The Plum Tree Part 14

The dominion of the great business interests over politics was the rapid growth of about twenty years--the consolidations of business naturally producing concentrations of the business world's political power in the hands of the few controllers of the big railway, industrial and financial combines. Goodrich had happened to be acquainted with some of the most influential of these business "kings"; they naturally made him their agent for the conveying of their wishes and their bribes of one kind and another to the national managers of both parties. They knew little of the details of practical politics, knew only what they needed in their businesses; and as long as they got that, it did not interest them what was done with the rest of the power their "campaign contributions" gave.

With such resources any man of good intelligence and discretion could have got the same results as Goodrich's. He was simply a lackey, strutting and cutting a figure in his master's clothes and under his master's name. He was pitifully vain of his reputation as a Machiavelli and a go-between. Vanity is sometimes a source of great strength; but vanity of that sort, and about a position in which secrecy is the prime requisite, could mean only weakness.

Throughout his eight years of control of our party it had had possession of all departments of the national administration--except of the House of Representatives during the past two years. This meant the uninterrupted and unchecked reign of the interests. To treat with consideration the interests, the strong men of the country, they who must have a free hand for developing its resources, to give them privileges and immunities beyond what can be permitted the ordinary citizen or corporation--that is a course which, however offensive to abstract justice, still has, as it seems to me, a practical justice in it, and, at any rate, must be pursued so long as the ma.s.ses of the voters are short-sighted, unreasoning and in nose-rings to political machines. A man's rights, whatever they may be in theory, are in practice only what he has the intelligence and the power to compel.

But, for the sake of the nation, for the upholding of civilization itself, these over-powerful interests should never be given their heads, should be restrained as closely as may be to their rights--their _practical_ rights. Goodrich had neither the sagacity nor the patriotism--nor the force of will, for that matter--to keep them within the limits of decency and discretion. Hence the riot of plunder and privilege which revolted and alarmed me when I came to Washington and saw politics in the country-wide, yes, history-wide, horizon of that view-point.

Probably I should have been more leisurely in bringing my presidential plans to a focus, had I not seen how great and how near was the peril to my party. It seemed to me, not indeed a perfect or even a satisfactory, but the best available, instrument for holding the balances of order as even as might be between our country's two opposing elements of disorder--the greedy plunderers and the rapidly infuriating plundered.

And I saw that no time was to be lost, if the party was not to be blown to fragments. The first mutterings of the storm were in our summary ejection from control of the House in the midway election. If the party were not to be dismembered, I must oust Goodrich, must defeat his plans for nominating Cromwell, must nominate Burbank instead. If I should succeed in electing him, I reasoned that I could through him carry out my policy of moderation and _practical_ patriotism--to yield to the powerful few a minimum of what they could compel, to give to the prostrate but potentially powerful many at least enough to keep them quiet--a stomachful. The world may have advanced; but patriotism still remains the art of restraining the arrogance of full stomachs and the anger of empty ones.

In Cromwell, Goodrich believed he had a candidate with sufficient hold upon the rank and file of the party to enable him to carry the election by the usual means--a big campaign fund properly distributed in the doubtful states. I said to Senator Scarborough of Indiana soon after Cromwell's candidacy was announced: "What do you think of Goodrich's man?"

Scarborough, though new to the Senate then, had shown himself far and away the ablest of the opposition Senators. He had as much intellect as any of them; and he had what theorists, such as he, usually lack, skill at "grand tactics"--the management of men in the ma.s.s. His one weakness--and that, from my standpoint, a great one--was a literal belief in democratic inst.i.tutions and in the inspiring but in practice pernicious principle of exact equality before the law.

"Cromwell's political sponsors," was his reply, "are two as shrewd bankers as there are in New York. I have heard it said that a fitting sign for a bank would be: 'Here we do nothing for nothing for n.o.body.'"

