Burbank had grown like a fungus in his own esteem.
The adulation of the free excursionists I had poured in upon him, the
eulogies in the newspapers, the flatteries of those about him, eager to
make themselves "solid" with the man who might soon have the shaking of
the huge, richly laden presidential boughs of the plum tree--this
combination of assaults upon sanity was too strong for a man with such
vanity as his, a traitor within. He had convinced his last prudent doubt
that he was indeed a "child of destiny." He was resentful lest I might
possibly think myself more important than he to the success of the
campaign. And his resentment was deepened by the probably incessant
reminders of his common sense that all this vast machine, public and
secret, could have been set in motion just as effectively for any one
of a score of "statesmen" conspicuous in the party.
I saw through his labored cordiality; and it depressed me again--started
me down toward those depths of self-condemnation from which I had been
held up for a few days by the excitement of the swiftly thronging events
and by the necessity of putting my whole mind upon moves for my game.
"I am heartily glad you were successful," he began when we were alone.
"That takes a weight off my mind."
"You misunderstood me, I see," said I. "I haven't got anything from
those people in New York as yet. But within a week they'll be begging me
to take whatever I need. Thwing's report will put them in a panic."
His face fell. "Then I must be especially courteous to Goodrich," he
said, after thinking intently. "Your hopes might be disappointed."
"Not the slightest danger," was my prompt assurance. "And if you take my
advice, you will ask Goodrich how his agent found Senator Scarborough's
health, and then order him out of this house. Why harbor a deadly snake
that can be of no use to you?"
"But you seem to forget, Harvey, that he is the master of at least the
eastern wing of the party. And you must now see that he will stop at
nothing, unless he is pacified."
"He is the fetch-and-carry of an impudent and cowardly crowd in Wall
Street," I retorted, "that is all. When they find he can no longer do
their errands, they'll throw him over and come to us. And we can have
them on our own terms."
We argued, with growing irritation on both sides, and after an hour or
so, I saw that he was hopelessly under the spell of his pettiness and
his moral cowardice. He had convinced himself that I was jealous of
Goodrich and would sacrifice anything to gratify my hate. And Goodrich's
sending an agent to Scarborough had only made him the more formidable in
Burbank's eyes. As I looked in upon his mind and watched its weak,
foolish little workings, my irritation subsided. "Do as you think best,"
said I wearily. "But when he presents the mortgage you are going to give
him on your presidency, remember my warning."
He laughed this off, feeling my point only in his vanity, not at all in
his judgment. "And how will _you_ receive him, Harvey? He will be sure
to come to you next--must, as you are in charge of my campaign."
"I'll tell him straight out that I'll have nothing to do with him," said
I blandly. "The Wall Street submission to the party must be brought to
me by some other ambassador. I'll not help him to fool his masters and
to hide it from them that he has lost control."
I could have insisted, could have destroyed Goodrich--for Burbank would
not have dared disobey me. But the campaign, politics in general, life
itself, filled me with disgust, a paralyzing disgust that made me almost
lose confidence in my theory of practical life.
"What's the use?" I said to myself. "Let Burbank keep his adder. Let it
sting him. If it so much as shoots a fang at me, I can crush it."
And so, Burbank lifted up Goodrich and gave hostages to him; and
Goodrich, warned that I would not deal with him, made some excuse or
other to his masters for sending Senator Revell to me. "See Woodruff,"
said I to Revell, for I was in no mood for such business. "He knows best
what we need."
"They give up too damn cheerfully," Woodruff said to me, when I saw him
a week or ten days later, and he gave me an account of the negotiations.
"I suspect they've paid more before."
"They have," said I. "In two campaigns where they had to elect against
hard times."
"But I've a notion," he warned me, "that our candidate has promised them
something privately."
"No doubt," I replied, as indifferently as I felt.
I had intended to make some speeches--I had always kept the public side
of my career in the foreground, and in this campaign my enforced
prominence as director of the machine was causing the public to dwell
too much on the real nature of my political activity. But I could not
bring myself to it. Instead, I set out for home to spend the time with
my children and to do by telephone, as I easily could, such directing of
Woodruff as might be necessary.
