THE reputable old gentleman was scandalized by what he called my
defection, and told me so. That I should put up a ticket against him was
grossest treason.
“And why should I not?” said I. “You follow the flag of your interest; I
but profit by your example.”
“Sir!” cried the reputable old gentleman haughtily, “I have no interest
save the interest of The public.”
“So you say,” I retorted, “and doubtless so you think.” I had a desire
to quarrel finally and for all time with the reputable old gentleman,
whose name I no longer needed, and whose fame as an excise purist would
now be getting in my way. “You deceive yourself,” I went on. “Your prime
motive is to tickle your own vanity with a pretense of elevation. From
the pedestal of your millions, and the safe shelter of a clean white
shirt, you patronize mankind and play the prig. That is what folk say of
you. As to what obligation in your favor rests personally upon myself,
I have only to recall your treatment of my candidate for that place of
chamberlain.”
“Do you say men call me a prig?” demanded the reputable old gentleman
with an indignant start. He ignored his refusal of the eminent one as
chamberlain.
“Sir, I deny the term 'prig.' If such were my celebration, I should not
have waited to hear it from you.”
“What should you hear or know of yourself?” said I. “The man looking
from his window does not see his own house. He who marches with it,
never sees the regiment of which he is a unit. No more can you, as
mayor, see yourself, or estimate the common view concerning you. It
is your vanity to seem independent and above control, and you have
transacted that vanity at the expense of your friends. I've stood by
while others went that road, and politically at least it ever led down
hill.”
That was my last conference with the reputable old gentleman. I went
back to Fourteenth Street, and called on my people of Tammany to do
their utmost. Nor should I complain of their response, for they went
behind their batteries with the cool valor of buccaneers.
There was but one question which gave me doubt, and that was the
question of the Australian ballot, then a novelty in our midst.
Theretofore, a henchman of the machine went with that freeman to the
ballot-box, and saw to it how he put no cheat upon his purchasers. Now
our commissioners could approach a polls no nearer than two hundred
feet; the freeman went in alone, took his folded ticket from the judges,
retired to privacy and a pencil, and marked his ballot where none might
behold the work. Who then could know that your mercenary, when thus
removed from beneath one's eye and hand, would fight for one's side? I
may tell you the situation was putting a wrinkle in my brow when Morton
came lounging in.
“You know I've nothing to do with the old gentleman's campaign,” said
he, following a mouthful or two of commonplace, and puffing the
while his usual cigarette. “Gad! I told him that I had withdrawn from
politics; I did, really! I said it was robbing me of all fineness; and
that I must defend my native purity of sensibility, don't y' know, and
preserve it from such sordid contact.
“'Father,' said I, 'you surely would not, for the small cheap glory of a
second term, compel me into experiences that must leave me case-hardened
in all that is spiritual?'
“No, he made no reply; simply turned his back upon me in merited
contempt. Really, I think he was aware of me for a hypocrite. It was
beastly hard to go back on the old boy, don't y' know! But for what I
have in mind it was the thing to do.”
Now, when I had him to counsel with, I gave Morton my troubles over the
Australian law. The situation, generally speaking, showed good; the more
because there were three tickets in the field. Still, nothing was sure.
We must work; and we must omit no usual means of adding to our strength.
And the Australian law was in our way.
“Really, you're quite right,” observed Morton, polishing his eyeglass
meditatively. “To be sure, these beasts of burden, the labor element,
have politically gone to pieces since our last campaign. But they are
still wandering about by twos and threes, like so many lost sheep, and
unless properly shepherded--and what a shepherd's crook is money!--they
may fall into the mouths of opposition wolves, don't y' know. What
exasperating dullards these working people are! I know of but one
greater fool than the working man, and that is the fool he works for!
And so you say this Australian law breeds uncertainty for our side?”
“There is no way to tell how a man votes.”
Morton behind that potent eyeglass narrowed his gaze to the end of his
nose, and gave a full minute to thought. Then his eyes, released from
contemplation of his nose, began to brighten. I placed much reliance
upon the fertility of our exquisite, for all his trumpery affectations
of eyeglass and effeminate mannerisms, and I waited with impatience for
him to speak.
“Really, now,” said he, at last, “how many under the old plan would
handle your money about each polling place?”
“About four,” I replied. “Then at each polling booth there would be a
dozen pullers-in, to bring up the voters, and go with them to see that
they put in the right ballots. This last, you will notice, is by the
Australian system made impossible.”
“It is the duty of artillery people,” drawled Morton, “whenever the
armor people invent a plate that cannot be perforated by guns in being,
don't y' know, to at once invent a gun that shall pierce it. The same
holds good in politics. Gad! we must invent a gun that shall knock a
hole through this Australian armor; we must, really! A beastly system, I
should call it, which those beggarly Australians have constructed! It's
no wonder: they are all convicts down there, and it would need a felon
to devise such an interference. However, this is what I suggest. You
must get into your hands, we'll put it, five thousand of the printed
ballots in advance of election day. This may be secretly done, don't y'
know, by paying the printers where the tickets are being struck off. A
printer is such an avaricious dog; he is, really! The tickets would be
equally distributed among those men with the money whom you send about
the polling places. A ballot in each instance should be marked with the
cross for Tammany Hall before it is given to the recruit. He will then
carry it into the booth in his pocket. Having received the regular
ticket from the hands of the judges, he can go through the form of
retiring, don't y' know; then reappear and give in the ticket which was
marked by your man of the machine.”
