An Unpremeditated Speech
As the three entered the crowded chamber where the joint assembly had
been once more called to order, they passed Mr. Burroughs, his wife and
daughter. They had come from Butte to witness his triumph. Surely the
wife would congratulate, the daughter be proud of her father.
Moore was left at the rail which separated the legislators from the
spectators, but Senator Blair's sister went with him and found a seat at
his side. Charlie's face was ghastly, and the doctor, surprised beyond
measure at sight of him, kept guard with a watchful eye.
Blair's entrance into the chamber with its atmosphere of suspense drew
every nerve taut. Senator Danvers saw him and his heart sank. His
efforts had been in vain! He bowed to Winifred, though he had not seen
even his own sister, far in the rear of the hall--there were no
galleries for spectators.
It was a moment long remembered by that breathless crowd. Men, drowning,
see their whole lives as in a flashlight's glare. So did Danvers see his
past. He was again a boy, embarking on the _Far West_, and he breathed
the wet spring air, blowing over prairie and river. He was with the men
on the upper deck, and noted their glances of curiosity. Their youth
seemed never to have faded, as he remembered the delicate face of the
joyous Latimer, the kind glance of the doctor, the western breeziness of
Toe String Joe and the quieter manner of Scar Faced Charlie; while the
debonair arrogance of Sweet Oil Bob stirred his fighting blood afresh.
Eva Thornhill's beautiful face came, bewitching in its youth, and little
Winnie's trusting smile again reached his heart. Even Fort Benton, a
busy port of entry, as he first saw it, and Wild Cat Bill's drunken
animosity, leaped out as the searchlight of recollection swept the past.
Then Memory's moving picture brought the same faces, shaded or illumined
as each temperament exposed its impulse; changed and moulded by hidden
thoughts, unexploited forces of character and assimilated environment.
Came a sigh for Arthur Latimer, asleep after life's bright beginning and
shadowed close. A thought of Eva, broken and undone; of Winifred----
Every thought and act of his life led up to this moment. Could he let
this plot be consummated? Not while the blood so pounded in his veins.
He must speak--no one else would. Outraged decency demanded. The honor
of the state demanded.
He forgot that he was an alien by birth--that he must expose many of his
friends; it did not occur to him that he had never made a public speech,
that his denunciation would ruin his political future and would be
altogether futile. The disgraceful contest had killed his dearest
friend--driven the wife into retirement to avoid the glare of scandal,
and it was likely to lose him Winifred.
His hand went up, and the President of the Senate recognized him. He
rose.
"Mr. President: I rise to a point of personal privilege."
"The Senator from Chouteau," announced the presiding officer of the
joint assembly, surprised but courteous. Philip Danvers was not one to
be ignored, no matter how inopportune the time. As he stood there for
the moment silent, he conveyed the impression of perfect poise, and the
honesty and sincerity of his purpose was patent to all.
"Mr. President: In the struggle to elect a United States senator which
has lasted this entire session of our legislative assembly, the party
with which I have the honor to be affiliated, ever since I foreswore
allegiance to my native country, has, unfortunately, never been able to
fix on a caucus nominee; and I have been forced, unwillingly, to lead
the minority of my party against the man whose name led all others in
the last ballot. As a result of the division, the election of a senator
has descended to a contest of one individual, with the known antagonism
of not only the best element of his party, but the ill will of the whole
State, irrespective of party.
"The shameless condition that this has fostered is now familiar to every
man in the United States. When that politician, ravenous for his spoil,
could not get enough supporters from his own party, he went into the
highways and byways of Democrats, Populists and Laborites; he gathered
not only the poor and needy, but some few men hitherto possessing
apparent respectability, and good standing at home and abroad.
"Personal reasons have kept me silent on the floor of this house,
however much I may have worked in other ways against this crime. But the
time has come when I must put aside all thought of self in the greater
interest of the reputation of Montana.
"Gentlemen: A most outrageous crime is being committed upon this State!
I can keep my seat no longer while the very walls reek with bribery!
Yes, bribery! No one has dared to voice that sinister word in this
Assembly, but we all know that in every hotel corridor, on every street,
in every home in this State that damnable word is handed from mouth to
mouth as claim and counterclaim, that certain men have been purchased
like cattle in open market, and that they would deliver themselves to a
certain candidate when called upon. They have been called upon to-day!
That is why this room is filled to overflowing! The curious, the
sensation-seeker want to look upon those men, so lost to decency that
they will rise here, and with no blush of shame, tacitly admit that they
have been bought with a price. Even the open enemies of this candidate
have voted for him, as the last ballot shamelessly proclaimed. How one
senator, opposed to the candidate in every walk of life, has been
debauched, we can imagine as well as though we saw the thousands counted
out to him by the money-changer who has had charge of the bartering of
votes."
As Danvers looked straight at Senator Hall, the bribe-taker half rose,
then sank back in his degradation. One thought sustained him. His
revenge on Burroughs was nearing its hour, and he felt that the
mortification of this bold accusation could be endured, if that other
matter was never traced to him. He knew too well what the enmity of
Burroughs could compass to invite it openly, and he had become fearful
of the results of his long-delayed scheme of vengeance.
Meantime the voice of the senator from Chouteau County went on, clear
and distinct, creating consternation as might the voice from Sinai. In
his earnestness he stepped nearer the speaker's desk, and faced the
hushed audience, fearlessly. He made no pretence of oratory, but his
words were terribly effective.
"In olden times, bribers were branded on the cheek with the letter B. If
we had the time, I would suggest that we pass a law, before this session
is over, to brand not only the bribers, but the bribed with a white-hot
iron, so that the owner might identify his property. This brand should
be burned into the political mavericks who, since the convening of this
Assembly, have run with every herd, and openly sought the highest bidder
for their worthless carcasses. For these cattle of unknown pedigree I
have only words of contempt.
"Mr. President: The state in which we find ourselves on this, the last
night of the session, should make us pause. We are apt to be
dim-sighted to our own failings, and clear-sighted to the faults of
others; but I ask you in all candor, do the men who have so nearly
elected a United States senator believe that he is the choice of the
State for that high office, or that he would be considered by that
legislative body if it were not for the influence of his wealth? We
would better be unrepresented in Congress than misrepresented, and I ask
you, gentlemen," turning again to the legislators, "if you are going to
vote again as you did in the last ballot, and allow a sick man to cast
his vote for Robert Burroughs and thus elect him? I know," he added with
impressive slowness, "whereof I speak! That we are Democrats or
Republicans, Labor or Fusion, should not figure in this contest.
Instead, each man should consider whether we, a young State, shall enter
Washington tarred with the ineradicable pitch of bribery or shall we
send a man who will show the elder States that Montana is proud of her
newly acquired statehood, and that no star in the Northwest firmament
shines more pure?
"To those who have allowed themselves in this fiery ordeal to swerve
from their duty to their State, through the temptation of personal gain,
let me say that they will be branded and dishonored, despised at home
and abroad; that they will be political pariahs forever, unless they
reconsider their votes while yet there is time. They have been clay,
moulded on the potter's wheel of the political manipulator behind whom
the leading candidate has worked his nefarious will. Because a man is
rich shall we condone his base acts? A poor man is as likely to commit
crime as a rich one; but he would do so for very different reasons. The
rich man in politics, sins for his own self-gratification; the poor man,
to better himself or his family, often not comprehending the enormity of
his crime.
"So long as I possess the faculties of a man, I purpose to fight against
the election of Robert Burroughs to a seat in Congress. I do not want it
said that I was a State senator in a Legislature which seated a man so
notoriously lost to a sense of political decency as he. I would rather
go back to the Whoop Up Country to spend my days in toil and obscurity,
and be able to hold up my head and look the world in the face."
For a moment he paused. The awed, sullen, furious faces before him
seemed individually seared on his soul as he swept the crowded room.
Many a man sat in a cold sweat of fear, with haunted eyes and compressed
lips that proclaimed his guilt with deadly certainty.
For the first time Philip became aware that his sister was present, and
had heard his denunciation of her husband. But it was too late to
retract, and he would not if he could. Truth-telling, like the
cauterizing of the snake's bite, must sometimes be done, no matter what
the immediate suffering. His eyes sought Winifred's, misty with
apprehension, admiration, love. And Charlie? His temple pulse beat
visibly in his effort to control his nerves. His face was fixed as the
face of one dead. Could any appeal snatch him from being the keystone of
that elaborate structure builded by Burroughs and Moore--so nearly
completed? If he refused to become that apex, even for this one ballot
to be called as soon as Danvers finished speaking, there was a faint
hope that the apparently inevitable could be averted. Stepping nearer
his colleagues in his vehemence, Senator Danvers brought his
unpremeditated speech to an end.
"For God's sake, are there not men enough in this body to help me to
drive out corruption and fraud and dishonor, and establish integrity and
justice? I ask in the name of women and children, wives and sweethearts,
pioneers and posterity! Let us not become a disgrace to the nations of
the world! We can clean these Augean stables by one concentrated effort,
even as England cleaned her corrupt borough elections of a century and a
half ago. Let us fix on one man who will stand for civic purity, virtue
and honor, no matter what his party. Let us elect a United States
senator who is above reproach, above the taint of gaining a victory by
the downfall of his fellow men! In the next ballot, let us each vote as
his conscience dictates!"
It was said. Senator Danvers stepped back to his seat amid a buzz of
blended approval and hisses, which came to his brain as the sound of
swarming bees. He felt sick and weak. His appeal seemed hopelessly
futile. But he sat erect, with no sign of discouragement, and looked
fixedly at Senator Blair in the hope of seeing some inkling of change
from his declaration that if he came to the capitol he should vote for
Burroughs. But Blair would not look his way.
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