"It is patently absurd," I went on, "that you who finance politics and
keep in funds these fellows of both machines should let them treat you
as if you were their servants. Why don't you put them in their place,
servants at servants' wages?"
"But I've no time to go into politics,--and I don't know anything about
it--don't want to know. It's a low business,--ignorance, corruption,
filthiness."
"Take Dunkirk, for example," I pushed on. "His lieutenants and heelers
hate him because he doesn't divide squarely. The only factor in his
power is the rank and file of the voters of our party. They, I'm
convinced, are pretty well aware of his hypocrisy,--but it doesn't
matter much what they think. They vote like sheep and accept whatever
leaders and candidates our machine gives them. They are almost
stone-blind in their partizanship and they can always be fooled up to
the necessary point. And we can fool them ourselves, if we go about it
right, just as well as Dunkirk does it for hire."
"But Dunkirk is _their_ man, isn't he?" he suggested.
"Any man is their man whom you choose to give them," replied I. "And
don't _you_ give them Dunkirk? He takes the money from the big business
interests, and with it hires the men to sit in the legislature and
finances the machine throughout the state. It takes big money to run a
political machine. His power belongs to you people, to a dozen of you,
and you can take it away from him; his popularity belongs to the party,
and it would cheer just as loudly for any other man who wore the party
uniform."
"I see," he said reflectively; "the machine rules the party, and money
rules the machine, and we supply the money and don't get the benefit.
It's as if I let my wife or one of my employés run my property."
"Much like that," I answered. "Now, why shouldn't you finance the
machine directly and do away with Dunkirk, who takes as his own wages
about half what you give him? He takes it and wastes it in stock
speculations,--gambling with your hard-earned wealth, gambling it away
cheerfully, because he feels that you people will always give him more."
"What do you propose?" he asked; and I could see that his acute business
mind was ready to pounce upon my scheme and search it hopefully if
mercilessly.
"A secret, absolutely secret, combine of a dozen of the big corporations
of my state,--those that make the bulk of the political business,--the
combine to be under the management of some man whom they trust and whose
interests are business, not political."
"He would have enormous power," said Roebuck.
I knew that he would point first and straight at that phase of my
scheme, no matter how subtly I might disguise it. So I had pushed it
into his face and had all but pointed at it myself so that I might
explain it away. "Power?" said I. "How do you make that out? Any member
of the combine that is dissatisfied can withdraw at any time and go
back to the old way of doing business. Besides, the manager won't dare
appear in it at all,--he'll have to hide himself from the people and
from the politicians, behind some popular figure-head. There's another
advantage that mustn't be overlooked. Dunkirk and these other demagogues
who bleed you are inflaming public sentiment more and more against you
big corporations,--that's their way of frightening you into yielding to
their demands. Under the new plan their demagoguery would cease. Don't
you think it's high time for the leaders of commerce and industry to
combine intelligently against demagoguery? Don't you think they have
cringed before it, and have financed and fostered it too long?"
This argument, which I had reserved for the last, had all the effect I
anticipated. He sat rubbing his broad, bald forehead, twisting his white
whiskers and muttering to himself. Presently he asked, "When are you and
Lottie Ramsay going to be married?"
"In the fall," said I. "In about three months."
"Well, we'll talk this over again--after you are married and settled.
If you had the substantial interests to give you the steadiness and
ballast, I think you'd be the very man for your scheme. Yes,
something--some such thing as you suggest--must be done to stop the
poisoning of public opinion against the country's best and strongest
men. The political department of the business interests ought to be as
thoroughly organized as the other departments are. Come to me again
after you're married."
I saw that his mind was fixed, that he would be unable to trust me until
I was of his class, of the aristocracy of corpulent corporate persons. I
went away much downcast; but, two weeks afterward he telegraphed for me,
and when I came he at once brought up the subject of the combine.
"Go ahead with it," he said. "I've been thinking it over and talking it
over. We shall need only nine others besides myself and you. You
represent the Ramsay interest."
He equipped me with the necessary letters of introduction and sent me
forth on a tour of my state. When it was ended, my "combine" was formed.
And _I_ was the combine,--was master of this political blind pool. I
had taken the first, the hardest step, toward the realization of my
dream of real political power,--to become an unbossed boss, not the
agent and servant of Plutocracy or Partizanship, but using both to
further my own purposes and plans.
I had thus laid out for myself the difficult feat of controlling two
fiery steeds. Difficult, but not impossible, if I should develop skill
as a driver--for the skilful driver has a hand so light that his horses
fancy they are going their own road at their own gait.