The Iron Puddler Part 13

There is a trick that was often used in small-town elections. When the "reform element" made a fight on the "old gang" it was customary for the gang to lie down and place the name of the new man on the ticket. The reformer thought the gang beaten and that his own election was sure, so he didn't make a hard campaign. But the gang quietly pa.s.sed around word to scratch the name of the reformer and to write in the name of a gang candidate in the secrecy of the polling booth.

Was this trick being played on me? Were they now pa.s.sing around the word to scratch me and write in the name of their friend, Jazz, who had not come out as a candidate before? I edged in closer to the man who was boosting Mr. Jazz for my job, and after listening for a while I learned that "Jazz Davis" was the man he was electioneering for. He caught sight of my face and said: "There he is now."

"My name isn't Jazz," I said. I handed him my card. It read:

JAS. J. DAVIS

"What is it then?" he asked.

I saw that I would lose a vote if I humiliated him. So I laughed and said: "Yep, I'm him. I was just kidding. I'm mighty glad to have your support. Have a cigar."

But I went away worried. My personal friends knew me as Jimmy. The men electioneered and handed cards to thought my name was Jazz. On the ballot my name would appear JAMES. Between "Jimmy," "Jim," "James" and "Jazz" my fellows would find lots of room for confusion. Every vote that I lost on that account would be due to my own carelessness.

It taught me the lesson of exactness. I never again put out any puzzling language, but tried to stick to words that could not be misunderstood.

CHAPTER XL

FATHER TOOK ME SERIOUSLY

There was an interval of nearly five months between the time of my election, which was in May, and the date of taking office in September.

I decided to use this time to improve my qualifications for the job. I returned to the old home town of Sharon and took a course in a business college. Again I walked the old familiar paths where as a boy I had roamed the woods, fished the streams, brought the cows along the dusty road from pasture and blacked the boots of the traveling dudes at the hotel.

There is a great thrill for the young man who comes home with a heart beating high with triumph, to see the love and admiration in his parents' eyes. Father shook my hand and said. "You're a good boy, Jimmy, and I'm proud of you. I always knew you'd make your mark."

"I haven't made much of a mark, dad," I laughed. "City clerk isn't much.

County recorder is what I'm aiming for." In fact, I had gone so far as to dream of being auditor of the state of Indiana.

A jolly old uncle who was there and who was looked on as the sage and wit of the Welsh settlement, began kidding me.

"From city clerk to county recorder is only a step, Jimmy," he said.

"Next you'll be governor, and then president."

Father took it seriously.

"You'll never be president, lad," he said, "because you wasn't born in this country." He seemed to think that was the only reason. He turned to my uncle and explained regretfully: "Of all my boys, only one has got the full American birthright. My youngest boy, Will, is the only one that can be president."

"Well," said the jolly old uncle, "the rest of 'em can be government officers."

Even this joke father took as a sober possibility. I saw then the full reason why he came to America. He wanted to give his boys boundless opportunities. A humble man himself, he had made all his sacrifices to broaden the chances for his children. This was a lesson to me. I could not repay him. I could only resolve to follow his example, to stand for a square deal for children everywhere.

Mother was as pleased with my humble success as was father. When I sat down to the table she apologized for her cooking and said:

"After the fine food you have been eating in the big hotels, you will find our table pretty common."

"You're wrong, mother," I said. "The best food I ever had I got right here at your table. You've never lived in boarding-houses, but father has. He knows that it's a rough life, and they don't feed you on delicacies. Hotel cookery is not like the cookery in the Old World. Over there they make each dish as tasty as they can, and good eating is one of the main objects in life. But Americans don't like to eat. They begrudge the time they have to spend at the table. They get it over as soon as they can. They seem to take it like medicine; the worse the medicine tastes, the better it is for them. An egg is something that is pretty hard to spoil in the cooking. Yet some of these boarding-house cooks are such masters of the art that they can fix up a plate of steak, eggs and potatoes and make them all as tasteless as a chip of wood. I've had this kind of fare for the last few years, and getting back to your table is the best part of home-coming."

Father was still a puddler, and to show my appreciation of all he had done for me, I went into the mill every afternoon that summer and worked a heat or two for him while he went home and rested in the shade.

The workout did me good. It kept my body vigorous and cleared my brain so that my studies were easy for me, and I advanced with my education faster than ever before.

This proved to me that schooling should combine the book stuff with the shop work. Instead of interfering with each other, they help each other.

The hand work makes the books seem more enjoyable.

CHAPTER XLI. A PAVING CONTRACTOR PUTS ME ON THE PAVING

I was the only Republican elected that year. But for this exception the Democrats would have made a clean sweep of the city. If the editor had not charged me with being illiterate I would neither have been nominated nor elected. When I appeared before audiences in the "swell end" of town and wrote my lessons on my little slate, I gained their sympathy. They believed in fair play. And I found I had not lost their support by thras.h.i.+ng the editor.

