Learning the Ropes
The next morning's newspapers were embellished with scare-head-lines,
all more or less complimentary to the women's candidate.
"WOMEN TAKE MATTERS IN THEIR OWN HANDS."
"SENATOR'S DAUGHTER RUNS FOR MAYOR."
"MEN TO BE LAID ON THE POLITICAL SHELF."
"SENATOR VAN DEUSEN WILL TURN IN HIS GRAVE IF DAUGHTER ACCEPTS
NOMINATION."
were some of the head-lines which Roma editors had produced by late use
of midnight oil, and the articles that followed them were incredulous,
mildly tolerant, openly snobbish or given over to ridicule, according to
the policy of their several papers.
One of them read:
"It is both a disgrace and a menace to this fair city that city
politics have sunk to such a level that our best men will have
nothing to do with them, and that no one with the ideals of good
government, other than a handful of women, will undertake the
improvement of our municipal government. With all deference to
the ladies,--and who knows their many charming qualities better
than we?--it is inevitable that, 'trained to keep silence in the
churches'--(and the City Hall as well)--our women are without the
large-minded grasp of affairs,--the broad and liberal judgment,
necessary to cope with these affairs. Neither can we as self-
respecting husbands and fathers, consent to see them so belittle
their own dignity and influence as to step out into the arena of
public life. The election of a woman,--no matter how able and
high-minded she might be,--would be a step downward for our city.
It can never be."
Another editor said:
"The late Senator Van Deusen was one of the most distinguished
jurists in the country. He had a mind singularly open to the best
interests of his native town; his constituents always knew where
to find him on questions of law and polity. He did not favor
woman suffrage, nor giving important offices to the 'weaker sex';
although personally he was distinguished by a gentle courtesy for
and towards women. What, then, would he say to this wild
proposition of a few so-called 'progressive' women to put his
daughter in the mayoral chair of Roma? Verily he would turn in
his grave. Neither can we believe that this movement has the
sanction of one who was so near and dear to the late senator's
heart, nor that Miss Van Deusen herself has given her consent to
let her name be used as candidate for the highest office in the
city."
A third paper announced:
"It is not to be wondered at that the women of Roma, casting
around them to view the kind of men who occupy high seats in Roma
politics, should say 'we will have none of them' and should
desire to enforce a little petticoat government themselves. Roma
has long been proud of its homes, its wives, its mothers and its
housekeepers. Perhaps it would be for the public good, were we to
set a few of these model housewives to cleaning up City Hall. Let
them go ahead and elect a woman-mayor. Then let her proceed to
eject the money-changers from the temple. Perhaps the women can
do it. Certainly we men cannot,--or do not."
Gertrude Van Deusen read these articles during the hour after breakfast
when a woman loves to "drop down" for a little in her library, with her
feet to the fire, as if to gather her forces for the day.
"It is what I must expect, I suppose," she said to the cousin who shared
her home. "Man's favorite method of defeating a candidate from time
immemorial has been to villify him in the newspapers. What can a mere
woman expect?"
"Well, it all adds to the gaiety of politics," returned her cousin.
"What shall you do about it?"
"Nothing. At least, I don't know. I have already sent for Bailey. He
will advise me. He knows all the ins and outs of politics."
"And he's secretary of the Union Club, isn't he?" asked the cousin. "At
least, he was. Although that isn't a political club, still its influence
would be worth a great deal."
"If we can get it," added Gertrude.
Bailey Armstrong was her second cousin and since the Senator's death had
acted as adviser to Miss Van Deusen whenever she could be imagined to
need advice. He was a rising lawyer with considerable political
influence, and, what cheered the two women most this morning, he was a
thorough feminist.
Senator Van Deusen had been dead only three years. He had left a large
fortune to his daughters, one of whom had married and gone to Europe.
The other lived here on the handsome estate that had long been one of
the show-places of the town. Surrounded by every luxury, with no want
left unsupplied, there were many to wonder why Gertrude should consent
to be a candidate for public office. But her wealth had not so carefully
guarded her that the modern unrest of her sex could not penetrate her
soul, and she was strongly possessed of a desire to do something for the
public good.
Educated thoroughly and broadly, in an American college and later at
Girton, her mind had been developed still further through constant
association with her father. Her life with him in Washington had
unfitted her for the fashionable career which she might have had if she
had desired. Several times her hand had been sought in marriage, once by
a diplomat of renown, but so far love had not touched her heart and she
was not a woman to marry for any other cause. She was now thirty and
looking forward instead of backward (as unmarried women of her age once
did) towards a "career."
