So much for my first move toward the chastening of my clients. Further
and even more effective in the same direction, I cut down our campaign
fund for the legislative ticket to one-fifth what it usually was; and,
without even Woodruff's knowing it, I heavily subsidized the opposition
machine. Wherever it could be done with safety I arranged for the
trading off of our legislative ticket for our candidate for governor.
"The legislature is hopelessly lost," I told Woodruff; "we must
concentrate on the governorship. We must save what we can." In fact, so
overwhelmingly was our party in the majority, and so loyal were its
rank and file, that it was only by the most careful arrangement of weak
candidates and of insufficient campaign funds that I was able to throw
the legislature to the opposition. Our candidate for governor,
Walbrook--Burbank was ineligible to a second successive term--was
elected by a comfortable plurality. And, by the way, I saw to it that
the party organs gave Woodruff enthusiastic praise for rescuing so much
from what had looked like utter ruin.
My clients had been uneasy ever since the furious popular outburst which
had followed their breaking away from my direction and restraint. When
they saw an opposition legislature, they readily believed what they read
in the newspapers about the "impending reign of radicalism." Silliman,
the opposition leader, had accepted John Markham's offer of one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for Croffut's seat in the Senate; but I
directed him to send Veerhoft, one of the wildest and cleverest of the
opposition radicals. He dared not disobey me. Veerhoft went, and Markham
never saw again the seventy-five thousand he had paid Silliman as a
"retainer."
Veerhoft in the United States Senate gave my clients the chills; but I
was preparing the fever for them also. I had Silliman introduce bills in
both houses of the legislature that reached for the privileges of the
big corporations and initiated proceedings to expose their corruption. I
had Woodruff suggest to Governor Walbrook that, in view of the popular
clamor, he ought to recommend measures for equalizing taxation and
readjusting the prices of franchises. As my clients were bonded and
capitalized on the basis of no expense either for taxes or for
franchises, the governor's suggestion, eagerly adopted by Silliman's
"horde," foreshadowed ruin. If the measures should be passed, all the
dividends and interest they were paying on "water" would go into the
public treasury.
My clients came to me, singly and in pairs, to grovel and to implore. An
interesting study these arrogant gentlemen made as they cringed, utterly
indifferent to the appearance of self-respect, in their agony for their
imperiled millions. A mother would shrink from abasing herself to save
the life of her child as these men abased themselves in the hope of
saving their dollars. How they fawned and flattered! They begged my
pardon for having disregarded my advice; they assured me that, if I
would only exert that same genius of mine which had conceived the
combine, I could devise some way of saving them from this tidal wave of
popular clamor,--for they hadn't a suspicion of my part in making that
tidal wave.