Philip Dru: Administrator Part 16

Each felt that the weight of my decision rested upon himself, and their vanity was greatly pleased. I was begged not to renounce the leadership, and after persuasion, this I promised not to do.

As a matter of fact, it was never my intention to release my hold upon the State, thus placing myself in another's power.

So I accepted the tender of the Senatorship, and soon after, when the legislature met, I was elected for the full term.

I was in as close touch with my State at Washington as I was before, for I spent a large part of my time there.

I was not in Washington long before I found that the Government was run by a few men; that outside of this little circle no one was of much importance.

It was my intention to break into it if possible, and my ambition now leaped so far as to want, not only to be of it, but later, to be IT.

I began my crusade by getting upon confidential terms with the President.

One night, when we were alone in his private study, I told him of the manner and completeness of my organization in Pennsylvania. I could see he was deeply impressed. He had been elected by an uncomfortably small vote, and he was, I knew, looking for someone to manage the next campaign, provided he again received the nomination.

The man who had done this work in the last election was broken in health, and had gone to Europe for an indefinite stay.

The President questioned me closely, and ended by asking me to undertake the direction of his campaign for re-nomination, and later to manage the campaign for his election in the event he was again the party's candidate.

I was flattered by the proffer, and told him so, but I was guarded in its acceptance. I wanted him to see more of me, hear more of my methods and to become, as it were, the suppliant.

This condition was soon brought about, and I entered into my new relations with him under the most favorable circ.u.mstances.

If I had readily acquiesced he would have a.s.sumed the air of favoring me, as it was, the rule was reversed.

He was overwhelmingly nominated and re-elected, and for the result he generously gave me full credit.

I was now well within the charmed circle, and within easy reach of my further desire to have no rivals. This came about naturally and without friction.

The interests, of course, were soon groveling at my feet, and, heavy as my demands were, I sometimes wondered like Clive at my own moderation.

The rest of my story is known to you. I had tightened a nearly invisible coil around the people, which held them fast, while the interests despoiled them. We overdid it, and you came with the conscience of the great majority of the American people back of you, and swung the Nation again into the moorings intended by the Fathers of the Republic.

When Selwyn had finished, the fire had burned low, and it was only now and then that his face was lighted by the flickering flames revealing a sadness that few had ever seen there before.

Perhaps he saw in the dying embers something typical of his life as it now was. Perhaps he longed to recall his youth and with it the strength, the nervous force and the tireless thought that he had used to make himself what he was.

When life is so nearly spilled as his, things are measured differently, and what looms large in the beginning becomes but the merest shadow when the race has been run.

As he contemplated the silent figure, Philip Dru felt something of regret himself, for he now knew the groundwork of the man, and he was sure that under other conditions, a career could have been wrought more splendid than that of any of his fellows.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE COTTON CORNER

In modeling the laws, Dru called to the attention of those boards that were doing that work, the so-called "loan sharks," and told them to deal with them with a heavy hand. By no sort of subterfuge were they to be permitted to be usurious. By their nefarious methods of charging the maximum legal rate of interest and then exacting a commission for monthly renewals of loans, the poor and the dependent were oftentimes made to pay several hundred per cent. interest per annum. The criminal code was to be invoked and protracted terms in prison, in addition to fines, were to be used against them.

He also called attention to a lesser, though serious, evil, of the practice of farmers, mine-owners, lumbermen and other employers of ignorant labor, of making advances of food, clothing and similar necessities to their tenants or workmen, and charging them extortionate prices therefor, thus securing the use of their labor at a cost entirely incommensurate with its value.

Stock, cotton and produce exchanges as then conducted came under the ban of the Administrator's displeasure, and he indicated his intention of reforming them to the extent of prohibiting, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, the selling either short or long, stocks, bonds, commodities of whatsoever character, or anything of value. Banks, corporations or individuals lending money to any corporation or individual whose purpose it was known to be to violate this law, should be deemed as guilty as the actual offender and should be as heavily punished.

An immediate enforcement of this law was made because, just before the Revolution, there was carried to a successful conclusion a gigantic but iniquitous cotton corner. Some twenty or more adventurous millionaires, led by one of the boldest speculators of those times, named Hawkins, planned and succeeded in cornering cotton.

It seemed that the world needed a crop of 16,000,000 bales, and while the yield for the year was uncertain it appeared that the crop would run to that figure and perhaps over. Therefore, prices were low and spot- cotton was selling around eight cents, and futures for the distant months were not much higher.

By using all the markets and exchanges and by exercising much skill and secrecy, Hawkins succeeded in buying two million bales of actual cotton, and ten million bales of futures at an approximate average of nine and a half cents. He had the actual cotton stored in relatively small quant.i.ties throughout the South, much of it being on the farms and at the gins where it was bought. Then, in order to hide his ident.i.ty, he had incorporated a company called "The Farmers' Protective a.s.sociation."

Through one of his agents he succeeded in officering it with well-known Southerners, who knew only that part of the plan which contemplated an increase in prices, and were in sympathy with it. He transferred his spot-cotton to this company, the stock of which he himself held through his dummies, _and then had his agents burn the entire two million bales._ The burning was done quickly and with spectacular effect, and the entire commercial world, both in America and abroad, were astounded by the act.

Once before in isolated instances the cotton planter had done this, and once the farmers of the West, discouraged by low prices, had used corn for fuel. That, however, was done on a small scale. But to deliberately burn one hundred million dollars worth of property was almost beyond the scope of the imagination.

The result was a cotton panic, and Hawkins succeeded in closing out his futures at an average price of fifteen cents, thereby netting twenty- five dollars a bale, and making for himself and fellow buccaneers one hundred and fifty million dollars.

After amazement came indignation at such frightful abuse of concentrated wealth. Those of Wall Street that were not caught, were open in their expressions of admiration for Hawkins, for of such material are their heroes made.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE

At the end of the first quarter of the present century, twenty of the forty-eight States had Woman Suffrage, and Administrator Dru decided to give it to the Nation. In those twenty States, as far as he had observed, there had been no change for the better in the general laws, nor did the officials seem to have higher standards of efficiency than in those States that still denied to women the right to vote, but he noticed that there were more special laws bearing on the moral and social side of life, and that police regulation was better. Upon the whole, Dru thought the result warranted universal franchise without distinction of race, color or s.e.x.

He believed that, up to the present time, a general franchise had been a mistake and that there should have been restrictions and qualifications, but education had become so general, and the condition of the people had advanced to such an extent, that it was now warranted.

It had long seemed to Dru absurd that the ignorant, and, as a rule, more immoral male, should have such an advantage over the educated, refined and intelligent female. Where laws discriminated at all, it was almost always against rather than in favor of women; and this was true to a much greater extent in Europe and elsewhere than in the United States. Dru had a profound sympathy for the effort women were making to get upon an equality with men in the race for life: and he believed that with the franchise would come equal opportunity and equal pay for the same work.

America, he hoped, might again lead in the uplift of the s.e.x, and the example would be a distinct gain to women in those less forward countries where they were still largely considered as inferior to and somewhat as chattels to man.

Then, too, Dru had an infinite pity for the dependent and submerged life of the generality of women. Man could ask woman to mate, but women were denied this privilege, and, even when mated, oftentimes a life of never ending drudgery followed.

Dru believed that if women could ever become economically independent of man, it would, to a large degree, mitigate the social evil.

They would then no longer be compelled to marry, or be a charge upon unwilling relatives or, as in desperation they sometimes did, lead abandoned lives.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

A NEGATIVE GOVERNMENT

Upon a.s.suming charge of the affairs of the Republic, the Administrator had largely retained the judiciary as it was then const.i.tuted, and he also made but few changes in the personnel of State and Federal officials, therefore there had, as yet, been no confusion in the public's business. Everything seemed about as usual, further than there were no legislative bodies sitting, and the function of law making was confined to one individual, the Administrator himself.

Before putting the proposed laws into force, he wished them thoroughly worked out and digested. In the meantime, however, he was constantly placing before his Cabinet and Commissioners suggestions looking to the betterment of conditions, and he directed that these suggestions should be molded into law. In order that the people might know what further measures he had in mind for their welfare, other than those already announced, he issued the following address: