THE THUNDER OF THE CAPTAINS
Marian had suggested to her mother that they visit Mrs. Owen in town
before settling at Waupegan for the summer, and it was Marian's planning
that made this excursion synchronize with the state convention. Mr.
Bassett was not consulted in the matter; in fact, since his wife's
return from Connecticut he had been unusually occupied, and almost
constantly away from Fraserville. Mrs. Bassett and her daughter arrived
at the capital the day after Mrs. Owen reached home from Wellesley with
Sylvia, and the Bassetts listened perforce to their kinswoman's
enthusiastic account of the commencement exercises. Mrs. Owen had, it
appeared, looked upon Smith and Mount Holyoke also on this eastward
flight, and these inspections, mentioned in the most casual manner, did
not contribute to Mrs. Bassett's happiness.
Finding that her father was inaccessible by telephone, Marian summoned
Harwood and demanded tickets for the convention; she would make an
occasion of it, and Mrs. Owen and Sylvia should go with them. Mrs.
Bassett and her family had always enjoyed the freedom of Mrs. Owen's
house; it was disheartening to find Sylvia established in Delaware
Street on like terms of intimacy. The old heartache over Marian's
indifference to the call of higher education for women returned with a
new poignancy as Mrs. Bassett inspected Sylvia's diploma, as proudly
displayed by Mrs. Owen as though it marked the achievement of some near
and dear member of the family. Sylvia's undeniable good looks, her
agreeable manner, her ready talk, and the attention she received from
her elders, were well calculated to arm criticism in a prejudiced heart.
On the evening of their arrival Admiral and Mrs. Martin and the Reverend
John Ware had called, and while Mrs. Bassett assured herself that these
were, in a sense, visits of condolence upon Andrew Kelton's
granddaughter, the trio, who were persons of distinction, had seemed
sincerely interested in Mrs. Owen's protégée. Mrs. Bassett was obliged
to hear a lively dialogue between the minister and Sylvia touching some
memory of his first encounter with her about the stars. He brought her
as a "commencement present" Bacon's "Essays." People listened to Sylvia;
Sylvia had things to say! Even the gruff admiral paid her deference. He
demanded to know whether it was true that Sylvia had declined a position
at the Naval Observatory, which required the calculation of tides for
the Nautical Almanac. Mrs. Bassett was annoyed that Sylvia had refused a
position that would have removed her from a proximity to Mrs. Owen that
struck her as replete with danger. And yet Mrs. Bassett was outwardly
friendly, and she privately counseled Marian, quite unnecessarily, to be
"nice" to Sylvia. On the same evening Mrs. Bassett was disagreeably
impressed by Harwood's obvious rubrication in Mrs. Owen's good books.
It seemed darkly portentous that Dan was, at Mrs. Owen's instigation,
managing Sylvia's business affairs; she must warn her husband against
this employment of his secretary to strengthen the ties between Mrs.
Owen and this object of her benevolence.
Mrs. Bassett's presence at the convention did not pass unremarked by
many gentlemen upon the floor, or by the newspapers.
"While the state chairman struggled to bring the delegates to order,
Miss Marian Bassett, daughter of the Honorable Morton Bassett, of Fraser
County, was a charming and vivacious figure in the balcony. At a moment
when it seemed that the band would never cease from troubling the air
with the strains of 'Dixie,' Miss Bassett tossed a carnation into the
Marion County delegation. The flower was deftly caught by Mr. Daniel
Harwood, who wore it in his buttonhole throughout the strenuous events
of the day."
This item was among the "Kodak Shots" subjoined to the "Advertiser's"
account of the convention. It was stated elsewhere in the same journal
that "never before had so many ladies attended a state convention as
graced this occasion. The wives of both Republican United States
Senators and of many prominent politicians of both parties were present,
their summer costumes giving to the severe lines of the balcony a bright
note of color." The "Capital," in its minor notes of the day, remarked
upon the perfect amity that prevailed among the wives and daughters of
Republicans and Democrats. It noted also the presence in Mrs. Bassett's
party of her aunt, Mrs. Jackson Owen, and of Mrs. Owen's guest, Miss
Sylvia Garrison, a graduate of this year's class at Wellesley.
The experiences and sensations of a delegate to a large convention are
quite different from those of a reporter at the press table, as Dan
Harwood realized; and it must be confessed that he was keyed to a proper
pitch of excitement by the day's prospects. In spite of Bassett's
promise that he need not trouble to help elect himself a delegate,
Harwood had been drawn sharply into the preliminary skirmish at the
primaries. He had thought it wise to cultivate the acquaintance of the
men who ruled his own county even though his name had been written large
upon the Bassett slate.
