torn clothing, and battered, wrathful faces.
Thus it was that, at the cost of a brief interim of fruitless rioting, the Machine had its way. ”

“ It always has won. It rests with us here to-day, now and in this hour, to decide whether a new Proclamation of Emancipation is to be issued or whether the great Democratic party in the Mountain State shall continue to be the chattel, the credulous, simple, weak-kneed, backboneless, hopeless, helpless victim of the greediest, most corrupt railroad that ever trailed its steel shackles across the face of the earth. Whether or not the Boss-guided Machine shall beat us to earth and hold us there forever. ”

“ But Caleb had no mind to wait for trifles. The night wind was in his face, the furious horse whirling and rearing between his vice-like knee-grip.
“All right!” shouted Conover in glorious excitement, signalling to the struggling groom to release the bit. “All right! Let him go! Never mind the hat. Come on, Giles.”
Dunderberg, his head freed, leaped forward as from a catapult. Master and man thundered away down the drive, and were swallowed in the blackness. The double roar of flying hoofs grew fainter, then was lost in the solemn hush of the autumn night. ”

“ Then, when I try to help the people you have ground to the dirt—when I try to wipe the filthy stain from the Mountain State’s shield—even then you will not fight me fair, as man to man. You stab in the back, like any other common felon, and you feel so secure in your own stolen position, that you actually boast of it, and propose to continue your damnable knifing tactics. Why, Caleb Conover, you don’t even know how vile a thing you are! ”

“ To Caleb Conover’s unbounded horror and amaze, Enid, instead of spurning him haughtily, burst into a crescendo, throaty gurgle of contralto weeping, and flung herself bodily upon him; her long-gloved arms twining about his neck, her pompadoured head snuggling into his bosom.
“Oh, Father! Father!” came a muffled, yet artistic wail from somewhere in the region of his upper waistcoat buttons. “How can you? You’ve broken Gerald’s heart. And now you’re breaking mine. Forgive us!”
“Miss Lanier!” ”

“ If I try to turn the people out of their rights in the Legislature and they stand for it, who’s got a kick coming? Once in a blue moon some man whose brains have all run to lungs—nothing personal—gets up and shouts to the people that they’re being conned. Sometimes—not this time, mind you—they believe it, and they throw over the Machine and elect a bunch of wall-eyed reformers that know as much about practical politics as a corn-fed dodo bird knows about theology. ”

“ It was one of the sights of Granite to see Caleb Conover careering down the main avenue of the residence district, backing some foaming, plunging hunter, whose wildest efforts could never shake that stiff, indomitable figure from its seat. With walloping elbows and jerking shoulders, the Railroader was wont to thunder his way at top speed up and down suburban byways; inciting his horse to its worst tricks, tempting it to buck, kick, wheel or rear. ”

“ You’re a terribly original feller, Standish! That remark, now, about all men being ‘born equal.’ It was made in the first place, wasn’t it, by a white-wigged, short-panted hero who owned more slaves than he could count? ‘Born equal!’ Maybe all men are. But by the time they’re out of swaddling-clothes they’ve got bravely over it. That old Jefferson proverb’s responsible for more anarchy and scraps, and strikes and grumbling and hard-luck stories, than all the whole measly dictionary put together. ”

“ Let them call me bolter, if they will! Let them call me traitor, ingrate, renegade! I would rather be a bolter than a thief. I would rather rip my party, dearly as I love it, to rags and tatters, than to sacrifice my own self-respect any longer! I would rather see the Democratic party pass from existence altogether than to see it continue the tool and the creature of greed and dishonesty.
“Yes, they may call me bolter, and properly so, for I am going to bolt this convention! ”

“ In Grafton, too, stronghold of Democracy. This means the State for Standish by an easy 4,000, maybe more. And who’s to blame? Are you? Am I? Not us! We’ve had—the whole party’s had—our hands tied behind us. And we were sent in to fight like that. Could we use the good old moves? Not us! It must be kid-glove, silk-sock, amachoor politics, meeting Standish on his own ground. No wonder he licked us! A Prohibitionist could have licked men that were hampered like we were. And who was it tied our hands? Who got the party beat and the Machine smashed? Who did it? Caleb Conover! ”

“ To promise not to molest him in any way, not to allow your rowdies to break up his meetings nor to prevent him from hiring halls. Not to stuff the ballot-boxes, falsify the returns, employ ‘floaters’ or—in short, I want you to give him an equal chance with yourself; to conduct the campaign honestly, and to leave the issue solely to the voters. Will you do this?”
“And if I beat him at that?”
“If you are elected by an honest majority, that is no concern of ours. All I demand is that you fight in the open and leave the result to the people.”
Caleb thought in silence for a few moments. ”

“ From the slums and the dark places of the city’s underworld the long-trained servants of the Machine had swarmed to the polls, overwhelming all opposition from the smaller and more respectable element, and had carried Granite tumultuously for Conover. ”

