That was, indeed, a wild winter at the state capital,--a "carnival of
corruption," the newspapers of other states called it. One of the first
of the "black bills" to go through was a disguised street railway grab,
out of which Senator Croffut got a handsome "counsel fee" of fifty-odd
thousand dollars. But as the rout went on, ever more audaciously and
recklessly, he became uneasy. In mid-February he was urging me to go
West and try to do something to "curb those infernal grabbers." I
refused to interfere. He went himself, and Woodruff reported to me that
he was running round the state house and the hotels like a crazy man;
for when he got into the thick of it, he realized that it was much worse
than it seemed from Washington. In a few days he was back and at me
again.
"It's very strange," said he suspiciously. "The boys say they're getting
nothing out of it. They declare they're simply obeying orders."
"Whose orders?" I asked.
"I don't know," he answered, his eyes sharply upon me. "But I do know
that, unless something is done, I'll not be returned to the Senate.
We'll lose the legislature, sure, next fall."
"It does look that way," I said with a touch of melancholy. "That street
railway grab was the beginning of our rake's progress. We've been going
it, hell bent, ever since."
He tossed his handsome head and was about to launch into an angry
defense of himself. But my manner checked him. He began to plead. "_You_
can stop it, Sayler. Everybody out there says you can. And, if I am
reëlected, I've got a good chance for the presidential nomination.
Should I get it and be elected, we could form a combination that would
interest you, I think."
It was a beautiful irony that in his conceit he should give as his
reason why I should help him the very reason why I was not sorry he was
to be beaten. For, although he was not dangerous, still he was a rival
public figure to Burbank in our state, and,--well, accidents sometimes
happen, unless they're guarded against.
"What shall I do?" I asked him.
"Stop them from passing any more black bills. Why, they've got half a
dozen ready, some of them worse even than the two they passed over
Burbank's veto, a week ago."
"For instance?"
He cited three Power Trust bills.
"But why don't _you_ stop those three?" said I. "They're under the
special patronage of Dominick. You have influence with him."
"Dominick!" he groaned. "Are you sure?" And when I nodded emphatically,
he went on: "I'll do what I can, but--" He threw up his hands.
He was off for the West that night. When he returned, his face wore the
look of doom. He had always posed for the benefit of the galleries,
especially the women in the galleries. But now he became sloven in
dress, often issued forth unshaven, and sat sprawled at his desk in the
Senate, his chin on his shirt bosom, looking vague and starting when any
one spoke to him.
Following my advice on the day when I sent him away happy, Burbank left
the capital and the state just before the five worst bills left the
committees. He was called to the bedside of his wife who, so all the
newspapers announced, was at the point of death at Colorado Springs.
While he was there nursing her as she "hovered between life and death,"
the bills were jammed through the senate and the assembly.
He telegraphed the lieutenant governor not to sign them, as he was
returning and wished to deal with them himself. He reached the capital
on a Thursday morning, sent the bills back with a "ringing" veto
message, and took the late afternoon train for Colorado Springs. It was
as good a political "grand-stand play" as ever thrilled a people.
The legislature passed the bills over his veto and adjourned that night.
Press and people, without regard to party lines, were loud in their
execrations of the "abandoned and shameless wretches" who had "betrayed
the state and had covered themselves with eternal infamy." I quote from
an editorial in the newspaper that was regarded as my personal organ.
But there was only praise for Burbank; his enemies, and those who had
doubted his independence and had suspected him of willingness to do
anything to further his personal ambitions, admitted that he had shown
"fearless courage, inflexible honesty, and the highest ideals of private
sacrifice to public duty." And they eagerly exaggerated him, to make his
white contrast more vividly with the black of the "satanic spawn" in the
legislature. His fame spread, carried far and wide by the sentimentality
in that supposed struggle between heart and conscience, between love for
the wife of his bosom and duty to the people.
Carlotta, who like most women took no interest in politics because it
lacks "heart-interest," came to me with eyes swimming and cheeks aglow.
She had just been reading about Burbank's heroism.
"Isn't he splendid!" she cried. "I always told you he'd be President.
And you didn't believe me."
"Be patient with me, my dear," said I. "I am not a woman with
seven-league boots of intuition. I'm only a heavy-footed man."