In the weeks that intervened between his interview with Harwood in the
upper room of the Whitcomb and the primaries, Bassett had quietly
visited every congressional district, holding conferences and perfecting
his plans. "Never before," said the "Advertiser," "had Morton Bassett's
pernicious activity been so marked." The belief had grown that the
senator from Fraser was in imminent peril; in the Republican camp it was
thought that while Thatcher might not control the convention he would
prove himself strong enough to shake the faith of many of Bassett's
followers in the power of their chief. There had been, apparently, a hot
contest at the primaries. In the northern part of the state, in a region
long recognized as Bassett's stronghold, Thatcher had won easily; at
the capital the contestants had broken even, a result attributable to
Thatcher's residence in the county. The word had passed among the
faithful that Thatcher money was plentiful, and that it was not only
available in this preliminary skirmish, but that those who attached
themselves to Thatcher early were to enjoy his bounty throughout his
campaign--which might be protracted--for the senatorship. Bassett was
not scattering largess; it was whispered that the money he had used
previously in politics had come out of Thatcher's pocket and that he
would have less to spend in future.
Bassett, in keeping with his forecast to Harwood, had made a point of
having many new men, whose faces were unfamiliar in state conventions,
chosen at the primaries he controlled, so that in a superficial view of
the convention the complexion of a considerable body of the delegates
was neutral. Here and there among the delegations sat men who knew
precisely Bassett's plans and wishes. The day following the primaries,
Bassett, closeted with Harwood in his room at the Boordman Building, had
run the point of a walking-stick across every county in the state,
reciting from memory just how many delegates he absolutely controlled,
those he could get easily if he should by any chance need them, and the
number of undoubted Thatcher men there were to reckon with. In Dan's own
mingling with the crowd at the Whitcomb the night before the convention
he had learned nothing to shake his faith in Bassett's calculations.
The Honorable Isaac Pettit, of Fraser, was one of the most noteworthy
figures on the floor. Had he not thrown off the Bassett yoke and
trampled the lord of Fraser County underfoot? Did not the opposition
press applaud the editor for so courageously wresting from the
despicable chieftain the control of a county long inured to slavery?
Verily, the Honorable Isaac had done much to encourage belief in the
guileless that such were the facts. Even the "Courier" proved its sturdy
independence by printing the result of the primary without extenuation
or aught set down in malice. The Honorable Isaac Pettit undoubtedly
believed in himself as the savior of Fraser. He had personally led the
fight in the Fraser County primaries and had vanquished Bassett!
"Bassett had fought gamely," the Republican organ averred, to make more
glorious the Honorable Isaac's victory. It was almost inconceivable,
they said, that Bassett, who had dominated his party for years, should
not be able to elect himself a delegate to a state convention.
In a statement printed in the "Courier," Bassett had accepted defeat in
a commendable spirit of resignation. He and Atwill had framed that
statement a week before the primaries, and Miss Rose Farrell had copied
at least a dozen drafts before Bassett's critical sense was satisfied.
Harwood was increasingly amused by the manifestations of Bassett's
ironic humor. "I have never yet," ran the statement, "placed my own
ambitions before the wishes of my party; and if, when the Democrats of
Fraser County meet to choose a candidate for state senator, they are
not disposed to renominate me for a seat which I have held for twelve
years, I shall gladly resign to another and give my loyal support to the
candidate of their choice." It was whispered that the Honorable Isaac
Pettit would himself be a candidate for the nomination. The chattel
mortgage scrolls in the office of the recorder of Fraser County
indicated that his printing-press no longer owed allegiance to the
Honorable Morton Bassett. Thatcher had treated Pettit generously, taking
his unsecured note for the amount advanced to cleanse the "Fraser County
Democrat" of the taint of Bassettism.
As they gathered in the convention hall many of the delegates were
unable to adjust themselves to the fact that Bassett had not only failed
of election as delegate from his own county, but that he was not even
present as a spectator of the convention. The scene was set, the curtain
had risen, but Hamlet came not to the platform before the castle. Many
men sought Harwood and inquired in awed whispers as to Bassett's
whereabouts, but he gave evasive answers. He knew, however, that Bassett
had taken an early morning train for Waupegan, accompanied by Fitch,
their purpose being to discuss in peace and quiet the legal proceeding
begun to gain control of the "Courier." The few tried and trusted
Bassett men who knew exactly Bassett's plans for the convention listened
in silence to the hubbub occasioned by their chief's absence; silence
was a distinguishing trait of Bassett's lieutenants. Among the
uninitiated there were those who fondly believed that Bassett was
killed, not scotched, and they said among themselves that the party and
the state were well rid of him. Thatcher was to be reckoned with, but he
was no worse than Bassett: with such cogitations they comforted
themselves amid the noise and confusion. The old Bassett superstition
held, however, with many: this was only another of the Boss's deep-laid
schemes, and he would show his hand in due season and prove himself, as
usual, master of the situation. Others imagined that Bassett was
sulking, and these were not anxious to be the target of his wrath when
he chose to emerge from his tent in full armor.
