A CONVENTION AND A REVELATION
The day of the State Convention!
The Convention Hall at Granite was a big barn-like building, frequently
used for church and school entertainments, and occasionally giving a
temporary home to some struggling theatrical company. For the holding of
the convention which was to name the Governor of the Mountain State a
feeble attempt at decorating the vast interior had been made by
Conover’s State chairman.
On the front of the dingy little stage were a table and chairs for the
officers, and a series of desks for the reporters of the local and New
York newspapers. Across the back hung a ragged drop curtain showing a
garden scene in poisonous greens and inflammatory reds. Stuck askew on
the proscenium arch were crudely-drawn portraits of Jefferson and Andrew
Jackson. Between these alleged likenesses of Democracy’s sponsors, Billy
Shevlin had, by inspiration and acclaim, caused a huge crayon picture of
Caleb Conover himself to be hung.
This monstrous trio of ill-assorted portrait parodies were the first
thing that struck the eye as one entered the main door at the front end
of the hall. On seeing them, grim old Karl Ansel had cast about him
until he located Shevlin and a group of the Railroader’s other
lieutenants.
“Say, Billy,” he drawled in tones that penetrated the farthest corners
of the auditorium, “what did you want to show your ignorance of the
Scriptures for by hanging Conover’s picture in the middle with Jackson
and Jefferson on the outside? You’ve got things reversed. In the
original it was the Just Man who hung between two thieves. You ought to
have put your mug and Conover’s up there with Clive Standish in the
centre, if you wanted to carry out the right idea.”
And Shevlin, in no wise comprehending, looked for the first time with
somewhat less pride on his artistic work, and waxed puzzled at the roar
of laughter that swept over the massed delegates.
“Them pictures set the Boss back fifteen dollars apiece,” he began, in
self-justification, “an’——”
“And like most of the crowd here,” finished Ansel, “they were sold to
Conover before the convention began.”
There was the usual noise and tramping of feet and clamoring of brass
bands, the customary rabble of uniformed campaign clubs with their gaudy
banners and pompous drum-majors about the hall and in it, for an hour
before the time that had been set for the calling of the convention.
Here, there and everywhere circulated the busy lieutenants of Boss
Conover. Their master, with a little coterie of chosen lieutenants moved
early into his headquarters in one of the rooms at the rear of the
stage, where he sat like some wise old spider in the heart of his web,
sending out warnings, advice and admonitions to his under-strappers.
Although Conover was leaving no ravelled ends loose in his marvellously
perfect machine, he took his wonted precautions more through force of
habit and for discipline’s sake than through any necessity. He felt
calmly confident of the result. He had looked upon his work and he had
seen that it was good. Even had Standish been the choice of a majority
of the people in all eight counties of the State, it would have availed
him little, for through the routine tricks whereof the Railroader was
past master, his young opponent was at the last able to control the
votes of but two counties—Matawan and Wills.
Standish’s contesting delegates from the other six counties sat sullen
and grim in the gallery. Fraudulent Conover delegates, who had usurped
the formers’ places by the various ruses so successfully put into action
at the caucuses, held the credentials and occupied the seats belonging
by rights to the Leaguers on the floor of the Convention Hall. There the
Machine delegates smilingly sat and awaited the moment when they should
name their Boss as candidate for Governor.
From the seats of the usurpers there went up a merry howl of derision as
Standish’s two little blocks of delegates from Matawan and Wills marched
in and took their places well down in front, where they formed a
pitifully small oasis among the Conover delegates from Bowden, Carney,
Haldane, Jericho, Sparta and Pompton counties.
There was no cheering by the Standish delegates on the floor of the
convention. Nine out of ten knew that it was practically a hopeless
fight into which they were about to plunge, and they knew, too, that not
one of them would have been given his rightful place as a delegate, had
it not been that even Conover feared to outrage sentiment in those
ever-turbulent rural counties, as he had done in the larger and more
“loyal” sections of the State.
Karl Ansel, with an inscrutable grin on his long, leathery face, might
have sat for a picture of a typical poker player, as he slipped into his
place at the head of the Wills County delegation. If the shadow of
defeat was in his heart, it did not rest upon his lignum vitæ features.
What mattered it that his every opponent was smugly aware that the
League’s cards were deuces? It was Karl’s business to wear the look of a
man secure behind a pat flush. And he wore it. But at heart he was sore
distressed for the hopes of the brave lad he had learned to like so
well. And, as he watched the swelling ranks of Conover delegates, his
sorrow hardened into white-hot wrath.
