_ CHAPTER XXVI. THE BATTLES OF WASHINGTON
At twenty minutes after 12 Senator Langdon and Secretary Haines were still undisturbed by any move on the part of Peabody and Stevens, who maintained a silence that to Haines was distinctly ominous. His experience at the Capitol had taught him that when the Senate machine was quiet it was time for some one to get out from under.
Miss Williams, the naval committee's stenographer, entered.
"Senator Langdon," she said, "Senator Peabody and Senator Stevens are in committee room 6, and they told me to tell you that they'd be--I can't say it. Please, sir, I--"
"D--d," interpolated Langdon, laughing.
"Yes, sir, that's it. They'll be--that--if they come in here at 12:30. You must come to them, they say."
"Tell the gentlemen I'm sitting here with my hat on the back of my head, smoking a good see-gar, with nails driven through both shoes into the floor--and looking at the clock."
At 12:25 Senator Stevens entered.
"I came to warn you, Langdon," he said, "that Senator Peabody's patience is nearly exhausted. You must come to see him at once if you expect the South to get a naval base at Altacoola or anywhere else. If you do not agree to take his advice this naval bill and any other that you are interested in now or in future will be trampled underfoot in the Senate. Mississippi will have no use for a Senator who cannot produce results in Washington, and that will prove the bitterest lesson you have ever learned."
"I'm waiting for Peabody here, Stevens."
"Oh, ridiculous! Of course he's not coming. Why, Langdon, he's the king of the Senate. He has the biggest men of the country at his call. He's--"
"He's got one minute left," observed Langdon, looking at the clock, "but he'll come. I trust Peabody more than the best clock made at a time like this, when--"
The figure of the senior Senator from Pennsylvania appeared in the doorway.
"Good-day, Senator Langdon," he remarked, icily.
"Same to you. Have a see-gar, Senator?" said Langdon. He turned and winked significantly at Haines.
The three Senators seated themselves.
"I suppose you wouldn't consider yourself so important, Langdon, if you knew that we now find we can get another member of the naval affairs committee over to our side for Altacoola?" began Peabody. "That gives us a majority of the committee without your vote."
"That wouldn't prevent me from making a minority report for Gulf City and explaining why I made that report, would it?" the Mississippian asked, blandly.
Peabody and Stevens both knew that it wouldn't. Stevens exchanged glances with "the boss of the Senate," and in low voice began making to Langdon a proposition to which Peabody's assent had been gained.
"Langdon, we would like to be alone," and he nodded toward Haines.
"Sorry can't oblige, Senator," Langdon replied. "Bud and I together make up the Senator from Mississippi."
"All right. What I want to say is this: The President is appointing a commission to investigate the condition of the unemployed. The members are to go to Europe, five or six countries, and look into conditions there, leisurely, of course, so as to formulate a piece of legislation that will solve the existing problems in this country. A most generous expense account will be allowed by the Government. A member can take his family. A son, for instance, could act as financial secretary under liberal pay."
"I've heard of that commission," said Langdon.
"Well, Senator Peabody has the naming of two Senators who will go on that commission, and I suggested that your character and ability would make you--"
"Good glory!" exclaimed Langdon. "You mean that my character and ability would make me something or other if I kept my mouth shut in the Senate this afternoon! Stevens, I've been surprised so many times since I came to the capital that it doesn't affect me any more. I'm just amused at your offer or Senator Peabody's.
"I want to tell you two Senators that there's only one thing that I want in Washington--and you haven't offered it to me yet. When you do I'll do business with you."
"What's that? Speak out, man!" said Peabody, quickly.
"A square deal for the people of the United States."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed "the boss of the Senate. Is this Washington or is it heaven?"
"It is not heaven, Senator," put in Haines.
"Man alive!" cried Peabody, "I've been in Washington so long that--"
"So long that you've forgotten that the American people really exist," retorted Langdon; "and there are more like you in the Senate, all because the voters have no chance to choose their own Senators. The public in most States have to take the kind of a Senator that the Legislature, made up mostly of politicians, feels like making them take. You, Peabody, wouldn't be in the Senate to-day if the voters had anything to say about it."
The Pennsylvanian shrugged his shoulders.
"And now I'll tell you honorable Senators," went on Langdon, thoroughly aroused, "something to surprise you. I have discovered that you were not working for yourselves alone in the Altacoola deal, but that you intend to turn your land over to the Standard Steel Company at a big profit as soon as this naval base bill is passed. Then that company will squeeze the Government for the best part of the hundred millions that are to be spent."
The Senator sank back in his chair and gazed at his two opponents.
Those two statesmen jumped to their feet.