A young woman reporter, traversing the galleries to note the names and
gowns of the ladies present, sought Mrs. Bassett for information as to
her husband's whereabouts. When Mrs. Bassett hesitated discreetly,
Marian rose promptly to the occasion:--
"Papa's gone fishing," she replied suavely.
This was not slow to reach the floor. "Papa's gone fishing" gained wide
currency as the answer to the most interesting question of the day.
The Honorable Isaac Pettit, seated majestically with the Fraser County
delegation, tested the acoustics of the hall at the first opportunity.
While the chairman of the state central committee was endeavoring to
present as the temporary chairman of the convention a patriot known as
the "War Eagle of the Wabash," the gentleman from Fraser insisted upon
recognition.
"Who is that preposterous fat man?" demanded Mrs. Owen, plying her
palm-leaf fan vigorously.
"That's Mr. Pettit, from our town," said Mrs. Bassett. "He's an editor
and lecturer."
"He's the man that defeated papa in our primaries," added Marian
cheerfully. "He's awfully funny, everybody says, and I suppose his
defeating papa was a joke. He's going to say something funny now."
"He doesn't need to," said Sylvia, not the least interested of the
spectators. "They are laughing before he begins."
The chairman of the state committee feigned not to hear or see the
delegate from Fraser, but Mr. Pettit continued to importune the chair
amid much laughter and confusion. The chairman had hardened his heart,
but the voice of the gentleman from Fraser alone rose above the tumult,
and in a moment of comparative calm he addressed the chair unrecognized
and unpermitted.
"I beg to call your attention, sir, to the presence in the gallery of
many of the fair daughters of the old Hoosier State. (Applause.) They
hover above us like guardian angels. They have come in the spirit that
brought their sisters of old to watch true knights battle in the
tourney. As a mark of respect to these ladies who do us so much honor, I
ask the chair to request gentlemen to desist from smoking, and that the
sergeant-at-arms be ordered to enforce the rule throughout our
deliberations." (Long-continued applause.)
The state chairman was annoyed and showed his annoyance. He had been
about to ingratiate himself with the ladies by making this request
unprompted; he made it now, but the gentleman from Fraser sat down
conscious that the renewed applause was his.
"Why don't they keep on smoking?" asked Mrs. Owen. "The hall couldn't
be any fuller of smoke than it is now."
"If they would all put on their coats the room would be more beautiful,"
said Marian. "They always say the Republicans are much more gentlemanly
than the Democrats."
"Hush, Marian; some one might hear you," Mrs. Bassett cautioned.
She did not understand her husband's absence; he rarely or never took
her into his confidence in political matters. She had not known until
that morning that he was not to be present at the convention. She did
not relish the idea that he had been defeated in the primaries; in her
mind defeat was inseparable from dishonor. The "War Eagle of the Wabash"
was in excellent voice and he spoke for thirty minutes; his speech would
have aroused greater enthusiasm if it had not been heard in many
previous state conventions and on the hustings through many campaigns.
Dan Voorhees had once expressed his admiration of that speech; and it
was said that Tom Hendricks had revised the original manuscript the year
he was chosen Vice-President. It was a safe speech, containing nothing
that any good American might not applaud; it named practically every
Democratic President except the twenty-second and twenty-fourth, whom it
seemed the better part of valor just then to ignore. With slight
emendations that same oration served admirably for high-school
commencements, and it had a recognized cash value on the Chautauqua
circuit. The peroration, closing with "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of
State!" was well calculated to bring strong men to their feet. The only
complaint the War Eagle might have lodged against the Ship of State (in
some imaginable admiralty court having jurisdiction of that barnacled
old frigate) would have been for its oft-repeated rejection of his own
piloting.
The permanent chairman now disclosed was a man of business, who thanked
the convention briefly and went to work. By the time the committee on
resolutions had presented the platform (on which Bassett and Harwood had
collaborated) the convention enjoyed its first sensation as Thatcher
appeared, moving slowly down the crowded main aisle to join the
delegation of his county. His friends had planned a demonstration for
his entrance, and in calling it an ovation the newspapers hardly
magnified its apparent spontaneity and volume. The man who had
undertaken the herculean task of driving Morton Bassett out of politics
was entitled to consideration, and his appearance undoubtedly
interrupted the business of the convention for fully five minutes.
Thatcher bowed and waved his hand as he sat down. The cordiality of his
reception both pleased and embarrassed him. He fanned himself with his
hat and feigned indifference to the admiration of his countrymen.
"Papa always gets more applause than that," Marian remarked to Sylvia.
