Elder Conklin and Other Stories Part 20

"I'd have a cause of action against them."

"Which you'd be sure to lose. Eleven out of every twelve jurymen in this state would mulct an Agnostic rather than give him damages."

"Ah! that's the meaning, then, I suppose, of this notice I've just got from the secretary to attend a special Faculty meeting on Monday fortnight."

"Let me see it. Why, here it is! The object of the meeting is 'To consider the anti-Christian utterances of Professor Roberts, and to take action thereon.' That's the challenge. Didn't you read it?"

"No; as soon as I opened it and saw the printed form, I took it for the usual notification, and put it aside to think of this election work. But it would seem as if the Faculty intended to out-herald the 'Herald.'"

"They are simply allowed to act first in order that the 'Herald,' a day later, may applaud them. It's all worked by Gulmore, and I tell you again, he's dangerous."

"He may be; but I won't change for abuse, nor yet to keep my post. Let him do his worst. I've not attacked him hitherto for certain reasons of my own, nor do I mean to now. But he can't frighten me; he'll find that out."

"Well, we'll see. But, at any rate, it was my duty to warn you. It would be different if I were rich, but, as it is, I can only give May a little, and--"

"My dear Hutchings, don't let us talk of that. In giving me May, you give me all I want." The young man's tone was so conclusive that it closed the conversation.

Mr. Gulmore had not been trained for a political career. He had begun life as a clerk in a hardware store in his native town. But in his early manhood the Abolition agitation had moved him deeply--the colour of his skin, he felt, would never have made him accept slavery--and he became known as a man of extreme views. Before he was thirty he had managed to save some thousands of dollars. He married and emigrated to Columbus, Ohio, where he set up a business. It was there, in the stirring years before the war, that he first threw himself into politics; he laboured indefatigably as an Abolitionist without hope or desire of personal gain. But the work came to have a fascination for him, and he saw possibilities in it of pecuniary emolument such as the hardware business did not afford. When the war was over, and he found himself scarcely richer than he had been before it began, he sold his store and emigrated again--this time to Tec.u.mseh, Nebraska, intending to make political organization the business of his life. He wanted "to grow up" with a town and become its master from the beginning. As the negroes const.i.tuted the most ignorant and most despised cla.s.s, a little solicitation made him their leader. In the first election it was found that "Gulmore's negroes" voted to a man, and that he thereby controlled the Republican party. In the second year of his residence in Tec.u.mseh he got the contract for lighting the town with gas. The contract was to run for twenty years, and was excessively liberal, for Mr. Gulmore had practically no compet.i.tor, no one who understood gas manufacture, and who had the money and pluck to embark in the enterprise. He quickly formed a syndicate, and fulfilled the conditions of the contract. The capital was fixed at two hundred thousand dollars, and the syndicate earned a profit of nearly forty per cent, in the first year. Ten years later a one hundred dollar share was worth a thousand. This first success was the foundation of Mr. Gulmore's fortune. The income derived from the gas-works enabled him to spend money on the organization of his party. The first manager of the works was rewarded with the position of Town Clerk--an appointment which ran for five years, but which under Mr.

Gulmore's rule was practically permanent. His foremen became the most energetic of ward-chairmen. He was known to pay well, and to be a kind if strenuous master. What he had gained in ten years by the various contracts allotted to him or his nominees no one could guess; he was certainly very rich. From year to year, too, his control of the city government had grown more complete. There was now no place in the civil or judicial establishment of the city or county which did not depend on his will, and his influence throughout the State was enormous.

A munic.i.p.al election, or, indeed, any election, afforded Mr. Gulmore many opportunities of quiet but intense self-satisfaction. He loved the struggle and the consciousness that from his office-chair he had so directed his forces that victory was a.s.sured. He always allowed a broad margin in order to cover the unforeseen. Chance, and even ill-luck, formed a part of his strategy; the sore throat of an eloquent speaker; the illness of a popular candidate; a storm on polling-day--all were to him factors in the problem. He reckoned as if his opponents might have all the luck upon their side; but, while considering the utmost malice of fortune, it was his delight to base his calculations upon the probable, and to find them year by year approaching more nearly to absolute exact.i.tude. As soon as his ward-organization had been completed, he could estimate the votes of his party within a dozen or so. His plan was to treat every contest seriously, to bring all his forces to the poll on every occasion--nothing kept men together, he used to say, like victory. It was the number of his opponent's minority which chiefly interested him; but by studying the various elections carefully, he came to know better than any one the value as a popular candidate of every politician in the capital, or, indeed, in the State. The talent of the man for organization lay in his knowledge of men, his fairness and liberality, and, perhaps, to a certain extent, in the power he possessed of inspiring others with confidence in himself and his measures. He was never satisfied till the fittest man in each ward was the Chairman of the ward; and if money would not buy that particular man's services, as sometimes though rarely happened, he never rested until he found the gratification which bound his energy to the cause. Besides--and this was no small element in his successes--his temper disdained the applause of the crowd. He had never "run" for any office himself, and was not nearly so well known to the ma.s.s of the electorate as many of his creatures.