Standish was nowhere in sight. Following the ordinary laws of campaign
etiquette, he did not show himself before the delegates in advance of
the nomination; but, like Conover, sat in temporary headquarters behind
the stage. About him were a little knot of Civic Leaguers, some of them
men who had run the risk of personal violence in the campaign in their
fight to obtain a square deal for the young reformer against the
Juggernaut onrush of the Machine. One and all they were Job’s
comforters, for they knew it would take a miracle now to snatch the
nomination from the Railroader’s grip.
Promptly at twelve o’clock Shevlin, in his newly acquired capacity of
State Chairman, called the convention to order. He had judiciously
distributed bunches of his best trained shouters where they would do the
most good. This claque, glad to earn their money, kept an eye on their
sub-captains and cheered at the slightest provocation. They cheered
Shevlin as he brought the gavel down sharply on the oak table in front
of him, and went through the customary rigmarole of announcing the
purposes of the convention. They cheered when he named the secretaries
and assistant secretaries who would act until the permanent organization
had been effected. And between times they cheered just for the joy of
cheering.
Through the din the little square of Standish delegates from Wills and
Matawan sat grim and silent, while the contesting delegates in the
gallery above muttered to one another under their breath their yearnings
for the opportunity to take personal payment on the bodies of those who
had ousted them from their lawful places.
Both sides knew that the first and last test of strength would come upon
the selection of the Committee on Credentials, since it was to this
committee that the contests of the six larger counties for the right to
sit in the convention would go for settlement. By an oversight common to
more than one State, there was no clause in the party laws setting forth
the procedure to be followed in the selection of the committee of a
State convention. At preceding conventions the chairman had invariably
(and justly) ruled that only delegates whose seats were not contested
should be entitled to a hand in the selection of the Committee on
Credentials, for custom holds that to permit delegates whose seats are
contested to have a hand in the selection of the committee, would be
like allowing men on trial to sit as jurors.
On the observance of this unwritten rule hinged Clive Standish’s last
and greatest hope. If this precedent were to be followed now, it would,
of course, as he had pointed out to the doubting Ansel, result in the
selection of a committee by the Standish delegates from Wills and
Matawan counties, since in those counties alone there were no contests.
This must mean a fair struggle. On it Clive staked his all. Staked it,
forgetting the endless resource and foresight of his foe. For Caleb
Conover had no quixotic notion of giving his rival any advantage
whatever. On the preceding night he had written out his decree. This
command Shevlin now hastily read over before acting on it:
“_Announce that the chairman rules there shall be three members of the
Committee on Credentials from each county, regardless of that county’s
voting strength, and that the delegates holding the credentials from
each county shall be allowed to choose those committeemen._”
To the layman such an order may mean little. To the convention it meant
everything. Six counties were, officially, for Conover. Two for
Standish. Thus eighteen of Caleb’s adherents could, and would, vote to
ratify the seating of the Railroader’s delegates. The opponents of this
weird measure could muster a numerical force of but six.
Meanwhile, the preliminary organization of the convention had been
effected without much delay. The Standish delegates, knowing the
futility of making a fight at this time, had raised merely a perfunctory
opposition to the nomination of Bourke as temporary chairman. Through
Bourke (by way of Shevlin) Conover now proclaimed his plan of choosing
the all-important Committee on Credentials.
Bourke, well drilled, repeated the decision in a droning monotone.
Instantly the convention was in the maddest uproar. All semblance of
order was lost. Bedlam broke loose. In the gallery the contesting
Standish delegates writhed in impotent rage, leaning far over the rail,
shaking their fists and howling down insult, curse and threat.
On the floor the delegates from Wills and Matawan were already upon
their feet, yelling furious protests, shrieking “Fraud;” “Robbery!” and
kindred pleasantries, without trying or hoping to secure recognition
from the chair.
Foreseeing the inevitable trend of affairs, the Conover “heelers” and
the fraudulent delegates from the six larger counties had been prepared
for this. At a signal from Billy Shevlin they burst into a deafening
uproar of applause.
The furtive-faced Bourke rapped on the table, but the bang of his heavy
gavel was unheard. The Standish delegates would not be quieted, and the
Conover crowd did not want to be.
A dozen fist-fights started simultaneously. A ’longshoreman—Conover
district captain from one of the “railroad” wards of Granite—wittily
spat in the face of a vociferating little farmer from Wills County, and
then stepped back with a bellow of laughter at his own powers of
repartee. But others understood the gentle art of “retort courteous”
almost as well as he. Losing for once his inherited New England calm,
Karl Ansel drove his big gnarled fist flush into the grinning face of
the dock-rat, and sent him whirling backward amid a splintering of
broken seats.
As the ’longshoreman staggered to his feet, wiping the blood from his
face, the sergeant-at-arms (foreman of a C. G. & X. section gang), made
a rush for Ansel, but prudently held back as the gaunt old man fell on
guard and grimly awaited his new opponent’s onset.
