THE KING HATH SUMMONED HIS PARLIAMENT
The Great Seal of the Hoosier Commonwealth, depicting a sturdy pioneer
felling a tree while behind him a frightened buffalo gallops madly into
oblivion, was affixed to a proclamation of the governor convening the
legislature in special session on the 20th of November. It was Morton
Bassett's legislature, declared the Republican press, brought back to
the capital to do those things which it had left undone at the regular
session. The Democratic newspapers proved conclusively that the demands
of the state institutions said to be in dire need were the fruit of a
long period of Republican extravagance, for which the Democratic Party,
always prone to err on the side of frugality, was in no wise
responsible. The Republican governor had caused the legislative halls to
be reopened merely to give a false impression of Democratic
incompetence, but in due season the people would express their opinion
of that governor. So reasoned loyal Democrats. Legislatures are not
cheap, taken at their lowest valuation, and a special session, costing
something like one hundred thousand of the people's dollars, is an
extravagance before which a governor may well hesitate. This particular
convocation of the Hoosier lawmakers, summoned easily enough by a
stroke of the pen, proved to be expensive in more ways than one.
On the third day of the special session, when the tardiest member,
hailing from the remote fastnesses of Switzerland County, was just
finding his seat, and before all the others had drawn their stationery
and registered a generous computation of their mileage, something
happened. The bill for an act entitled an act to lift the lid of the
treasure chests was about to be read for the first time when a page
carried a telegram to Morton Bassett in the senate chamber.
Senator Bassett read his message once and again. His neighbors on the
floor looked enviously upon the great man who thus received telegrams
without emotion. It seemed, however, to those nearest him, that the bit
of yellow paper shook slightly in Bassett's hand The clerk droned on to
an inattentive audience. Bassett put down the telegram, looked about,
and then got upon his feet. The lieutenant-governor, yawning and idly
playing with his gavel, saw with relief that the senator from Fraser
wished to interrupt the proceedings.
"Mr. President."
"The senator from Fraser."
"Mr. President, I ask leave to interrupt the reading of the bill to make
an announcement."
"There being no objection, the senator will make his announcement."
Senators who had been smoking in the cloakroom, or talking to friends
outside the railing, became attentive. The senator from Fraser was
little given to speech, and it might be that he meant at this time to
indicate the attitude of the majority toward the appropriations asked by
the governor. In any event, it was always wise to listen to anything
Morton Bassett had to say.
The senator was unusually deliberate. Even when he had secured the
undivided attention of the chamber he picked up the telegram and read it
through again, as though to familiarize himself with its contents.
"Mr. President, I have just received the following message from a
personal friend in Washington: 'The Honorable Roger B. Ridgefield,
United States Senator from Indiana, while on a hunting trip in
Chesapeake Bay with a party of Baltimore friends, died suddenly this
morning. The death occurred at a point remote from the telegraph. No
particulars have yet been received at Washington.' It is with profound
sorrow, Mr. President, that I make this announcement. Though Senator
Ridgefield had long been my political antagonist, he had also been, for
many years, a valued personal friend. The Republican Party has lost one
of its great leaders, and the State of Indiana a son to whom men of all
parties have given their ungrudging admiration. Mr. President, I move
that the senate do now adjourn to meet at ten o'clock to-morrow
morning."
Even before the motion could be put, Bassett was passing about among the
desks. The men he spoke to nodded understandingly. A mild, subdued
excitement reigned in the chamber. It flashed through the mind of every
Democratic member that that death in the Chesapeake had brought a crisis
in the war between Bassett and Thatcher. In due course the assembly,
convened in joint session, would mourn decorously the death of a
statesman who had long and honorably represented the old Hoosier State
in the greatest tribunal on earth; and his passing would be feelingly
referred to in sonorous phrases as an untoward event, a deplorable and
irreparable loss to the commonwealth. To Republicans, however, it was a
piece of stupendous ill-luck that the Senator should have indulged in
the childish pastime of duck shooting at an inconvenient season when the
Democratic majority in the general assembly would be able to elect a
successor to complete his term of office.