“And yet,” said I breaking in, “I do not see how you've helped the
situation. The recruit might still vote the ticket handed him by the
judges, for all our wisdom. Moreover, it would be no easy matter to get
hold of fifty thousand tickets, all of which we would require to make
sure. Five thousand we might manage, but that would not be enough.”
“You should let me finish; you should, really!” returned Morton. “One
would not pay the recruit until he returned to that gentleman of finance
with whom he was dealing, don't y' know, and put into his hands the
unmarked ballot with which the judges had endowed him. That would prove
his integrity; and it would also equip your agent with a new fresh
ballot against the next recruit. Thus you would never run out of
ballots. Gad! I flatter myself, I've hit upon an excellent idea, don't
y' know!” and with that, Morton began delicately to caress his mustache,
again taking on his masquerade of the ineffably inane.
Morton's plan was good; I saw its merits in a flash. He had proposed
a sure system by which the machine might operate in spite of that
antipodean law. We used it too, and it was half the reason of our
victory. Upon its proposal, I extended my compliments to Morton.
“Really, it's nothing,” said he, as though the business bored him. “Took
the hint from football, don't y' know. It is a rule of that murderous
amusement, when you can't buck the center, to go around the ends. But I
must have a ride in the park to rest me; I must, really! I seldom permit
myself to think--it's beastly bad form to think--and, therefore, when
I do give my intelligence a canter, it fatigues me beyond expression.
Well, good-by! I shall see you when I am recuperated. Meanwhile, you
must not let that awful parent of mine succeed; it would be our ruin,
don't y' know!” and Morton glared idiotically behind the eyeglass at
the thought of the reputable old gentleman flourishing through a second
term. “Yes, indeed,” he concluded, “the old boy would become a perfect
juggernaut!”
Morton's plan worked to admiration. The mercenary was given a ballot,
ready marked; and later he returned with the one which the judges gave
him, took his fee, and went his way.
In these days, when the ballot furnished, by the judges is stamped on
the back, each with its separate number in red ink, which number is set
opposite a voter's name at the time he receives the ballot, and all to
be verified when he brings it again to the judges for deposit in the
box, the scheme would be valueless. There lies no open chance for the
substitution of a ready-made ballot, because of the deterrent number in
red ink.
Under these changed conditions, however, as Morton declared they must,
the gunners of party have invented both the projectile and the rifle to
pierce this new and stronger plate. The party emblems, the Eagle, the
Star, the Ship, and other totems of partisanship, are printed across the
head of the ticket in black accommodating ink. The recruit now makes his
designating cross with a pencil that is as soft as fresh paint. Then
he spreads over the head of the ticket, as he might a piece of blotting
paper, a tissue sheet peculiarly prepared. A gentle rub of the fingers
across the tissue, stains it plainly with the Eagle, the Star, the Ship,
and the entire procession of totems; also, it takes with the rest an
impression of that penciled cross. This tissue, our recruit brings to
that particular paymaster of the forces with whom he is in barter, and a
glance answers the query was the vote made right or wrong. If “right” the
recruit has his reward; if “wrong,” he is spurned from the presence as
one too densely ignorant to be of use.
The reputable old gentleman, when the vote came on, was overpowered; he
retired to private life, inveighing against republics for that they were
ungrateful. My jelly-fish of historic blood took his place as mayor, and
Tammany dominated every corner of the town. My word was absolute
from the bench of the jurist to the beat of the policeman; the second
greatest city in the world, with every dollar of its treasure, was in my
hands to do with it as I would. I drew a swelling sense of comfort from
the situation which my breast had never known.
And yet, I was not made mad by this sudden grant of power. I knew by
the counsel of Big Kennedy, and the dungeon fate of that Boss who was
destroyed, that I must light a lamp of caution for my journeyings.
Neither the rôle of bully, nor the bluff method of the highwayman, would
serve; in such rough event, the people, overhanging all, would be upon
one like an avalanche. One must proceed by indirection and while the
common back was turned; one, being careful, might bleed the public while
it slept.
When the town in its threads was thus wholly in my hands, with every
office, great or small, held by a man of the machine, Morton came to
call upon me.
“And so you're the Czar!” said he.
“You have the enemy's word for it,” I replied. “'Czar' is what they call
me in their papers when they do not call me 'rogue.'”