"Come, Stevens, let him do what he will. We cannot stay here to be insulted by the ravings of a madman," cried the Pennsylvanian. But he brought his associate to a standstill midway to the door. "By the way, Langdon, what is it you are going to do in the Senate this afternoon?" he asked, "You said you were going to make us honest against our will. You know you can't do anything."
Bud Haines turned his face toward the speaker and grinned broadly, to the Senator's intense discomfort.
"I'll do more than that," announced Langdon, rising and pounding a fist into his open hand. "I'll make you and Stevens more popular than you ever were in your lives before."
"Bah!" shouted Peabody.
"I'll do even more yet. I'm going to make you generous--patriots. And, I regret to say, I'll give you the chance to make the hits of your careers."
The polished hypocrites looked at him, too astonished to move.
"How? What?" they gasped.
Swept on by his own enthusiasm and the force of his own courageous honesty, the voice of the Southerner rose to oratorical height.
"This afternoon," he exclaimed, "when the naval base committee makes its report, I will rise in my place and declare that for once in the history of the Senate men have been found who place the interests of the Government they serve above any chance of pecuniary reward. These men are the members of the naval base committee.
"With this idea in view, realizing that dishonest men would try to make money out of the Government, these members of the naval base committee, after they settled on Altacoola, went out quietly and secured control of all the land that will be needed for the naval base, and these men secured this at a very nominal figure. Now they are ready to turn over their land to the Government at exactly what they paid for it, without a cent of profit.
"Then they're going to sit up over there in that Senate. They're going to realize that a new kind of politics has arrived in Washington--the kind that I and lots of others always thought there was here.
"And, gentlemen"--he advanced on his colleagues triumphantly--"when I, Senator Langdon of Mississippi, your creation in politics, have finished that speech, I dare one of you to get up and deny a word!"
"The boss of the Senate" and his satellite were dumfounded. Firmly believing that Langdon could find no way to pass the bill for Altacoola and yet spoil their crooked scheme, they were totally unprepared for any such denouement. To think that a simple, old-fashioned planter from the cotton fields of Mississippi could originate such a plan to outwit the two ablest political tricksters in the Senate!
Langdon eyed his colleagues triumphantly.
Peabody, however, was thinking quickly. He was never beaten until the last vote was counted on a roll call. He knew that, no matter how apparently insurmountable an opposition was, a way to overcome it might often be found by the man who exercises strong self-control and a trained brain. This corrupt victor in scores of bitter political engagements on the battlefield of Washington was now in his most dangerous mood. He would marshal all his forces. The man to defeat him now must defeat the entire Senate machine and the allies it could gain in an emergency; he must overcome the power of Standard Steel; he must fight the resourceful brain of the masterful Peabody himself.
Peabody whispered to Stevens, "We must pretend to be beaten,"
Then the Pennsylvanian advanced, smiling, to Langdon and held out his hand.
"Senator Langdon," he said, "I'm beaten. You've beaten the leader of the Senate, something difficult to believe. What's more, you've given me the chance of a lifetime to become known as a public benefactor. As soon as you've finished your speech in the Senate I will get up and make another one--to second yours. Here's my hand. Anything you may ever want out of Peabody in the future shall be yours for the asking."
Langdon refused to grasp the proffered hand.
Senator Stevens made a show of protesting against his superior's seeming surrender.
"But," he objected, "look here--"
Peabody turned upon him instantly.
"Oh, shut up, Stevens; don't be a fool. Come on in. The water's fine."
The pair of schemers, with Norton at their heels, turned away.
The Pennsylvanian drew Stevens into committee room 6 and, ordering the stenographer to leave, drew up chairs where both could sit, facing the door.
"We've thrown dust in that old gander's eyes," whispered Peabody. "It's now ten after 1. He is to be recognized to make his speech at 3:30. That gives us two hours and twenty minutes--"
"Yes, but for what?" asked Stevens, excitedly. "I've been trying myself to think of something. What will you do--what
can you do?"
"The boss of the Senate" smiled patronizingly on the senior Senator from Mississippi, as though amused and scornful of his limitations as a strategist, as a tenacious fighter. Then his jaw set hard, and his brows contracted.
"I will not do anything. I cannot do anything"--he hesitated a full ten seconds--"but Jake Steinert can."
Stevens' hands twitched nervously.
"And," continued Peabody, "I'm expecting a 'phone call from him any moment. I told him this morning that he might be able to make $1,000 before night if--"
The telephone bell at the desk interrupted him.
Peabody leaned over and eagerly clutched the receiver.
The senior Senator from Mississippi jerked himself to his feet. He stood at a window and looked out over the roof tops of the city. _