“ Promptly at twelve o’clock Shevlin, in his newly acquired capacity of State Chairman, called the convention to order. He had judiciously distributed bunches of his best trained shouters where they would do the most good. This claque, glad to earn their money, kept an eye on their sub-captains and cheered at the slightest provocation. They cheered Shevlin as he brought the gavel down sharply on the oak table in front of him, and went through the customary rigmarole of announcing the purposes of the convention. ”

“ He was primitive man, gigantic, furious, terrible; battling against hopeless odds. Yet battling (as had those ancestors from whom his yellow hair, great shoulders and bulldog jaw were inherited) all the more gladly and doughtily because of those very odds.
He was aware of a man who, running along the box rail from the stage, had dropped to his side and stood swinging a gilded, blue-cushioned box-chair about his head. This apparition and the whizzing sweep of his odd weapon caused the toughs to give back for an instant.
“Good old Ansel!” panted Clive. ”

“ It’s irregular, but there’s easy a quorum of district leaders here. Who’ll it be that steps into Caleb Conover’s shoes? Who’ll say he’s strong enough to hold the reins he thinks I’m too weak to handle? Who’ll it be? I lifted the party and every man here from the dirt to a higher, stronger place than anyone dreamed they could be lifted. Who’ll hold ’em there now that I stand aside? Speak up! Choose your leader!”
“CONOVER!” yelled Billy Shevlin ecstatically. ”

“ But now you’re married, I suppose your husband——”
“But, Mr. Conover,” broke in the prince, with more eagerness than Caleb had ever before seen on his placid exterior, “I think you fail to understand. I—we——”
“What are you driving at?” snapped Conover. “Do you mean you can’t support your wife?”
“Papa!” cried Blanche, in distress, “for once in your life try not to be coarse. It isn’t a question of support. It is the custom——”
“For a father to pay a man to marry his girl? I can’t see it myself, though now you speak about it, I seem to have read or heard something of the sort. ”

“ Here, stop that damned snivelling, Blanche! You know how I hate it. I’m stung all right, and it’s too late to squeal. The only time there’s any use in crying over spilt milk is when there’s a soft-hearted milkman cruising around within hearing distance. And from where I sit, I don’t see any such rushing to my help. You’ll get your ‘dot’ all right. Just as you knew you would before you put up that whimper. We’ll fix up the details when I’ve got more time on my hands.
“Only, I want you and me and this prince-feller of yours to understand each other, clear. ”

“ From pleasure Clive felt a growing uneasiness. The majority of the audience seemed to have relapsed into silence, and were staring about them in wonder at the unduly continued 128ovation. The thumping of feet and canes and the shouts of welcome increased rather than diminished. It settled down into a steady volume of sound, regular and rhythmic, shaking the whole auditorium, losing any hint at spontaneity and degenerating into a deafening, organized babel.
The men on the platform glanced at each other in angry bewilderment. ”

“ That it had come from the Conover camp he could not doubt. He had heard, before Caleb’s hint of the previous afternoon, that there was a certain discontent and vague rumor of treachery, in more than one of the multifarious branches of the Boss’s business and political interests. For the unexpected strength developed by the Civic League and the eloquence of its candidate had shaken divers of the enemy’s less resolute followers, and more than one of these might readily seek to curry future favor with the winning side by casting just such an anchor to windward. ”

“ And in the centre of the exultant babel stood Caleb Conover, unmoved save for a sneering smile that twisted one corner of his hard mouth, the only man present who was not carried away by that crazy wave of reactive enthusiasm.
“Staatz,” observed the Railroader, as the hubbub at length died down, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a wee peckle longer for that leadership. But cheer up. Everything comes to the man who waits—till no one else wants it. I’ve got one thing more to say, and then my ‘talking’ will be done for good, as far as you men are concerned. ”

“ New York’s a city with about two millions of people living on Manhattan Island alone. We out-of-town jays are told these two millions are a gay, abandoned, fashionable lot that spend their days in the congenial stunt of piling up fortunes and their nights in every sort of high jinks that can cost money and keep ’em up till dawn. ”

“ Caleb Conover stepped back to the wall, his florid face gray.
“You MARRIED a chorus girl?”
“She—her family before the war——”
Caleb had himself in hand.
“Get up!” he ordered. “You haven’t money enough nor earning power enough to buy those boards you’re sprawling on. Yet you saddle yourself with a wife—a wife you can’t support. A woman who will down all your social hopes. ”

“ The thickset form of the Railroader, massive of shoulder and sturdily full of limb, was ever plunging forward to grip some favored newcomer by the hand, or darting to one side or the other as he whispered instructions to servant or relative. ”

“ On waged the fight. Disinterested outsiders beyond the scope of the Machine’s attraction were daily drawn, by hundreds, into the Standish camp. In the country districts his strength grew steadily and rapidly. The people at large were aroused, not to the usual pitch of illogical hysteria incident on a movement of the sort, but to a calm, resolute jealousy of their own public rights. Which latter state every politician knows to be immeasurably the more dangerous of the two.
Conover’s efforts, on the other hand were already bearing fruit. ”