_ CHAPTER XIX. CONSCIENCE ENLISTING A RECRUIT
A man who stood at the head of the stairs, an outpost, saw them coming and ran and opened a door ahead of them. The door admitted to a hall which was packed with men who were ranged on settees and stood in the aisles and at the sides of the big room.
"Make way for the Honorable Archer Converse," shrieked their
avant courier, excitedly.
"Three cheers for the Honorable Archer Converse," called a voice, and all the men came on to their feet and yelled lustily.
The distinguished guest climbed upon the platform--Farr close at his heels. The young man placed a chair for the lawyer and remained standing. He raised his hand to command silence.
"This is rather unexpected, boys. But this distinguished man happened to be passing our hall to-night and has dropped in on us in a purely informal manner. It's a great honor, and I want to say to him for all of us that the old Square Deal Club is mighty grateful. I ask you to rise, gentlemen of the club."
All came to their feet again.
"Bow your heads and for thirty seconds of deep silence pay your respect and veneration to the memory of our great war governor, General Aaron Converse."
The Honorable Archer Converse looked forth over those bowed and bared heads. The most of them were gray heads, and toil-worn hands were clasped in front of those men. And when at last the faces were raised to his there was an appealing earnestness in their gaze which touched him poignantly.
"Boys, the son of that great man is present. How will you express your admiration and respect for him?"
They cheered again tumultuously.
Farr walked to the edge of the platform.
"It is kind and generous of Mr. Converse to consent to step in here for a few moments this evening. I will leave the meeting in his hands."
There was a hush for a moment. Then the guest carried his chair to the extreme front edge of the platform.
"I don't know just what sort of meeting this is--I have not been fully informed," he said, very crisply. "But I want it distinctly understood that I am not here to make any speech. Your faces indicate that you are very much in earnest in regard to the business you are met to consider. I am assured that this is no mere political rally?"
"No," somebody replied.
"I'm glad of that. I am not in politics. The political mess grows to be nastier every year. But what are you here for? Come, now! Come! Let's talk it over." He was a bit brusque, but his tone was kindly.
A man who stood up in the middle of the hall was rather shabby in his attire, but he had the deep eyes of one who thinks.
"Honored sir," he said, "I don't stand up as one presuming to speak for all the rest. But I have talked with many men. I know what some of us want. We don't expect that laws or leaders will make lazy men get ahead in the world or that victuals can be legislated into the cupboard without a man gets out and hustles for 'em. I have worked at a bench ever since I was fourteen. I expect to work there until I drop out. I don't want any political office. I couldn't fill one. But why is it that the only men who get into office are the kind who turn around and get rich selling off property which belongs to all of us--I mean the franchises for this, that, and the other?" He sat down.
A thin man in the front row got up.
"Honorable Archer Converse, one franchise that was given away by those men years ago was the right to furnish water to this city. A private concern got hold of that franchise. It holds the right to-day. It saves money by pumping its water out of the Gamonic River. Saves money and wastes lives. The Board of Health's reports show that there were eleven hundred cases of typhoid fever in this city last year. In my family my mother and two of my children died. I shiver every time I touch a tap--but spring-water that can be depended on costs us at the grocer's a dollar for a five-gallon carboy--and my wages are only ten dollars a week. There are lakes twenty miles from this city. Pure water there for all of us! But every tap drips sewage from the Gamonic River. Haven't we got any leaders who will make that water company pump health instead of death?"
"They sent 'Tabulator' Burke up for ballot frauds," said a voter who stood up in a far corner. "But anybody in this city understands well enough that the judge who sent him to state prison knew who the real chaps were, knew how much the real ones paid 'Tabulator' to take the whole blame. And the governor knows it all and has just reappointed that judge."
The Honorable Archer Converse sat very straight in his chair and listened to those men. He continued to sit straight and listened to others. The men dealt in no diatribe. There was no raving, there was no anarchistic sentiments. They arose, uttered their grievances gloomily but without passion, and sat down.
One elderly man stood up and raised both hands.
"I came across the sea to this country, sir. I came because I could have my little share in the government where I paid taxes and labored--I could vote here. It's the only public privilege I have. But, O God, give us some one to vote for!"
"I sympathize with your feelings," replied Mr. Converse. "But you are talking to the wrong man. I'm not in politics."
"By the gods, you will be if my nerve only holds out," Farr told himself.
Another man sprang to his feet. He spoke quietly, but his very repression made him more effective.