The senator, like the mayor or office-messenger of his choice, got all the glory: Mr. Gulmore was satisfied with winning the victory, and reaping the fruits of it. He therefore excited, comparatively speaking, no jealousy; and this, together with the strength of his position, accounts for the fact that he had never been seriously opposed before Professor Roberts came upon the scene.

Better far than Lawyer Hutchings, or any one else, Mr. Gulmore knew that the relative strength of the two parties had altered vastly within the year. Reckoning up his forces at the beginning of the campaign, he felt certain that he could win--could carry his whole ticket, including a rather unpopular Mayor; but the majority in his favour would be small, and the prospect did not please him, for the Professor's speeches had aroused envy. He understood that if his majority were not overwhelming he would be a.s.sailed again next year more violently, and must in the long run inevitably lose his power. Besides, "fat" contracts required unquestionable supremacy. He began, therefore, by inst.i.tuting such a newspaper-attack upon the Professor as he hoped would force him to abandon the struggle. When this failed, and Mr. Gulmore saw that it had done worse than fail, that it had increased his opponent's energy and added to his popularity, he went to work again to consider the whole situation. He must win and win "big," that was clear; win too, if possible, in a way that would show his "smartness" and demonstrate his adversary's ignorance of the world. His anger had at length been aroused; personal rivalry was a thing he could not tolerate at any time, and Roberts had injured his position in the town. He was resolved to give the young man such a lesson that others would be slow to follow his example.

The difficulty of the problem was one of its attractions. Again and again he turned the question over in his mind--How was he to make his triumph and the Professor's defeat sensational? All the factors were present to him and he dwelt upon them with intentness. He was a man of strong intellect; his mind was both large and quick, but its activity, owing to want of education and to greedy physical desires, had been limited to the ordinary facts and forces of life. What books are to most persons gifted with an extraordinary intelligence, his fellow-men were to Mr. Gulmore--a study at once stimulating and difficult, of an incomparable variety and complexity. His lack of learning was of advantage to him in judging most men. Their stock of ideas, sentiments and desires had been his for years, and if he now viewed the patchwork quilt of their morality with indulgent contempt, at least he was familiar with all the const.i.tuent shades of it. But he could not make the Professor out--and this added to his dislike of him; he recognized that Roberts was not, as he had at first believed, a mere mouthpiece of Hutchings, but he could not fathom his motives; besides, as he said to himself, he had no need to; Roberts was plainly a "crank," book-mad, and the species did not interest him. But Hutchings he knew well; knew that like himself Hutchings, while despising ordinary prejudices, was ruled by ordinary greeds and ambitions. In intellect they were both above the average, but not in morals. So, by putting himself in the lawyer's place, a possible solution of the problem occurred to him.

A couple of days before the election, Mr. Hutchings, who had been hard at work till the evening among his chief subordinates, was making his way homeward when Mr. Prentiss accosted him, with the request that he would accompany him to his rooms for a few minutes on a matter of the utmost importance. Having no good reason for refusing, Mr. Hutchings followed the editor of the "Herald" up a flight of stairs into a large and comfortable room. As he entered and looked about him Mr. Gulmore came forward:

"I wanted a talk with you, Lawyer, where we wouldn't be disturbed, and Prentiss thought it would be best to have it here, and I guess he was about right. It's quiet and comfortable. Won't you be seated?"

"Mr. Gulmore!" exclaimed the surprised lawyer stopping short. "I don't think there's anything to be discussed between us, and as I'm in a hurry to get home to dinner, I think I'll--"

"Don't you make any mistake," interrupted Mr. Gulmore; "I mean business--business that'll pay both you and me, and I guess 'twon't do you any damage to take a seat and listen to me for a few minutes."

As Lawyer Hutchings, overborne by the authority of the voice and manner, sat down, he noticed that Mr. Prentiss had disappeared. Interpreting rightly the other's glance, Mr. Gulmore began:

"We're alone, Hutchin's. This matter shall be played fair and square.

I guess you know that my word can be taken at its face-value." Then, settling himself in his chair, he went on:

"You and I hev been runnin' on opposite tickets for a good many years, and I've won right along. It has paid me to win and it has not paid you to lose. Now, it's like this. You reckon that those Irishmen on the line give you a better show. They do; but not enough to whip me. You appear to think that that'll have to be tried the day after tomorrow, but you ought to know by now that when I say a thing is so, it's so--every time.

If you had a chance, I'd tell you: I'm playin' square. I ken carry my ticket from one end to the other; I ken carry Robinson as Mayor against you by at least two hundred and fifty of a majority, and the rest of your ticket has just no show at all--you know that. But, even if you could get in this year or next what good would it do you to be Mayor?

