The Ramrodders Part 27

He drew a second paper from his pocket.

"Gentlemen, some politicians, more than half a century ago, simply to use a temperance movement for bait in a political campaign, dragged into our party a moral, social, and economic question that belongs to the whole people--not merely to us as a party. Let the people, when the right time comes and they decide the matter differently, make a law that the majority desires and will stand behind. Just now we have in our const.i.tution a law that forbids the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in this State. There is no option in the matter. Just so long as our party, the dominant political power, uses that option, it is in disgrace with all decent men. I--"

There was a knock at the door--the private door.

Harlan started up, but his grandfather pulled him back into his chair.

"Go on, General," he said.

"I have drawn a resolution. Here it is: 'As a party, we deplore the fact that temperance, through the so-called prohibitory law, has become a matter of politics, its football to the extent that holders of public office, sworn to enforce the laws, turn from that enforcement in order to cater to public opinion which otherwise might deprive them of office.

We declare against this intolerable system of protection of lawbreakers.

Until the people shall repeal the law, we, the dominant party of the State and in control of enforcement, do pledge ourselves to faithfully enforce it, employing such law as we now have and invoking new powers through the legislature to a.s.sist us, so long as the prohibitory law shall remain in our const.i.tution.'"

It was now Chairman Presson's turn to look uncomfortable.

"Look here, Vard," exploded Thornton, "I've been pretty patient while you've been amputating a few fingers and toes of the Republican party of this State, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I propose to see you cut its throat."

There was fresh knocking at the door, but the group within the parlor had enough to think about just then without entertaining callers.

"Now you're talking simply about yourselves and your office-holders and your dirty profits. You're calling that mess of nasty confederacy 'Our Party,'" declared General Waymouth, pa.s.sionately. "When honesty kills a party, let it die--let its men get out and organize another one. But I tell you, you can't kill it by being honest, Thelismer. The trouble is you're sitting here and building for to-night--for to-morrow. I'm a Republican--you can't take that name away from me. But the badge doesn't belong on men who are using that name to cover up a rum-selling business."

Chairman Presson was livid. He leaped from his chair and drove his fist down on the table,

"Now you're insulting me personally!" he shouted.

"I deal in no personalities, sir. So long as I hide myself under the name of Republican and allow this thing to go on as it's going, I'm in the traffic myself; and I don't propose to continue in it--not when I have power placed in my hands."

"By the eternal G.o.ds, you won't have the power placed there!" roared the chairman of the State Committee.

Now some one called to them from outside the door, repeating the rapping.

"When you say that, you're confessing that the Republican party is a sneak, Presson," declared the General.

The Duke came along to the table. He ticked his forefinger against the paper that Waymouth was holding.

"Vard, you're pledging yourself in advance of election to the most rabid of the prohibition fanatics."

"I'm pledging myself to obey the one State law that occupies the most s.p.a.ce in public attention, causes the most discussion, makes the most row. It's a d.a.m.nable bloodsucker to be hitched on to any political party! But it's on ours, and I'm going to grab it with both hands!"

"Hold a proxy from the ramrodders, eh?" sneered the State chairman, thoroughly a rebel.

"No, nor from the State rumsellers. If the people of his State want to have rum sold, let 'em vote to have it sold. But as it now stands, they can't enlist me to head the lawbreakers and s.h.i.+eld the lawbreaking. I'm through playing the hypocrite!"

"We've got to set ourselves above petty bickerings and personal differences," interposed the Senator, cracking the party whip. "I'm a Republican, first of all!"

"Talk sense, Pownal!" snapped the General, impatiently. "This isn't a political rally. We're grown men and friends that can talk plain. His principles make a Republican--or ought to--not his protestations! And establis.h.i.+ng a system of low license and sheriff-made local option under a prohibitory law is unprincipled, and you know it!"

Thelismer Thornton, G.o.d of that particular machine that was then grinding so ominously and rattling so badly, felt that he needed a few moments in which to mend belts and adjust cogs. He wanted an opportunity to think a little while. He had discovered a new Waymouth all of a sudden. He wanted to get acquainted with him. He wished to find out whether he would be really as dangerous as his astonis.h.i.+ng threats indicated.

