We, our party, carried the state, as usual. Our legislative majority was
increased by eleven, to thirty-seven on joint ballot. It was certain
that Dunkirk's successor would be of the same political faith; but would
he be Dunkirk? At first that venerable custodian of the plum tree hadn't
a doubt. He had come to look on it as his personal property. But, after
he had talked to legislators-elect from various parts of the state, he
became uneasy. He found that the party's members were dangerously evenly
divided between himself and the "Dominick-Croffut" faction. And soon he
was at me to declare for him.
I evaded as long as I could,--which did not decrease his nervousness.
When he put it to me point-blank, I said: "I can't do it, Senator. I
will not mix in quarrels within the party."
"But they are saying you are against me," he pleaded.
"And your people are saying I am for you," I retorted.
"But surely you are not against _me_ and for Schoolcraft? What has he
done for you?"
"And what have _you_ done for me?" I replied,--a mere interrogation,
without any feeling in it. "Tell me. I try to pay my debts."
His eyes shifted. "Nothing, Sayler, nothing," he said. "I didn't mean to
insinuate that you owed me anything. Still, I thought--you wouldn't have
been state chairman, except--"
As he halted, I said, "Except that you needed me. And you will recall
that I took it only on condition that I should be free."
"Then you are opposed to me," he said. "Nobody can be on the fence in
this fight."
"I do not think you can be elected," I replied.
As he sat silent, the puffs under his eyes swelled into bags and the
pallor of his skin changed to the gray which makes the face look as if a
haze or a cloud lay upon it. I pitied him so profoundly that, had I
ventured to speak, I should have uttered impulsive generosities that
would have cost me dear. How rarely are our impulses of generosity
anything but impulses to folly, injustice, and wrong!
"We shall see," was all he said, and he rose and shambled away.
They told me he made a pitiful sight, wheedling and whining among the
legislators. But he degraded himself to some purpose. He succeeded in
rallying round him enough members to deadlock the party caucus for a
month,--members from the purely rural districts, where the sentiment of
loyalty is strongest, where his piety and unselfish devotion to the
party were believed in, and his significance as a "statesman." I let
this deadlock continue--forty-one for Dunkirk, forty-one for
Schoolcraft--until I felt that the party throughout the state was
heartily sick of the struggle. Then Woodruff bought, at twelve thousand
dollars apiece, two Dunkirk men to vote to transfer the contest to the
floor of a joint session of the two houses.
After four days of balloting there, seven Dominick-Croffut men voted for
me--my first appearance as a candidate. On the seventy-seventh ballot
Schoolcraft withdrew, and all the Dominick-Croffut men voted for me. On
the seventy-ninth ballot I got, in addition, two opposition votes
Woodruff had bought for me at eight hundred dollars apiece. The ballot
was: Dunkirk, forty-one; Grassmere, (who was receiving the opposition's
complimentary vote) thirty-six; Sayler, forty-three. I was a Senator of
the United States.
There was a wild scene. Threats, insults, blows even, were exchanged.
And down at the Capital City Hotel Dunkirk crawled upon a table and
denounced me as an infamous ingrate, a traitor, a serpent he had warmed
in his bosom. But the people of the state accepted it as natural and
satisfactory that "the vigorous and fearless young chairman of the
party's state committee" should be agreed on as a compromise. An hour
after that last ballot, he hadn't a friend left except some galling
sympathizers from whom he hid himself. Those who had been his firmest
supporters were paying court to the new custodian of the plum tree.
The governor was mine, and the legislature. Mine was the Federal
patronage, also--all of it, if I chose, for Croffut was my dependent,
though he did not realize it; mine also were the indefinitely vast
resources of the members of my combine. Without my consent no man could
get office anywhere in my state, from governorship and judgeship down as
far as I cared to reach. Subject only to the check of public
sentiment,--so easily defeated if it be not defied,--I was master of the
making and execution of laws. Why? Not because I was leader of the
dominant party. Not because I was a Senator of the United States. Solely
because I controlled the sources of the money that maintained the
political machinery of both parties. The hand that holds the purse
strings is the hand that rules,--if it knows how to rule; for rule is
power _plus_ ability.
I was not master because I had the plum tree. I had the plum tree
because I was master.
* * * * *
The legislature attended to such of the demands of my combine and such
of the demands of the public as I thought it expedient to grant, and
then adjourned. Woodruff asked a three months' leave. I did not hear
from or of him until midsummer, when he sent me a cablegram from
London. He was in a hospital there, out of money and out of health. I
cabled him a thousand dollars and asked him to come home as soon as he
could. It was my first personal experience with that far from uncommon
American type, the periodic drunkard. I had to cable him money three
times before he started.
When he came to me at Washington, in December, he looked just as
before,--calm, robust, cool, cynical, and dressed in the very extreme of
the extreme fashion. I received him as if nothing had happened. It was
not until the current of mutual liking was again flowing freely between
us that I said: "Doc, may I impose on your friendship to the extent of
an intrusion into your private affairs?"
He started, and gave me a quick look, his color mounting. "Yes," he said
after a moment.
"When I heard from you," I went on, "I made some inquiries. I owe you no
apology. You had given me a shock,--one of the severest of my life. But
they told me that you never let--that--that peculiarity of yours
interfere with business."
His head was hanging. "I always go away," he said. "Nobody that knows me
ever sees me when--at that time."