"I was at the state convention two years ago and father came in late,
just as Mr. Thatcher did. They always come in late after all the stupid
speeches have been made; they're surer to stir up a big rumpus that
way."
Sylvia gave serious heed to these transactions of history. Her knowledge
of politics was largely derived from lectures she had heard at college
and from a diligent reading of newspapers. The report of the committee
on resolutions--a succinct document to each of whose paragraphs the
delegates rose in stormy approval--had just been read.
"I don't see how you can listen to such stuff," said Marian during a
lull in the shouting. "It's only the platform and they don't mean a word
of it. There's Colonel Ramsay, of Aurora,--the man with white hair who
has just come on the stage. He had dinner at our house once and he's
perfectly lovely. He's a beautiful speaker, but they won't let him speak
any more because he was a gold bug--whatever that is. They say Colonel
Ramsay has stopped gold-bugging now and wants to be governor. Sylvia,
all these men that don't want to be United States Senator want to be
governor. Isn't it funny? I don't see why silver money isn't just as
good as any other kind, do you?"
"They told me at college," said Sylvia, "but it's rather complicated.
Why didn't your father come to the convention even if he wasn't a
delegate? He could have sat in the gallery; I suppose a lot of those men
down there are not really delegates."
"Oh, that wouldn't be papa's way of doing things. I wish he had come,
just on mama's account; she takes everything so hard. If papa ever did
half the naughty things they say he does he'd be in the penitentiary
good and tight. I should like to marry a public man; if I trusted a man
enough to marry him I shouldn't be jarred a bit by what the newspapers
said of him. I like politics; I don't know what it's all about, but I
think the men are ever so interesting."
"I think so too," said Sylvia; "only I don't understand why they make so
much noise and do so little. That platform they read a little bit ago
seemed splendid. I read a lot of political platforms once in
college--they were part of the course--and that was the best one I ever
heard. It declared for laws against child labor, and I'm interested in
that; and for juvenile courts and a lot of the new enlightened things.
It was all fine."
"Do you think so? It sounded just like a trombone solo to me. Mr.
Harwood was on that committee. Didn't you hear his name read? He's one
of these high brows in politics, and father's going to push him forward
so he can accomplish the noble things that interest him. Father told me
Mr. Harwood would be a delegate to the convention. That's the reason I
wanted to come. I hope he will make a speech; they say he's one of the
best of the younger men. I heard him at the Opera House at Fraserville
in the last campaign and he kept me awake, I can tell you. And funny!
You wouldn't think he could be funny."
"Oh, I can see that he has humor--the lines around his mouth show that."
They had discussed the convention and its possibilities at Mrs. Owen's
breakfast table and with the morning newspapers as their texts. Sylvia
had gained the impression that Bassett had met a serious defeat in the
choice of delegates, and she had been conscious that Mrs. Bassett was
distressed by the newspaper accounts of it. Marian bubbled on
elucidatively, answering all of Sylvia's questions.
"Don't you think that because papa isn't here he won't be heard from; I
think I know papa better than that. He didn't think this convention
would amount to enough for him to trouble with it. I told Aunt Sally not
to talk much before mother about papa and politics; you will notice that
Aunt Sally turned the subject several times this morning. That lawsuit
Mr. Thatcher brought against papa and Aunt Sally made her pretty hot,
but papa will fix that up all right. Papa always fixes up everything,"
she concluded admiringly.
It was in Sylvia's mind that she was witnessing a scene of the national
drama and that these men beneath her in the noisy hall were engaged upon
matters more or less remotely related to the business of
self-government. She had derived at college a fair idea of the questions
of the day, but the parliamentary mechanism and the thunder of the
captains and the shouting gave to politics a new, concrete expression.
These delegates, drawn from all occupations and conditions of life, were
citizens of a republic, endeavoring to put into tangible form their
ideas and preferences; and similar assemblies had, she knew, for years
been meeting in every American commonwealth, enacting just such scenes
as those that were passing under her eyes. Her gravity amused Mrs. Owen.
"Don't you worry, Sylvia; they are all kind to their families and most
of 'em earn an honest living. I've attended lots of conventions of all
parties and they're all about alike: there are more standing collars in
a Republican convention and more whiskers when the Prohibitionists get
together, but they're all mostly corn-fed and human. A few fellows with
brains in their heads run all the rest."
"Look, Marian, Mr. Harwood seems to be getting ready to do something,"
said Sylvia. "I wonder what that paper is he has in his hand. He's been
holding it all morning."