When the gavel fell, adjourning the senate, gentlemen were already
seeking in the Federal Constitution for the exact language of the
section bearing upon this emergency. If the Republican governor had not
so gayly summoned the legislature he might have appointed a Senator of
his own political faith to serve until the next regular session,
following the elections a year hence. It was ungenerous and disloyal of
Roger B. Ridgefield to have taken himself out of the world in this
abrupt fashion. Before the first shock had passed, there were those
about the State House who, scanning the newspaper extras, were saying
that a secret fondness for poker and not an enthusiasm for ducks had led
the Honorable Roger B. Ridgefield to the remote arm of the Chesapeake,
where he had been the guest of a financier whose influence in the upper
house of Congress was notoriously pernicious. This did not, however,
alter the immediate situation. The language of the Federal and State
Constitutions was all too explicit for the Republican minority; it was
only in recess that a governor might fill a vacancy; and beyond doubt
the general assembly was in town, lawfully brought from the farm, the
desk, the mine, and the factory, as though expressly to satisfy the
greed for power of a voracious Democracy.
Groups of members were retiring to quiet corners to discuss the crisis.
Bassett had already designated a committee room where he would meet his
followers and stanch adherents. Thatcher men had gone forth to seek
their chief. The Democrats would gain a certain moral strength through
the possession of a Senator in Congress. The man chosen to fill the
vacancy would have an almost irresistible claim upon the senatorship if
the Democrats should control the next legislature. It was worth fighting
for, that dead man's seat!
The full significance of the news was not wasted upon Representative
Harwood. The house adjourned promptly, and Dan hastened to write
telegrams. He wired Colonel Ramsay, of Aurora, to come to the capital on
the first train. Telegrams went flying that afternoon to every part of
Indiana.
Thatcher read the evening papers in Chicago and kept the wires hot while
he waited for the first train for Indianapolis.
One of his messages, addressed to Harwood, read:
"Breakfast with me to-morrow morning at my house. Strictly private.
This is your big chance."
Harwood, locked in his office in the Law Building, received this message
by telephone, and it aroused his ire. His relations with Thatcher did
not justify that gentleman in tendering him a strictly private
breakfast, nor did he relish having a big chance pointed out to him by
Mr. Thatcher. It cannot be denied that Dan, too, felt that Senator
Ridgefield had chosen a most unfortunate season for exposing himself to
the ravages of the pneumococcus. He kept away from the State House and
hotels that evening, having decided to take no part in the preliminary
skirmishes until he had seen Ramsay, who would bring a cool head and a
trained hand to bear upon this unforeseen situation.
He studied the newspapers as he ate breakfast alone at the University
Club early the next morning. The "Advertiser" had neatly divided its
first page between the Honorable Roger B. Ridgefield, dead in a far
country, and the Honorable Morton Bassett, who, it seemed, was very much
alive at the Hoosier capital. A double column headline conveyed this
intelligence:--
BASSETT IS HIMSELF AGAIN
Harwood, nibbled his toast and winnowed the chaff of speculation from
the grains of truth in this article. He had checked off the names of all
the Bassett men in both houses of the assembly, and listed Thatcher's
supporters and the doubtful members. Bassett would undoubtedly make a
strong showing in a caucus, but whether he would be able to command a
majority remained to be seen. There were men among the doubtful who
would be disposed to favor Thatcher because he had driven a wedge into
the old Bassett stone wall. No one else had ever succeeded in imperiling
the security of that impregnable stronghold. The thought of this made
Harwood uncomfortable. It was unfortunate from every standpoint that the
legislature should be called upon to choose a Senator without the usual
time for preparation. Dan had already been struck by the general air of
irresponsibility that prevailed among the legislators. Many of the
members had looked upon the special session as a lark; they seemed to
feel that their accountability to their constituents had ended with the
regular session.
The "Courier," Dan observed, printed an excellent biographical sketch of
the dead Senator, and its news article on the Democratic opportunity was
seemly and colorless. The state and federal statutes bearing upon the
emergency were quoted in full, but the names of Bassett and Thatcher did
not appear, nor were any possible successors to Ridgefield mentioned.
Dan opened to the editorial page, and was not surprised to find the
leading article a dignified eulogy of the dead Senator. Then his eye
fastened upon an article so placed that it dominated the whole page. It
was the old "Stop, Look, Listen!" editorial, reproduced with minute
citation of the date of original publication.
Dan flinched as though a cupful of ice water had struck him in the face.
Whatever scandalous knowledge touching Bassett's public or private life
Thatcher might possess, it was plain that Bassett was either ignorant of
it or knew and did not fear exposure. In either event, the republication
of the "Stop, Look, Listen!" article was an invitation to battle.
It was in no happy frame of mind that Harwood awaited the coming of
Ramsay.