Nearly all of the mill workers in Elwood voted for me. I supposed that I had made many personal enemies among the men by refusing to take their grievances up with the bosses when I thought the men were wrong. But the election proved they were my friends after all. The confidence of my own fellows pleased me greatly. Later on, the men as a further token of their good will clubbed together and gave me a gold watch. This gave me greater joy, no doubt, than Napoleon felt when, with his own hand, he placed a gold crown upon his head.

When it came time to qualify and be sworn into office I found trouble.

The Republican boss was disgruntled because only one Republican was elected while the Democrats got everything else. He wanted me to give up the office. "Let the tail go with the hide," he said. "Let 'em have it all." His idea was to give the Democrats a closed family circle, so that when temptation came along, they would feel safe in falling for it. He feared that a Republican in the house to watch them would scare them away from the bait. He wanted them to take bribes and be ruined by the scandal, and that would bring the Republicans back to power. It was a good enough way to "turn the rogues out" by first letting them become rogues, but my heart was not set on party success only. I believed in protecting the public. So I went ahead and got bondsmen to qualify me.

But as often as I got men to sign my bond, the boss went them and got them off again. A firm of lawyers, Greenlee & Call, stood by me in my struggle to make my bond. These men were ten years older than I. I was twenty-five. They acted as G.o.dfathers to me. They gave me the use of their library, and throughout my term as city clerk I spent my nights poring over their law books. I became well grounded in munic.i.p.al law and munic.i.p.al finance. I was able to pay back their kindness some years later when C. M. Greenlee aspired to be judge of the Superior Court of Madison County. I went to the convention as a delegate and worked hard for Judge Greenlee until he was nominated, and elected.

The city administration of which I was a member let many contracts. As I said before, a cross-roads town had become a city and there were miles of paving and sewer to put in, and scores of public buildings to go up.

Old Francis Harbit was the Democratic mayor, and he didn't intend that the contractors should graft on the city nor give boodle to the officials. I remember one stirring occasion. There was a big contract for sewers to be let, and if a certain bid should go through, the contractor would profit greatly. Big Jeff Rowley (I'll call him) was the grafting contractor who had ruined the Republican administration. He was six feet, two inches tall in his stocking feet. He had put in his sealed bid and then had approached everybody with his proposition. His overtures were scorned and he was told that we were not out for boodle but were "playing the game on the square" (that had been my campaign slogan). It finally dawned on the corrupt old bully that the lowest bid would get the contract. He then came into my office and took down his bid to revise it. It was such a big contract that he could not afford to lose it. I told him that if his bid was not back in time I would so note it.

Bids were to be opened that night and read by me before the mayor and council. I was familiar with every detail of the law governing munic.i.p.al bonds and contract letting. We had advertised that bids must be filed before seven-thirty that evening. Big Jeff took down his bid at seven-fifteen and filed his new bid at seven forty-five; fifteen minutes after the legal time limit.

The council was in session and hundreds of citizens were there to protest against any more deals in letting contracts at exorbitant prices. I opened and read aloud the various bids, including that of the big boss, Jeff Rowley, adding that Jeff's bid had been filed too late to be legal.

"You lie!" he screamed. "You're a Welsh liar, and I'll kill you for this!" The threat was heard by the council and the citizens. But the man seemed so terrible that no one dared reprimand him.

A few moments later the city attorney sent down to the clerk's office for some blanks. Jeff was waiting behind a corner of the hall. He hit me a blow in the neck that knocked me four yards. It was the "rabbit blow"

and he expected it to break my neck. The hard muscles that the puddling furnace put there saved my life. I sprang up, and he came after me again. I seized the big fellow by the ankles and threw him down. Then I battered his head against the floor until I was satisfied that he could do me no more harm. He went home and took to his bed.

He announced that when he got out he would charge me with a.s.sault. I went before the mayor and offered to plead guilty to such a charge.

The mayor protested against it. He said I had done the right thing in protecting the honor of the city, and that the citizens would not permit my action to cost me money. The local banker took up a collection to pay my fine in case a fine should be a.s.sessed against me.

My salary as city clerk was forty dollars a month. My wages in the tin mill were seven dollars a day. A week in the mill would have brought me more than a month's pay in the city office. But I hoped the clerks.h.i.+p would lead to something better.

One incident that happened while I was city clerk I have already related. The city attorney almost sent a man to jail because he couldn't understand the lawyer's questions. I put the lawyer's language into simpler words, and the man then understood and quickly cleared himself of the charge against him. At another time, the mill owners pet.i.tioned for the vacation of an alley because they wanted to build a railroad switch there to give access to a loading-out station of the mill.

"I suppose," their representative told me, "that since this would be a favor to the mill, and you were opposed by the mill owners, you will hand it to us in this matter."

"Why should I?" I asked. "Don't you think you ought to have this alley?"

"Certainly we do, or we wouldn't have asked for it."

"Do you think the city needs the alley worse than you do?"

"No. It is an alley only on paper. There are no residences there and n.o.body needs the alley but us."