The persistent man at the door was now clamorous. The Duke strode that way and flung it open. Whoever it might be, the interruption would give him time to think, to plan, to investigate.

The intruder was the Hon. David Everett. He stepped in, and Thornton relocked the door after him.

Mr. Everett was not amiable. His little eyes snapped from face to face suspiciously. It was immediately and perfectly plain to him that he had forced admission to a conference that had not expected him, did not want him, and was embarra.s.sed at finding him present. In the state of mind they were in, the men in that room would have glowered at any one.

Everett detected something more than mere personal resentment at his intrusion--he sniffed a plot against him. There was no hand outstretched to him, no welcome, no explanation offered why these leaders of the party had met thus without intimation to him that anything was afoot.

Choleric red suffused his face--it had been gray with pa.s.sion when he entered, because a corridor filled with curious men is not a happy arena for a candidate shut out of committee headquarters.

He realized that he had been a spectacle inciting interest and some amus.e.m.e.nt while he was hammering on the door.

One object of the Duke had been attained when he admitted Everett--the wrangling ceased. But the embarra.s.sment was intensified. The situation was more complex.

"I beg your pardon, gentlemen, if I am interrupting serious business,"

began Everett, intending to force some sort of explanation.

He waited. No one spoke. The others were waiting, too.

The candidate looked from one to the other, and then surveyed Wasgatt and the papers he was clutching. He eyed General Waymouth with much interest and some surprise. He had not been informed of that gentleman's presence in the hotel. The General returned the gaze with serenity, creasing his sheet of ma.n.u.script on the table with his thin fingers.

"I expected to be called in when you were ready to go over the platform," continued Everett, sourly. "I'm supposed to know as early as any one, I presume, what it is I'm going to stand on."

Thelismer Thornton decided that it was up to him to speak. He leaned against the table, half sitting on it, and swung his foot.

"You have a perfect right, Dave, to inquire about any platform that you're going to stand on. And when we get your platform ready for you we'll call you in and submit it. But allow me to remind you that you haven't been nominated yet." The band was blaring again outside. "The convention is yet to be held, and has yet to declare its platform."

"I don't expect you to call Arba Spinney in here and consult with him--if that's what your hints mean. But there's no need of your using that 'round-the-barn talk with me, Thelismer. You know that so far as the real Republican party is concerned Spinney is an outsider; I'm the logical candidate, and I demand to be taken into the conference. I don't recognize that there are two Republican candidates before the convention."

"I do," said the Duke, firmly and with significance. He was preparing to resent this autocratic manner.

"Well, I _don't_!" cried the State chairman. Secretly he had been offended by Thornton's high-handed a.s.sumption of control, ever since their talk on the morning after the Fort Canibas caucus. He had promptly recognized the political sagacity of the old man's plan. In his fear of the Spinney agitation--in his apprehension lest all control should be wrested from his faction of the party--he had been eager to compromise on General Waymouth, hoping that he would prove to be as amenable to party reason as he knew Everett already was. But this intractable old Spartan, with his dictation of party principles that meant the loss of policy, power, and profits, had angered him to his marrow. He was ready to declare himself now, Thornton or mo Thornton. He turned on the Duke.

"Perhaps you can lick me--that's the only way you can get it!" he declared. "But you needn't expect me to stand here and grin and hand it over."

Thornton stared at him understandingly, accepting the challenge.

"There was a man up our way, Luke, who fought two highway robbers a whole hour, and when they had finally torn his clothes all off him, he only had two cents in his pockets. He told the robbers, then, that he hadn't fought to save his two cents, but because he didn't want his financial condition revealed."

Candidate Everett was finding this conversation hard to follow.

"There's something here that isn't on the level, and I suspected it the minute I came into this room. Presson, is the State Committee behind me?"

"It is, and it's behind you to stay," declared the chairman. Again he turned to Thornton.

"It's up to you, now, whether Arba Spinney gets the nomination or not.

If you keep on and split us, he gets it; but I shall make it mighty plain to the boys as to whose fault it was, Thelismer."

"What's all this about?" demanded Everett.

Presson hesitated only a moment.