"I think Bailey will run in on his way down town," she said, rising and
walking to the front window, where her slight form stood silhouetted
against the late-September sunshine that shimmered and filtered through
the plate glass. "There's the postman."
A moment later a letter was handed in to her. She tore it open and read:
"Dear Miss Van Deusen:
I've just heard, privately, that the Municipal League has turned
us down. How's that for their boasted progress and reform? For they
will combine with the Burke crowd. But never mind. Keep a brave
heart and we'll win out yet.
Yours to command,
Mary Snow."
"You're wanted at the telephone," said the maid at the door, and
Gertrude hurried out to find that it was Mrs. Bateman at the other end
of the wire.
"I'm so wrathy, I don't know what to say," she began. "I have a letter
from John Allingham. Shall I read it to you?"
"Oh, yes," said Gertrude.
"Well,--'Dear Mrs. Bateman:' he begins. 'At a meeting of our
directors last night, we decided,--regretfully, I beg you to
believe,--that it would not be wise nor safe for the Municipal League to
accept the woman's candidate for mayor. We beg that you will change your
mind and select, if you choose (or at least, endorse) a good man for
that office. In which case we shall gladly meet you more than half way
in any plan you may have for his election. Awaiting your reply and
hoping most earnestly for your reconsideration and co-operation with us,
I am,
Most respectfully yours,
John Allingham, Chairman.'
There! What do you think of that?"
"I'm not surprised," answered Gertrude. "Did you not perceive how
uncomfortable he was when he discovered who our candidate was--after all
his talk about the influence of women in public affairs? He began to
crawl and hedge even then."
"I know it," Mrs. Bateman replied, "but I didn't think he would go
against us. He's always been such a nice boy. But now,--"
"Moreover," interrupted Gertrude, "I've just heard that the League will
combine with the Burke forces, if it comes to a choice between us."
"Oh--not so bad as that," said Mrs. Bateman. "What are you going to do?
It doesn't frighten you?"
"My dear," and Gertrude's gentle tone had a ring that was familiar to
those who had known the Senator, "did you ever know a Van Deusen to
scare easily? They may defeat me, but they will not frighten me. I've
sent for Bailey and after I've had a good long confab with him, I'll run
over to talk with you."
"That's good. You're true blue," was the response.
As Gertrude turned from the telephone, Bailey Armstrong was entering.
"Well, well, what's this I hear?" he exclaimed, coming forward with
outstretched hand. "You'll have Roma shaken to its foundations if you
keep on.--And I suppose you'll keep on?" he added, with a keen look into
her eyes.
"I am my father's daughter," she replied, and led the way into the
library, where she told him her latest news.
"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been there last night myself,"
said Bailey. "There was a pretty hot discussion. Some of us want to help
you, but the majority want a precedent back of them. And there's no
precedent for a woman-mayor, you know. Say, Gertie, are you fully
determined to run?--because the Augean stables aren't exactly what
you've been accustomed to,--and that's what you will find."
"I'm fully determined," answered the other quietly.
"That settles it, then," said the young man. "Now let's plan out the
work."
"Then you're going to help, Bailey."
"Sure thing. Want me?"
"Of course we do."
"Not 'we,' Gertie,--I," he answered in a voice as quiet and as
determined as hers. "Now, I've been through several campaigns and am not
only a good fighter, but I'm conceited enough to believe I'm a pretty
good organizer,--and that's a hundred times better."
"Well, tell me just how to go to work to enlist the multitude, to win
the populace;--in short, to get votes," said Gertrude. "How do I
begin?"
"Well, there are two ways," answered the young man. "If you were a man I
would say, you can break in by sheer force of audacity, without definite
purpose; or, you can enter quietly, with a fixed principle in mind which
you wish to see worked out in public life. The first is the old idea,
the latter is the new."
"And the old way?" said Gertrude.
"Well, if you enter in the old-fashioned way, you will have to place
yourself at the disposal of the chairman of some campaign committee in
the city; you will read a great deal of 'literature' prepared by the
committee, mostly vituperative nonsense about the opposing party; you
will learn this by heart, follow the red light and the brass band to the
nearest 'stump,' and mixing what you have read, but not thought out,
with some stories of considerable age and questionable humor, will
deliver it all to a bored and weary audience, confident that you have
established a reputation for eloquence.
"By this time you will feel like a full-fledged politician; you will
become mysterious and tell everybody everything you know in confidence;
secret conferences will be held behind closed doors; old clothes and a
slouchy manner will be brought out to catch the labor vote; you will
speak to all sorts of people, and call them by their first names,
thinking all the time that, if a candidate, you would lead your ticket.
As a matter of fact, you may have lost hundreds of votes."
"Yes," said Gertrude with spirit, "and then I would be taken up by the
machine. They would call me a budding genius and I should look upon the
boss as a great man."
"Yes," pursued Bailey, "until you begin to think for yourself. Then it
will occur to you as strange that in a representative government you
should be selected as a candidate of your party recommended as you have
been; still more strange that the platform upon which you are to run was
set up in type in the newspaper offices several hours before the
convention which nominates you met, and had been submitted to the
president of the railroad that runs through your town for his approval
or revision."
"Yes,--and then," broke in Gertrude, "some day by accident, if I take
the trouble to read at all I shall notice in a statute a little clause
concealed in fifty pages of meaningless verbiage, which grants an unjust
and special privilege to certain interests closely connected with the
dominant party in state politics. I shall be unable to reconcile this
law with my ideas of fair play and justice, and it will occur to me
that possibly it is a mistake, which can easily be remedied by appealing
to the 'party leaders.'"
"And so you protest," Bailey chimed in, "and in your sweet and charming
innocence you suggest that this law be amended and the special privilege
abolished. The bland smile that greets your remark will get on your
nerves, and you will sit down to think it over; and when you have
cleared your brain of cobwebs, you will realize for the first time that
machine politics, to which you have been an unconscious party, has
nothing whatever to do with ideas, principles or policies, but is purely
a game of money in its last analysis; that it is a scheme to enrich a
few at the expense of the many--"
"And all accomplished under the folds of the flag in the name of the
'grand old party' of Abraham Lincoln, that freed the slaves, or the
great party of Thomas Jefferson, that 'preserves the fundamental rights
of man'," finished Gertrude. "When the white light begins to play upon
all my surroundings in political life, I shall become disgusted and come
back to sweet home-life,--or else turn around and have the fight of my
life."
"I reckon," said Bailey, smiling, "that you didn't live several years in
Washington--or are a great senator's daughter for nothing. But all this,
you know, is the old way. You won't follow politics after this fashion.
You will take up the 'new idea in politics,' which simply means that
reforms should be brought about by the injection of ideas and principles
at the outset rather than by campaigns against individuals for
wrong-doing. It further means that everything should be done in the open
and by the people themselves rather than by a few bosses who have
allied themselves with the corporations in nearly all the states of the
Union."
"To be of service politically, then, according to the rules of the 'new
idea,' the candidate must first ally himself with one of the organized
political parties in the country?" asked Gertrude. "But what if they
will not have you?"
"No," replied Bailey, "I do not mean to say that this is absolutely
necessary, for there are many useful men who do not ally themselves with
any party; but experience has shown, I think, that one can be of the
greatest service and do the most useful work by joining a party and
exerting himself at the primaries, where all government begins, to make
his party stand for definite principles rather than remain an
organization devoted solely to the task of dispensing patronage.--And
there are other allies than the Municipal League," he added. "No. First
make a thorough study of the political situation in Roma. I presume you
have done this already. You will find that not two per cent of the
voters go to the primaries. The ring selects the delegates and their men
nominate the candidates as they are told. There is no contest and the
worst men get put in offices by the money from some trolley or railroad
or other interest, simply because the people do not know--and will not
take the trouble to find out what is going on. But you women can get up
mass-meetings and attend primaries and do all these things, and if there
is not a pretty general waking up in this town before next January, then
I'll lose my guess."
"We'll do it," said Gertrude. "And I believe,--am I too confident when I
say it?--that we can win."
"Well, if not, we can arouse this community as it never has been yet,"
was the reply. "We can wake up the people, and educate them to an
intelligent vote. And we'll elect you yet, Gertie,--see if we don't."
And five minutes later, when Bailey had left for his down-town office,
Gertrude was asking herself, "Why couldn't John Allingham behave as
sensibly? He cannot be right and Bailey wrong. No. But I wish--"
She wheeled about very decisively and went upstairs for her hat; for
things must be talked over with Mrs. Bateman.