Harwood sat immediately under them. Several times men had passed notes
to him, whereupon he had risen and searched out the writer to give his
answer with a nod or shake of the head. When Thatcher appeared, Dan had
waited for the hubbub to subside and then he left his seat to shake
hands with Bassett's quondam ally. He held meanwhile a bit of notepaper
the size of his hand, and scrutinized it carefully from time to time. It
contained the precise programme of the convention as arranged by
Bassett. Morton Bassett was on a train bound for the pastoral shades of
Waupegan a hundred miles away, but the permanent chairman had in his
vest pocket a copy of Bassett's scheme of exercises; even Thatcher's
rapturous greeting had been ordered by Bassett. There had already been
one slight slip; the eagerness of the delegates to proceed to the
selection of the state ticket had sent matters forward for a moment
beyond the chairman's control. A delegate with a weak voice had gained
recognition for the laudable purpose of suggesting a limitation upon
nominating speeches; the permanent chairman had mistaken him for
another gentleman for whom he was prepared, and he hastened to correct
his blunder. He seized the gavel and began pounding vigorously and the
man with the weak voice never again caught his eye.
In the middle of the hall a delegate now drew attention to himself by
rising upon a chair; he held a piece of paper in his hand and waved it;
and the chairman promptly took cognizance of him. The chairman referred
to him as the gentleman from Pulaski, but he might have been the
gentleman from Vallombrosa for all that any one cared. The convention
was annoyed that a gentleman from Pulaski County should have dared to
flourish manuscript when there were innumerable orators present fully
prepared to speak extempore on any subject. For all that any one knew
the gentleman from Pulaski might be primed with a speech on the chinch
bug or the Jewish kritarchy; a man with a sheet of paper in his hand was
a formidable person, if not indeed a foe of mankind, and he was
certainly not to be countenaced or encouraged in a hot hall on a day of
June. Yet all other human beings save the gentleman from Pulaski were as
nothing, it seemed, to the chairman. The Tallest Delegate, around whose
lean form a frock coat hung like a fold of night, and who flung back
from a white brow an immense quantity of raven hair, sought to relieve
the convention of the sight and sound of the person from Pulaski. The
Tallest Delegate was called smartly to order; he rebelled, but when
threatened with the sergeant-at-arms subsided amid jeers. The gentleman
from Pulaski was indulged to the fullest extent by the chairman, to whom
it had occurred suddenly that the aisles must be cleared. The aisles
were cleared and delegates were obliged to find their seats before the
unknown gentleman from Pulaski was allowed to proceed. Even the War
Eagle had received no such consideration. The gentleman from Pulaski
calmly waited for a completer silence than the day had known. Ten men in
the hall knew what was coming--not more; Miss Rose Farrell had typed ten
copies of the memorandum which Harwood held in his hand!
The gentleman from Pulaski did not after all refer to his manuscript; he
spoke in a high, penetrating voice that reached the farthest corner of
the hall, reciting from memory:--
"Be it resolved by this convention that, whereas two years hence it will
be the privilege and duty of the Indiana Democracy to elect a United
States Senator to fill the seat now occupied by a Republican, we, the
delegates here assembled, do hereby pledge the party's support for the
office of Senator in Congress to the Honorable Edward G. Thatcher, of
Marion County."
There was a moment's awed calm before the storm broke; Thatcher rose in
his seat to look at the strange gentleman from Pulaski who had thus
flung his name into the arena. Thatcher men rose and clamored blindly
for recognition, without the faintest idea of what they should do if
haply the cold eye of the chairman fell upon them. The galleries joined
in the uproar; the band began to play "On the Banks of the Wabash" and
was with difficulty stopped; a few voices cried "Bassett," but cries of
"Thatcher" rose in a mighty roar and drowned them. The chairman hammered
monotonously for order; Mr. Daniel Harwood might have been seen to
thrust his memorandum into his trousers pocket; he bent forward in his
seat with his eye upon the chairman. The Honorable Isaac Pettit had been
for a moment nonplussed; he was unacquainted with the gentleman from
Pulaski, nor had he known that an effort was to be made to commit the
convention to Thatcher's candidacy; still the tone of the resolution was
friendly. Thatcher, rising to his feet, was noisily cheered; his face
was red and his manner betokened anger; but after glancing helplessly
over the hall he sank into his seat. The chairman thumped with his
gavel; it seemed for a moment that he had lost control of the
convention; and now the Honorable Isaac Pettit was observed demanding to
be heard. The chairman lifted his hand and the noise died away. It lay
in his power to ignore the resolution wholly or to rule it out of order;
the chairman was apparently in no haste to do anything.
"Good old Uncle Ike," howled some one encouragingly, and there was
laughter and applause. With superb dignity Mr. Pettit appealed for
silence with gestures that expressed self-depreciation, humility, and
latent power in one who would, in due course, explain everything. A
group of delegates in the rear began chanting stridently, "Order!
Order!" and it was flung back antiphonally from a dozen other
delegations.
Mr. Harwood became active and climbed upon his chair. Gentlemen in every
part of the hall seemed at once anxious to speak, but the chairman was
apparently oblivious of all but the delegate from Marion. The delegate
from Marion, like the mysterious person from Pulaski, was a stranger to
state conventions. The ladies were at once interested in the young
gentleman with the red carnation in his buttonhole--a trim young fellow,
in a blue serge suit, with a blue four-in-hand knotted under a white
winged collar. As he waited with his eye on the chairman he put his hand
to his head and smoothed his hair.
"Is Daniel going to speak?" asked Mrs. Owen. "He ought to have asked me
if he's going to back Edward Thatcher for Senator."
"I always think his cowlick's so funny. He's certainly the cool one,"
said Marian.
"I don't know what they're talking about a Senator for," said Mrs.
Bassett. "It's very unusual. If I'd known they were going to talk about
that I shouldn't have come. There's sure to be a row."
The chairman seemed anxious that the delegate from Marion should be
honored with the same close attention that had been secured for the
stranger from Pulaski.
"I hope he'll wait till they all sit down," said Sylvia; "I want to hear
him speak."
"You'll hear him, all right," said Marian. "You know at Yale they called
him 'Foghorn' Harwood, and they put him in front to lead the cheering at
all the big games."
Apparently something was expected of Mr. Harwood of Marion. Thatcher
had left his seat and was moving toward the corridors to find his
lieutenants. Half a dozen men accosted him as he moved through the
aisle, but he shook them off angrily. An effort to start another
demonstration in his honor was not wholly fruitless. It resulted at
least in a good deal of confusion of which the chair was briefly
tolerant; then he resumed his pounding, while Harwood stood stubbornly
on his chair.
The Tallest Delegate, known to be a recent convert to Thatcher, was
thoroughly aroused, and advanced toward the platform shouting; but the
chairman leveled his gavel at him and bade him sit down. The moment was
critical; the veriest tyro felt the storm-spirit brooding over the hall.
The voice of the chairman was now audible.
"The chair recognizes the delegate from Marion."
"Out of order! What's his name!" howled many voices.
The chairman graciously availed himself of the opportunity to announce
the name of the gentleman he had recognized.
"Mr. Harwood, of Marion, has the floor. The convention will be in order.
The gentleman will proceed."
"Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order."
Dan's voice rose sonorously; the convention was relieved to find that
the gentleman in blue serge could be heard; he was audible even to Mr.
Thatcher's excited counsellors in the corridors.
"The delegate will kindly state his point of order."
The chairman was quietly courteous. His right hand rested on his gavel,
he thrust his left into the side pocket of his long alpaca coat. He was
an old and tried hand in the chair, and his own deep absorption in the
remarks of Mr. Harwood communicated itself to the delegates.
Dan uttered rapidly the speech he had committed to memory for this
occasion a week earlier. Every sentence had been carefully pondered;
both Bassett and Atwill had blue penciled it until it expressed
concisely and pointedly exactly what Bassett wished to be said at this
point in the convention's proceedings. Interruptions, of applause or
derision, were to be reckoned with; but the speaker did not once drop
his voice or pause long enough for any one to drive in a wedge of
protest. He might have been swamped by an uprising of the whole
convention, but strange to say the convention was intent upon hearing
him. Once the horde of candidates and distinguished visitors on the
platform had been won to attention, Harwood turned slowly until he faced
the greater crowd behind him. Several times he lifted his right hand and
struck out with it, shaking his head with the vigor of his utterance.
("His voice," said the "Advertiser's" report, "rumbles and bangs like a
bowling-alley on Saturday night. There was a big bump every time a
sentence rumbled down the hall and struck the rear wall of the
building.")
"Sir, I make the obvious point of order that there are no vacancies to
fill in the office of United States Senator, and that it does not lie
within the province of the delegates chosen to this convention to pledge
the party to any man. I do not question the motive of the delegate from
Pulaski County, who is my personal friend; and I am animated by no
feelings of animosity in demanding that the convention proceed to the
discharge of its obligations without touching upon matters clearly
beyond its powers. I confidently hope and sincerely believe that our
party in Indiana is soon to receive a new commission of trust and
confidence from the people of the old Hoosier State. But our immediate
business is the choice of a ticket behind which the Hoosier Democracy
will move on to victory in November like an army with banners. (Cheers.)
There have been intimations in the camp of our enemy that the party is
threatened with schism and menaced by factional wars; but I declare my
conviction that the party is more harmonious and more truly devoted to
high ideals to-day than at any time since the grand old name of Democrat
became potent upon Hoosier soil. And what have we to do with leaders?
Men come and men go, but principles alone are eternal and live forever.
The great task of our party must be to bring the government back to the
people. (Scattering applause.) But the choice of an invulnerable state
ticket at this convention is our business and our only business. As for
Indiana's two seats in the national Senate which we shall soon wrest
from our adversaries, in due season we shall fill them with tried men
and true. Sir, let us remember that whosoever maketh himself a king
speaketh against Caesar. Stop, Look, Listen!"
Hardly a man in the hall so dull that this did not penetrate! Dan had
given to his last words a weird, mournful intonation whose effect was
startling. He jumped lightly to the floor and was in his seat before the
deep boom of his voice had ceased reverberating. Then instantly it
seemed that the seventeen hundred delegates had been multiplied by ten,
and that every man had become a raving lunatic. This was Bassett's
defiance--Bassett, who had gone fishing, but not before planting this
mine for the confusion of Thatcher. A hundred men who had already
committed themselves to Thatcher sought to rescue their new leader; they
rose upon chairs and demanded to be heard. "Stop, Look, Listen" had
suggested the idea of a locomotive bearing down upon a dangerous
crossing, and Bassett's men began to whistle. The whistling increased in
volume until it drowned the shouts, the cheers, and the laughter. Ladies
in the galleries stopped their ears while the whistling convention
earned its name. It now occurred to the chairman, who had wasted no
energy in futile efforts to stay the storm, that he had a duty to
perform. Even to his practiced hand the restoration of order was not
easy; but by dint of much bawling and pounding he subdued the uproar.
Then after impressive deliberation he said:--
"A point of order has been raised against the resolution offered by the
gentleman from Pulaski. It is the ruling of the chair that the point is
well taken. The resolution is out of order."
This was greeted with great applause; but the chair checked it promptly.
The ten gentlemen who had copies of the Bassett programme in their
pockets were not surprised by the decision. Thatcher stood at a side
door and two of his men were pushing their way through the aisles to
reach Pettit; for the Honorable Isaac Pettit was on his feet demanding
recognition while Thatcher's delegates shouted to him to sit down;
humiliation must go no farther, and if the Fraser County editor did not
realize that his new chief was the victim of a vile trick, the gentleman
from Fraser must be throttled, if necessary, to prevent a further
affront to Thatcher's dignity. Thatcher was purple with rage; it was
enough to have been made the plaything of an unscrupulous enemy once,
without having one's ambitions repeatedly kicked up and down a
convention hall.
The chairman, fully rehearsed in his part, showed a malevolent
disposition to continue toward the friends of Thatcher an attitude at
once benevolent and just. So many were demanding recognition amid
cat-calling and whistling that the fairest and least partial of
presiding officers might well have hesitated before singling out one
gentleman when so many were eagerly, even furiously, desirous of
enlightening the convention. But the presiding officer was obeying the
orders communicated to him by a gentleman who was even at this moment
skimming across the cool waters of Lake Waupegan. It would more fully
have satisfied the chairman's sense of humor to have recognized the
Honorable Isaac Pettit and have suffered an appeal from the ruling of
the chair, which presumably the editor wished to demand. By this means
the weakness of Thatcher might have expressed itself in figures that
would have deepened Thatcher's abasement in the eyes of his fellow
partisans; but this idea had been discussed with Bassett, who had
sharply vetoed it, and the chairman was not a man lightly to disobey
orders even to make a Hoosier holiday. He failed to see the editor of
the "Fraser County Democrat" and peremptorily closed the incident. There
was no mistaking his temper as he announced:--
"The chair announces that the next business in order is the call of the
roll of counties for nominations for the office of secretary of state.
What is the pleasure of the convention?"
Colonel Ramsay had repaired to the gallery to enjoy the proceedings with
Mrs. Bassett's party. In spite of his support of the Palmer and Buckner
ticket (how long ago that seems!), the Colonel had never lost touch with
the main body of his party, and he carried several Indiana counties in
his pocket. His relations with Bassett had never been in the least
intimate, though always outwardly cordial, and there were those who
looked to him to eliminate the Fraser County chief from politics. He was
quite as rich as Bassett, and a successful lawyer, who had become a
colonel by grace of a staff appointment in the Spanish War. He had a
weakness for the poets, and his speeches were informed with that grace
and sentiment which, we are fond of saying, is peculiar to Southern
oratory. The Colonel, at all fitting occasions in our commonwealth,
responded to "the ladies" in tender and moving phrases. He was a
bachelor, and the ladies in the gallery saw in him their true champion.
"Please tell _us_--we don't understand a bit of it," pleaded
Marian--"what it's all about, Colonel Ramsay."
"Oh, it's just a little joke of your father's; nothing funnier ever
happened in a state convention." Colonel Ramsay grinned. "The key to the
situation is right there: that Pulaski County delegate offered his
resolution just to make trouble; it was a fake resolution. Of course the
chairman is in the joke. This young fellow down here--yes, Harwood--made
his speech to add to the gayety of nations. He had no right to make it,
of course, but the word had been passed along the line to let him go
through. Amazing vocal powers, that boy,--you couldn't have stopped
him!"
Sylvia was aware that Colonel Ramsay's explanation had not pleased Mrs.
Bassett; but Mrs. Owen evinced no feeling. Marian was enjoying Colonel
Ramsay's praise of her father's adroitness. Near Sylvia were other women
who had much at stake in the result of the convention. The wife of a
candidate for secretary of state had invited herself to a seat beside
Mrs. Bassett; the wife of a Congressman who wished to be governor, sat
near, publishing to the world her intimate acquaintance with Morton
Bassett's family. The appearance and conduct of these women during the
day interested Sylvia almost as much as the incidents occurring on the
floor; it was a new idea that politics had a bearing upon the domestic
life of the men who engaged in the eternal contest for place and power.
The convention as a spectacle was immensely diverting, but she had her
misgivings about it as a transaction in history. Colonel Ramsay asked
her politics and she confessed that she had none. She had inherited
Republican prejudices from her grandfather, and most of the girls she
had known in college were of Republican antecedents; but she liked to
call herself an independent.
"You'd better not be a Democrat, Sylvia," Mrs. Owen warned her. "I
suffered a good deal in my husband's lifetime from being one. There are
still people in this town who think a Democrat's the same as a Rebel or
a Copperhead. It ain't hardly respectable yet, being a Democrat, and if
they don't all of 'em shut up about the 'fathers' and the Constitution,
I'm going to move to Mexico where it's all run by niggers."
Sylvia had singled out several figures in the drama enacting below for
special attention. The chairman had interested her by reason of his
attitude of scrupulous fairness, in which she now saw the transparent
irony; the banalities of the temporary chairman had touched her humor;
she watched him for the rest of the morning with a kind of awe that any
one could he so dull, so timorous, and yet be chosen to address nearly
two thousand American citizens on an occasion of importance. She was
unable to reconcile Thatcher's bald head, ruddy neck, and heavy
shoulders with Marian's description of the rich man's son, who dreamed
of heroes and played at carpentry. Dan's speech had not been without its
thrill for her, and she now realized its significance. It had been a
part of a trick, and in spite of herself she could not share the
admiration Colonel Ramsay was expressing for Harwood's share in it. He
was immeasurably superior to the majority of those about him in the
crowded hall; he was a man of education, a college man, and she had just
experienced in her own life that consecration, as by an apostolic
laying-on of hands, by which a college confers its honors and imposes
its obligations upon those who have enjoyed its ministry. Yet Harwood,
who had not struck her as weak or frivolous, had lent himself to-day to
a bit of cheap claptrap merely to humble one man for the glorification
of another. Bassett she had sincerely liked in their one meeting at
Waupegan; and yet this was of his plotting and Harwood was his
mouthpiece and tool. It did not seem fair to take advantage of such
supreme stupidity as Thatcher's supporters had manifested. Her
disappointment in Harwood--and it was quite that--was part of her
general disappointment in the methods by which men transacted the
serious business of governing themselves.
Harwood was conscious that he was one of the chief figures in the
convention; every one knew him now; he was called here and there on the
floor, by men anxious to impress themselves upon Bassett's authorized
spokesman. It is a fine thing at twenty-seven to find the doors of
opportunity flung wide--and had he not crossed the threshold and passed
within the portal? He was Bassett's man; every one knew that now; but
why should he not be Bassett's man? He would go higher and farther than
Bassett: Bassett had merely supplied the ladder on which he would climb.
He was happier than he had ever been before in his life; he had
experienced the intoxication of applause, and he was not averse to the
glances of the women in the gallery above him.
The nomination of candidates now went forward rather tamely, though
relieved by occasional sharp contests. The ten gentlemen who had been
favored with copies of the Bassett programme were not surprised that so
many of Thatcher's friends were nominated; they themselves voted for
most of them. It seemed remarkable to the uninitiated that Bassett
should have slapped Thatcher and then have allowed him to score in the
choice of the ticket. The "Advertiser," anxious to show Bassett as
strong and malignant as possible, expressed the opinion that the
Fraserville boss had not after all appreciated the full force of the
Thatcher movement.
* * * * *
On the veranda of his Waupegan cottage Bassett and Fitch enjoyed the
wholesome airs of the country. Late in the afternoon the fussy little
steamer that traversed the lake paused at the Bassett dock to deliver a
telegram, which Bassett read without emotion. He passed the yellow slip
of paper to Fitch, who read it and handed it back.
"Harwood's a clever fellow; but you oughtn't to push him into politics.
He's better than that."
"I suppose he is," said Bassett; "but I need him."