You're not runnin' for the five thousand dollars a year salary, I reckon, and that's about all you'd get--unless you worked with me. I want a good Mayor, a man like you, of position and education, a fine speaker that knows everybody and is well thought of--popular. Robinson's not good enough for me; he hain't got the manners nor the knowledge, nor the popularity. I'd have liked to have had you on my side right along.

It would have been better for both of us, but you were a Democrat, an'

there wasn't any necessity. Now there is. I want to win this election by a large majority, an' you ken make that sartin. You see I speak square.

Will you join me?"

The question was thrown out abruptly. Mr. Gulmore had caught a gleam in the other's eye as he spoke of a good Mayor and his qualifications. "He bites, I guess," was his inference, and accordingly he put the question at once.

Mr. Hutchings, brought to himself by the sudden interrogation, hesitated, and decided to temporize. He could always refuse to join forces, and Gulmore might "give himself away." He answered:

"I don't quite see what you mean. How are we to join?"

"By both of us givin' somethin'."

"What am I to give?"

"Withdraw your candidature for Mayor as a Democrat."

"I can't do that."

"Jest hear me out. The city has advertised for tenders for a new Court House and a new Town Hall. The one building should cover both, and be near the middle of the business part. That's so--ain't it? Well, land's hard to get anywhere there, and I've the best lots in the town. I guess"

(carelessly) "the contract will run to a million dollars; that should mean two hundred thousand dollars to some one. It's like this, Hutchin's: Would you rather come in with me and make a joint tender, or run for Mayor and be beaten?"

Mr. Hutchings started. Ten years before the proposal would have won him. But now his children were provided for----all except Joe, and his position as Counsel to the Union Pacific Railroad lifted him above pecuniary anxieties. Then the thought of the Professor and May came to him--No! he wouldn't sell himself. But in some strange way the proposition excited him; he felt elated. His quickened pulse-beats prevented him from realizing the enormity of the proposed transaction, but he knew that he ought to be indignant. What a pity it was that Gulmore had made no proposal which he might have accepted--and then disclosed!

"If I understand you, you propose that I should take up this contract, and make money out of it. If that was your business with me, you've made a mistake, and Professor Roberts is right."

"Hev I?" asked Mr. Gulmore slowly, coldly, in sharp contrast to the lawyer's apparent excitement and quick speech. Contemptuously he thought that Hutchings was "foolisher" than he had imagined--or was he sincere?

He would have weighed this last possibility before speaking, if the mention of Roberts had not angered him. His combativeness made him persist:

"If you don't want to come in with me, all you've got to do is to say so. You've no call to get up on your hind legs about it; it's easy to do settin'. But don't talk poppyc.o.c.k like that Professor; he's silly. He talks about the contract for street pavin', and it ken be proved--'twas proved in the 'Herald'--that our streets cost less per foot than the streets of any town in this State. He knows nothin'. He don't even know that an able man can make half a million out of a big contract, an' do the work better than an ordinary man could do it who'd lose money by it.

At a million our Court House'll be cheap; and if the Professor had the contract with the plans accordin' to requirement to-morrow, he'd make nothin' out of it--not a red cent. No, sir. If I ken, that's my business--and yours, ain't it? Or, are we to work for nothin' because he's a fool?"

While Mr. Gulmore was speaking, Mr. Hutchings gave himself to thought.

After all, why was he running for Mayor? The place, as Gulmore said, would be of no use to him. He was weary of fighting which only ended in defeat, and could only end in a victory that would be worthless. Mayor, indeed! If he had a chance of becoming a Member of Congress, that would be different. And across his brain flitted the picture so often evoked by imagination in earlier years. Why not? Gulmore could make it certain.

Would he?

"What you say seems plausible enough, but I don't see my way. I don't feel inclined to go into business at my time of life."

"You don't need to go into the business. I'll see to that."

"No. I don't need money now particularly."

"Next year, Hutchin's, I'll have a better man than Robinson against you.

Lawyer Nevilson's as good as ken be found, I reckon, and he wouldn't refuse to join me if I gave him the chance." But while he was speaking, Mr. Gulmore kept his opponent's answer in view. He considered it thoughtfully; "I don't need money now particularly." What did the man need? Congress? As a Republican? That would do as well. When Mr.

Hutchings shook his head, careless of the menace, Mr. Gulmore made up his mind. His obstinacy came out; he would win at any price. He began:

"It's what I said at first, Hutchin's; we've each got to give what the other wants. I've told you what I want; tell me squarely what you want, an' p'r'aps the thing ken be settled."

As Mr. Hutchings did not answer at once, the Boss went on:

"You're in politics for somethin'. What is it? If you're goin' to buck agen me, you might as well draw out; you'll do no good. You know that.

See here! Is it the State Legislature you're after, or--Congress?"

The mere words excited Mr. Hutchings; he wanted to be back again in the East as a victor; he longed for the cultivated amenities and the social life of Was.h.i.+ngton. He could not help exclaiming: