The Landloper Part 46

He hunted along the corridor until he found a maid.

"Is there anybody in Number 29?" he asked.

"Two of that new crowd that just came in have it, Mr. Dodd. But they have gone down-stairs again."

He wadded a bill in his palm and jammed it into her hand. "Let me in with your pa.s.s-key, that's a good girl. It's all right. I won't disturb their stuff. I only want to listen. You understand! There's a political game on. I want to get to that ventilator in the closet--you know it!"

"Oh, if it's only politics, Mr. Dodd!" she sniffed, with the scorn of a girl who has seen many conventions come and go, knew the little tricks, and had developed for the whole herd of politicians lofty disdain; she knew them merely as loud-talking men who had little consideration for hotel maids, men who littered their rooms with cigar stubs and whisky-bottles. She started for the door, swinging the pa.s.s-key on its cord. "If it's just politics, sure you can go in. Many a buck I've let in to listen to their old palaver down in that parlor."

Dodd bolted the door behind him.

He felt entirely safe, for he understood that the rightful tenants of that room were locked into the parlor below. He climbed upon a chair in the closet and put his ear to the grating of the ventilator.

He heard only one man's voice. He recognized its crisp tones--it was the Honorable Archer Converse.

"I repeat, gentlemen, that this interest of yours would amaze me if I had not been prepared by reports from our agents who have been so well captained by Mr. Walker Farr. Remember that this is simply a conference, prior to organization. Every man of you is a chief in it. Let us be calm, discreet, sensible, and silent.

"I'm not going over the details of the unrest in this state. The fact that so many of you are present here from all sections is sufficient commentary on that unrest. We understand perfectly well that a certain clique of self-seekers has arrogated to itself supreme control of the party. A party must be controlled, I admit. If that control were in the hands of honest and patriotic men we would not be here today.

"I'm not going to bother you with details of what has been going on in departments in our State House. The employees are the tools of the ring and they have misused their power. I'm afraid of what may be uncovered there when the house-cleaning begins. But the honor of our party demands such a house-cleaning."

Richard Dodd's hands trembled as he clung to the ventilator bars.

"However, we are faced by something in the way of an issue that's bigger than graft."

Now his earnestness impressed more than ever the listener at the grating.

"Gentlemen, to a certain extent graft is bound to be fostered and protected by any party; but when a party is used to protect and aggrandize those who monopolize the people's franchise rights it's time for the honest men in that party to be _men_ instead of partisans. Don't you allow those monopolists to hold you in line by whining about party loyalty. And don't let them whip you into line by their threats, either.

I refuse, for one, as much as I love my party, to have its tag tied into my ear if that tag isn't clean!"

The a.s.semblage applauded that sentiment.

"I'm going to call names, gentlemen. Colonel Symonds Dodd has this state by its throat. With Colonel Dodd stand all the financial interests--the railroads, the corporations, even the savings-banks. He is intrenched behind that law which limits the indebtedness of our cities and towns.

Munic.i.p.alities cannot own their own plants under present conditions.

Those men are even using the people's own money against them! They scare depositors by threats of financial havoc if present conditions and the big interest are bothered by any legislation.

"I must warn you, gentlemen, that it's a long and difficult road ahead of us. But we must start. I have not intended to discourage you by stating the obstacles to be overcome.

"I have explained them so that, if we make slow progress at first, we shall not be discouraged.

"We will organize prevailing unrest and the innate honesty in this state. We will establish a branch of the Square Deal Club in every town and city. It must be done carefully, conservatively, and as secretly as possible." The lawyer's cautious fear of too much haste now displayed itself. "The most we can hope to do is send to the state convention some men who will leaven that lump of ring politics. Party usage and tradition are so strong that we must renominate Governor Harwood, I suppose, for a complimentary second term."

"I think we can do better," cried a voice.

"Possibly," returned Mr. Converse, dryly, "but we must do that 'better'

carefully and slowly. In politics, gentlemen, we cannot transform the ogre into the saint merely by waving the magic wand and expecting the charm to operate instantly. Possibly we can control the next legislature. I do not know just what legislation we may be able to devise and pa.s.s, but I hope for inspiration.

"I will say now that I am with you. My purse is open. Command my services for all questions of law. I will establish myself at the capital for the legislative session.

"But there is one thing I will not do under any circ.u.mstances--I will not accept political office."