Ansel, smarting and past all control, ploughed his way down the main
aisle, and halting below the stage, shook his clenched fist at Caleb’s
crayon likeness.
“I’ve seen forty pictures of Judas Iscariot in my time,” he thundered,
apostrophizing the portrait in a nasal voice that rose high above the
clamor, “and no two of them looked alike. But by the Eternal, they _all_
were the living image of YOU!”
Then he went down under an avalanche of Conover rowdies, giving and
taking blows as he was borne headlong to the floor. Through the tumult,
the pounding of Bourke’s gavel upon the table was like the unheeded
rat-tat of a telegraph ticker in a tornado. It was fifteen minutes
before a semblance of order had been restored. By that time there were
on every side a kaleidoscopic vista of bleeding noses, torn clothing,
and battered, wrathful faces.
Thus it was that, at the cost of a brief interim of fruitless rioting,
the Machine had its way. Over the hopeless protests and bitter
denunciations of the tricked minority the empty form of choosing the
Committee on Credentials was carried through. As a foreseen result,
Standish had but six members on the committee, three from Wills and
three from Matawan, while from the Conover faction eighteen were to sit
in judgment upon the merits of their own cause.
The contest was over. The Standish delegates offered but a perfunctory
opposition to the work of choosing the Committees on Organization and
Platform. This much having been done, the convention took the usual
recess, leaving the committees to go into session in separate rooms back
of the stage.
The delegates filed out, the men from Wills and Matawan angry and silent
in their shamed defeat, those from the six victorious counties crowing
exuberant glee at their easy triumph.
The adjournment announced, Clive slipped out of the Convention Hall by a
rear entrance, and went across to his private office at the League
rooms. He wanted to be alone—away from even the staunchest friends—in
this black hour. Against all counsel and experience, against hope
itself, he had hoped to the last. His bulldog pluck, his faith in his
mission, had upheld him above colder, saner reason. Even the repeated
warnings of Ansel had left him unconvinced. Up to the very moment
Conover’s final successful move was made Standish had hoped. And now
hope was dead.
He was beaten. Hopelessly, utterly, starkly beaten. From the outset
Conover had played with him and his plans, as a giant might play with a
child. It had been no question of open battle, with the weaker
antagonist battered to earth by the greater strength of his foe. Far
worse, the whole campaign had been a futile struggle of an enmeshed
captive to break through a web too mighty for his puny efforts, while
his conqueror had sat calmly by, awaiting a victory that was as sure as
the rise of the sun.
Standish knew that in a few minutes he would be able to pull himself
together and face the world as a man should. In the interim, with the
hurt animal’s instinct, he wanted to be alone.
Save for a clerk in the antechamber, the League’s rooms were deserted.
Everyone was at the convention. The clerk rose at Clive’s entrance and
would have spoken, but the defeated candidate passed unheeding into his
own office, closing the door behind him.
Then, stopping short, his back to the closed door, he stared,
unbelieving, at someone who rose at his entrance and hurried forward,
hands outstretched, to greet him.
“I knew you would come here!” said Anice Lanier. “I _felt_ you would, so
I hurried over as soon as they adjourned. Aren’t you glad to see me?”
He still stared, speechless, dumbfounded. She had caught his
unresponsive hands, and was looking up into his tired, hopeless eyes
with a wealth of pity and sympathy that broke through the mask of blank
misery on his face, and softened the hard lines of mouth and jaw into a
shadow of a smile.
“It was good of you to come,” he said at last. “I thought I couldn’t
bear to see anyone just now. But—it’s so different with you. I——”
He ceased speaking. His overstrung nerves were battling against a
childish longing to bury his hot face in those cool little white hands
whose lightest touch so thrilled him, and to tell this gentle,
infinitely tender girl all about his sorrows, his broken hopes, his
crushed self-esteem. In spirit he could feel her arms about his aching
head, drawing it to her breast; could hear her whispered words of
soothing and encouragement.
Then, on the moment, the babyish impulse passed and he was himself
again, self-controlled, outwardly stolid, realizing as never before that
the price of strength is loneliness.
“I am beaten,” he went on, “but I think, we made as good a fight as we
could. Perhaps another time——”
She withdrew her hands from his. Into her big eyes had crept something
almost akin to scorn.
“You are giving up?” she asked incredulously. “You will make no further
effort to——”
“What more is to be done? The Committee on Credentials——”
“I know. I was there. It’s all been a wretched mistake from the very
beginning. Oh, _why_ were you so foolish about those letters?”
“Letters? What letters?”
“The letters sent you with news of Mr. Conover’s plans for——”
“Those anonymous letters I got? What do _you_ know——”
“I wrote them,” said Anice Lanier.