“Mere compliments, all,” returned Morton airily. “Really, I should
feel proud to be thus distinguished. And yet I'm surprised! I was just
telling an editor of one of our rampant dailies: 'Can't you see,' said
I, 'that he who speaks ill of his master speaks ill of himself? To call
a man a scoundrel or an ignoramus, is to call him weak, since neither
is a mark of strength. And when you term him scoundrel and ignoramus who
has beaten you, you but name yourself both viler, weaker still. Really,'
I concluded, 'if only to preserve one's own standing, one should ever
speak well of one's conqueror, don't y' know!' But it was of no use;
that ink-fellow merely scowled and went his way. However, to discuss a
theory of epithet was not my present purpose. Do you recall how, on the
edge of the campaign, I said that if you would but win the town I'd lead
you into millions?”
“Yes,” said I, “you said something of the sort.”
“You must trust me in this: I understand the market better than you do,
don't y' know. Perhaps you have noticed that Blackberry Traction is very
low--down to ninety, I think?”
“No,” I replied, “the thing is news to me. I know nothing of stocks.”
“It's as well. This, then, is my road to wealth for both of us. As a
first move, don't y' know, and as rapidly as I can without sending it
up, I shall load myself for our joint account with we'll say--since I'm
sure I can get that much--forty thousand shares of Blackberry. It will
take me ten days. When I'm ready, the president of Blackberry will call
upon you; he will, really! He will have an elaborate plan for extending
Blackberry to the northern limits of the town; and he will ask, besides,
for a half-dozen cross-town franchises to act as feeders to the main
line, and to connect it with the ferries. Be slow and thoughtful with
our Blackberry president, but encourage him. Gad! keep him coming to you
for a month, and on each occasion seem nearer to his view. In the end,
tell him he can have those franchises--cross-town and extensions--and,
for your side, go about the preliminary orders to city officers. It
will send Blackberry aloft like an elevator, don't y' know! Those forty
thousand shares will go to one hundred and thirty-five--really!”
Two weeks later Morton gave me the quiet word that he held for us a
trifle over forty thousand shares of Blackberry which he had taken at an
average of ninety-one. Also, he had so intrigued that the Blackberry's
president would seek a meeting with me to consider those extensions, and
discover my temper concerning them.
The president of Blackberry and I came finally together in a parlor of
the Hoffman House, as being neutral ground. I found him soft-voiced,
plausible, with a Hebrew cast and clutch. He unfurled his blue-prints,
which showed the proposed extensions, and what grants of franchises
would be required.
At the beginning, I was cold, doubtful; I distrusted a public approval
of the grants, and feared the public's resentment.
“Tammany must retain the people's confidence,” said I. “It can only do
so by protecting jealously the people's interests.”
The president of Blackberry shrugged his shoulders. He looked at me
hard, and as one who waited for my personal demands. He would not speak,
but paused for me to begin. I could feel it in the air how a halfmillion
might be mine for the work of asking. I never said the word, however; I
had no mind to put my hand into that dog's mouth.
Thus we stood; he urging, I considering the advisability of those
asked-for franchises. This was our attitude throughout a score of
conferences, and little by little I went leaning the Blackberry way.
To be sure, the secret of our meetings was whispered in right quarters,
and every day found fresh buyers for Blackberry. Meanwhile, the shares
climbed high and ever higher, until one bland April morning they stood
at one hundred and thirty-seven.
Throughout my series of meetings with the president of Blackberry, I had
seen no trace of Morton. For that I cared nothing, but played my part
slowly so as to give him time, having confidence in his loyalty, and
knowing that my interest was his interest, and I in no sort to
be worsted. On that day when Blackberry showed at one hundred and
thirty-seven, Morton appeared. He laid down a check for an even million
of dollars.
“I've been getting out of Blackberry for a week,” said he, with his air
of delicate lassitude. “I found that it was tiring me, don't y' know;
I did really! Besides, we've done enough: No gentlemen ever makes more
than one million on a single turn; it's not good form.” That check,
drawn to my order, was the biggest of its kind I'd ever handled. I took
it up, and I could feel a pringling to my finger-ends with the contact
of so much wealth all mine. I envied my languid friend his genius for
coolness and aplomb. He selected a cigarette, and lighted it as though
a million here and there, on a twist of the market, was a commonest of
affairs. When I could command my voice, I said:
“And now I suppose we may give Blackberry its franchises?”
“No, not yet,” returned Morton. “Really, we're not half through. I've
not only gotten rid of our holdings, but I've sold thirty-five thousand
shares the other way. It was a deuced hard thing to do without sending
the stock off--the market is always so beastly ready to tumble, don't
y' know. But I managed it; we're now short about thirty-five thousand
shares at one hundred and thirty-seven.”
“What then?” said I.
“On the whole,” continued Morton, with just a gleam of triumph behind
his eyeglass, “on the whole, I think I should refuse Blackberry, don't
y' know. The public interest would be thrown away; and gad! the people
are prodigiously moved over it already, they are, really! It would be
neither right nor safe. I'd come out in an interview declaring that a
grant of what Blackberry asks for would be to pillage the town. Here,
I've the interview prepared. What do you say? Shall we send it to the
_Daily Tory_?”
The interview appeared; Blackberry fell with a crash. It slumped fifty
points, and Morton and I were each the better by fairly another million.
Blackberry grazed the reef of a receivership so closely that it rubbed
the paint from its side.