"What's the good of voting till men like you do get into politics, Mr. Converse, and give us leaders who will use their power to help the people who voted for them? I'm sick of voting. I'm teamed up to the polls by ward workers--and I know just why those men are in the game and who they're working for. What do you suppose Colonel Dodd cares which side carries this city, or which side carries the state? He and his crowd stand to win, whatever party gets in. You can't beat 'em. Business is business, no matter what politics may be! The city money is wasted just the same, the policy game is let run for the benefit of the rich men who back it, all the grafts go right on. You can't fool me any longer. They stir us poor chaps up at election-time, we rush to the polls and vote, and sometimes think we are accomplishing something. But what we're doing is simply boosting out some fellow who has made his pile and putting in another who wants office so that he can fill his own pockets by selling our common rights out to the same men. I say, you can't beat it!"
The Honorable Archer Converse seemed to find his position on the platform uncomfortable. He rose suddenly and stepped down on the floor. He went among the men. He grasped the hands that were outstretched to him. He realized that he had scant encouragement for these men. The meeting had given him new light. He knew considerable about the old days, and in the old days of politics men flocked to rallies. They harkened humbly to speeches from their leaders, and swallowed the sugar-coated facts, and listened to bands, and joined the torch-light parades, and voted according to party lines, and thought they had done well; the surface of things was nicely slicked over.
He understood that out of the ease with which the mob could be herded, with others doing their thinking for them, had grown politics as a business--with the big interests dominating both parties--and no one realized how it had all come about better than Converse. This new spirit, however, rather surprised him, for he had been keeping aloof from politics. These men who crowded about him were not mere dumb, driven voters in the mass--they were individuals who were thinking, who were demanding, who were seeking a leader that would consider them as citizens to be served, not chattels to be sold to the highest bidder. His keen lawyer's insight understood all this!
"I'm a butcher down in the stock-yards, Mr. Converse," said one man, who pressed forward. "We've got trained bulls there who tole the cattle along into the slaughter-pens. I've got tired of being a steer in politics and following these old trained bulls."
Converse worked his way through the press to the door, Farr at his heels.
When they were on the street the honorable gentleman turned sharply toward the Boulevard.
"I haven't any spirit or taste to-night for moonlight in the park, sir! A nice trick you played on me."
"I wanted you to get a first-hand notion of a state of affairs, Mr. Converse."
"But you ought to understand my temperament better--you ought to know it's going to stick in my mind, worry me, vex me, set me to seeking for remedies. It's just as if I'd been retained on a case. I feel almost duty-bound to pitch in."
"It's strange how a man gets pulled into a thing sometimes--into something he had no idea of meddling with," philosophized Farr, blandly. "That's the way it has happened in my case."
"It has, eh?" demanded Mr. Converse, sharply. He had tacitly accepted the young man's companionship for the walk back to the Boulevard. "Now, look here! Just who are you?"
"My name is Farr and I'm nothing."
"You needn't bluff me--you're a politician--a candidate for something."
"I'm not even a voter in this state. It's men like you, sir, who ought to be candidates for the high offices."
"My sainted father trained me to respect self-sacrifice, Mr. Farr. But for a clean man to try to accomplish things for the people in politics these days isn't self-sacrifice--it's martyrdom. The cheap politicians heap the fagots, the sneering newspapers light the fire and keep blowing it with their bellows, and the people stand around and seem to show a sort of calm relish in watching the operation. And when it is all over not a bit of good has been done."
"I'm afraid I have wasted an evening for you, sir. I'm sorry. I hoped the troubles of those men, when you heard them at first hand, would interest you."
"Interest me! Confound it all, you have wrecked my peace of mind! I knew it all before. But I'm selfish, like almost everybody else. I kept away where I couldn't hear about these things. Now, if I sleep soundly to-night I'll be ashamed to look up at my father's portrait when I walk into my office to-morrow morning. Why didn't you have better sense than to coax me into your infernal meeting?" He rapped his cane angrily against the curbstone as he strode on. "And the trouble with me is," continued Mr. Converse, with much bitterness, "I know the conditions are such in this state that a meeting like that can be assembled in every city and town--and the complaints will be just and demand help. But there's no organization--it's only blind kittens miauling. It's damnable!"
"But this is the kind of country where some mighty quick changes can be made when the people do get their eyes open," suggested the young man.
Mr. Converse merely grunted, tapping his cane more viciously.
They were on the frontier of the Eleventh Ward now. The brighter lights of the avenues of up-town blazed before them.
"Then you will not go into politics?" inquired Farr.
"I'd sooner sail for India with a cargo of hymn-books and give singing-lessons to Bengal tigers."
"Good night, sir," said Farr. He halted on the street corner which marked the boundary of the ward.
"Good night, sir!" replied Mr. Converse, striding on.
The young man watched him out of sight. He heard the angry clack of the cane on the stones long after the Honorable Archer Converse had turned the next corner.
"Maxim in the case of a true gentleman," mused Farr: "tap his conscience on the shoulder, point your finger at the enemy, say nothing, simply stand back and give conscience plenty of elbow-room--it needs no help. There, by the grace of God, goes the next governor of this state." _