"You bet you won't," muttered young Dodd, at the grating. "You wouldn't be elected a pound-keeper in the town of Bean Center."

But if Mr. Dodd could have seen through that grating as well as hear he would have been greatly interested just then in the expression on the face of Walker Farr. The face was not exactly the face of a prophet, but it had a large amount of resolution written over it.

"I don't want to be the first one to throw any cold water on our prospects," declared a voice, after Mr. Converse had announced that the meeting was open for general discussion; "it really does seem to me that we stand a good show of getting control of the next legislature.

But after we do get control what prospect is there of pa.s.sing any legislation that will help us? Wherever there is a water system in this state the munic.i.p.ality has been so loaded down with debts our machine politics have plastered into it that the legal debt limit has been reached. The only way this water question can be cleared up is by taking the systems away from those monopolists--making them the property of towns and cities. But if towns and cities can't borrow any more money, just how is this to be done? Mr. Converse hasn't told us! We can clean up politics, perhaps, but it seems to me that we'll never be able to clean up the dirtiest and most dangerous mess."

On the silence that followed broke a voice which made Dodd, his ear to the grating, grate his teeth. His hatred recognized this speaker. It was Walker Farr.

"I apologize for venturing to speak in this meeting," he said. "But if that gentleman's question isn't answered here and now in some way I'm afraid men will go away discouraged. I have heard the same question, Mr. Converse, as I have traveled about the state lately. I have thought about this matter constantly, in my poor fashion. And because I went into that job of pondering with an open mind is the reason, perhaps, why a strange idea has come to me. You know they say that strange notions are born out of ignorance. The better way would have been, possibly, to submit the plan first of all to your legal mind, Mr. Converse. I will keep silence now and confer with you, sir, if you think best." His tone was wistful.

"Talk it out in open meeting," cried the cordial voice of Mr. Converse.

"Free speech and all of us taken into confidence--that's the spirit of this movement of ours!"

"Has it ever occurred to anybody to form a new munic.i.p.ality for water purposes only? I have studied your state const.i.tution, and the language in which the debt limit of five percent is provided I find applies strictly to towns and cities. Suppose the citizens of Marion, together with the adjoining towns of Weston and Turner, all of them now served by the Consolidated, should unite simply as individuals for the common purpose of owning and operating their own water-plant--form, say a water district?"

"An independent body politic and corporate?" It was Converse's voice and it betrayed quick interest and some astonishment.

"I suppose that would be the legal name, sir. Wouldn't it be possible to organize such a combination of the people, distinct from other munic.i.p.al responsibilities? Then if we can elect the right men to our legislature we can go to the State House and ask for some legislation that will enable us to take over systems by the right of eminent domain, provide a plan of fair appraisal, give us a law which will make water-district bonds a legal investment for savings-banks. In short, gentlemen, I repeat, this plan is nothing more than an organization of the desired territory and people into a new, distinct, and separate munic.i.p.ality for water purposes only, leaving all other forms of munic.i.p.al government to pursue their accustomed functions precisely as though the district had not been organized. That's the idea as best I can state it in few words."

There was a long period of silence.

Dodd, listening to the mutterings of a revolt which threatened the whole political fabric which protected him, his interest clearing his brain of the liquor fog, could imagine the scene below. That a.s.semblage was staring wide-eyed at Archer Converse, the law's best-grounded man in the state.

"It is very modest to call that suggestion an idea," stated Mr.

Converse, at last. "Mr. Farr, if I can find the necessary law in our statutes to back it up, it's an inspiration."

There was the ring of conviction in his tones.

Mr. Dodd left the grating and escaped from the hotel.

He fairly cantered to headquarters in the First National block; he felt a politician's frightened conviction that he had something mighty important to tell his uncle.

XXV

A GIRL AND A MATTER OF HONOR

It had been a protracted session.

Judge Ambrose Warren, corporation counsel for the Consolidated, leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling over the peak of the skeleton structure he had erected in front of his nose with his fingers.

Colonel Dodd squinted first at his nephew and then at the bouquet on his desk.

The nephew had been attempting by all the methods known to the appealing male to win only one return glance from Kate Kilgour; but the young lady held her eyes on her note-book, poised her pencil above the page, and waited for more of that conversation and statement of which she had been the silent recorder.