My daughter Frances was driving me from the Fredonia station. A man
darted in front of the horses, flung up his arms and began to shriek
curses at me. If she had not been a skilful driver, we should both have
been thrown from the cart. As it was, the horses ran several miles
before she got them under control, I sitting inactive, because I knew
how it would hurt her pride if I should interfere.
When the horses were quiet, she gave me an impetuous kiss that more than
repaid me for the strain on my nerves. "You are the dearest papa that
ever was!" she said. Then--"Who was he? He looked like a crazy man!"
"No doubt he is," was my reply. And I began complimenting her on her
skill with horses, chiefly to prevent her pressing me about the man. I
had heard, and had done, so much lying that I had a horror of it, and
tried to make my children absolutely truthful--my boy Ed used to think
up and do mischief just for the pleasure of pleasing me by confessing.
To make my example effective, I was always strictly truthful with them.
I did not wish to tell her who the man was; but I instantly recognized,
through the drunken dishevelment, my mutineer, Granby--less than a year
before one of the magnates of the state. My orders about him had been
swiftly and literally obeyed. Deserted by his associates, blacklisted at
the banks, beset by his creditors, harassed by the attorney general, his
assets chained with injunctions, his liabilities given triple fangs, he
went bankrupt, took to drink, became a sot and a barroom lounger. His
dominant passion was hatred of me; he discharged the rambling and
frantic story of his wrongs upon whoever would listen. And here he was
in Fredonia!
I had one of my secretaries telephone the police to look after him; they
reported that he had disappeared.
The next morning but one, my daughter and I went for an early walk. At
the turn of the main drive just beyond view from the lodge, she
exclaimed, "Oh, father, _oh_!" and clung to me. Something--like a
scarecrow, but not a scarecrow--swung from a limb overhanging the drive.
The face was distorted and swollen; the arms and legs were drawn up in
sickening crookedness. Before I saw, I knew it was Granby.
I took Frances home, then returned, passing the swaying horror far on
the other side of the road. I got the lodge-keeper, and he and I went
back together. I had them telephone from the lodge for the coroner and
personally saw to it that the corpse should be reported as found in the
open woods a long distance from my place. But Granby had left a message
"to the public" in his room at the hotel: "Senator Sayler ruined me and
drove me to death. I have gone to hang myself in his park. Down with
monopoly!" In spite of my efforts, this was published throughout the
country--though not in Fredonia. Such of the big opposition papers as
were not under our control sent reporters and raked out the whole story;
and it was blown up hugely and told everywhere. Our organs retold it,
giving the true color and perspective; but my blundering attempt to
avoid publicity had put me in too bad a light.
It was the irony of fate--my power thus ludicrously thwarted by a
triviality. Within twenty-four hours I realized the danger to our
campaign. I sent Woodruff post-haste to the widow. He gave her
convincing assurances that she and her children were to be lifted from
the slough of poverty into which Granby's drunkenness had thrust them.
And in return she wrote at his dictation and issued an apparently
uninspired public statement, exonerating me from all blame for her
husband's reverses, and saying that he had been acting strangely for
over a year and had been insane for several months. In brief, I did
everything suggested by sincere regret and such skill at influencing
public opinion as I had and commanded. But not until my reports began to
show the good effects of the million dollars Woodruff put into the last
week of the campaign, did I begin to hope again.
Another hope brightened toward confidence when, on the Saturday before
election, I sprung my carefully matured scheme for stiffening those of
our partizans who were wavering. The Scarborough speakers had, with
powerful effect, been taunting us with our huge campaign fund, daring us
to disclose its sources. On that Sunday morning, when it was too late
for the opposition to discount me, I boldly threw open a set of
campaign ledgers which showed that our fund was just under a million
dollars, with the only large subscription, the hundred thousand which I
myself had given. Tens of thousands of our partizans, longing for an
excuse for staying with us, returned cheering to the ranks--enough of
them in the doubtful states, we believed, to restore the floating vote
to its usual balance of power.
Each horse of my team had taken a turn at doing dangerous, even
menacing, threshing about; but both were now quietly pulling in the
harness, Partizanship as docile as Plutocracy. The betting odds were six
to five against us, but we of the "inside" began to plunge on Burbank
and Howard.