An admirable summing up of Cromwell's candidacy. And I knew that it would so appear to the country, that no matter how great a corruption fund Goodrich might throw into the campaign, we should, in that time of public exasperation, be routed if Cromwell was our standard-bearer--so utterly routed that we could not possibly get ourselves together again for eight, perhaps twelve years. There might even be a re-alignment of parties with some sort of socialism in control of one of them. If control were to be retained by the few who have the capital and the intellect to make efficient the nation's resources and energy, my projects must be put through at once.

I had acc.u.mulated a fund of five hundred thousand dollars for my "presidential flotation"--half of it contributed by Roebuck in exchange for a promise that his son-in-law should have an amba.s.sadorship if Burbank were elected; the other half set aside by me from the "reserve"

I had formed out of the year-by-year contributions of my combine. By the judicious investment of that capital I purposed to get Burbank the nomination on the first ballot--at least four hundred and sixty of the nine hundred-odd delegates.

In a national convention the delegates are, roughly speaking, about evenly divided among the three sections of the country--a third from east of the Alleghanies; a third from the West; a third from the South.

It was hopeless for us to gun for delegates in the East; that was the especial bailiwick of Senator Goodrich. The most we could do there would be to keep him occupied by quietly encouraging any anti-Cromwell sentiment--and it existed a-plenty. Our real efforts were to be in the West and South.

I organized under Woodruff a corps of about thirty traveling agents.

Each man knew only his own duties, knew nothing of the general plan, not even that there was a general plan. Each was a trained political worker, a personal retainer of ours. I gave them their instructions; Woodruff equipped them with the necessary cash. During the next five months they were incessantly on the go--dealing with our party's western machines where they could; setting up rival machines in promising localities where Goodrich controlled the regular machines; using money here, diplomacy there, both yonder, promises of patronage everywhere.

Such was my department of secrecy. At the head of my department of publicity I put De Milt, a sort of cousin of Burbank's and a newspaper man. He attended to the subsidizing of news agencies that supplied thousands of country papers with boiler-plate matter to fill their inside pages. He also subsidized and otherwise won over many small town organs of the party. Further, he and three a.s.sistants wrote each week many columns of "boom" matter, all of which was carefully revised by Burbank himself before it went out as "syndicate letters." If Goodrich hadn't been ignorant of conditions west of the Alleghanies and confident that his will was law, he would have scented out this department of publicity of mine and so would have seen into my "flotation." But he knew nothing beyond his routine. I once asked him how many country newspapers there were in the United States, and he said: "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps three or four thousand." Even had I enlightened him to the extent of telling him that there were about five times that number, he would have profited nothing. Had he been able to see the importance of such a fact to capable political management, he would have learned it long before through years of constant use of the easiest avenue into the heart of the people.

He did not wake up to adequate action until the fourth of that group of states whose delegations to our national conventions were habitually bought and sold, broke its agreement with him and instructed its delegation to vote for Burbank. By the time he had a corps of agents in those states, Doc Woodruff had "acquired" more than a hundred delegates.

Goodrich was working only through the regular machinery of the party and was fighting against a widespread feeling that Cromwell shouldn't, and probably couldn't, be elected; we, on the other hand, were manufacturing presidential sentiment for a candidate who was already popular. Nor had Goodrich much advantage over us with the regular machines anywhere except in the East.

Just as I was congratulating myself that nothing could happen to prevent our triumph at the convention, Roebuck telegraphed me to come to Chicago. I found with him in the sitting-room of his suite in the Auditorium Annex, Partridge and Granby, next to him the most important members of my combine, since they were the only ones who had interests that extended into many states. It was after an uneasy silence that Granby, the uncouth one of the three, said:

"Senator, we brought you here to tell you this Burbank nonsense has gone far enough."

XV

MUTINY

It was all I could do not to show my astonishment and sudden fury. "I don't understand," said I, in a tone which I somehow managed to keep down to tranquil inquiry.

But I did understand. It instantly came to me that the three had been brought into line for Cromwell by their powerful business a.s.sociates in Wall Street, probably by the great bankers who loaned them money. Swift upon the surge of anger I had suppressed before it flamed at the surface came a surge of triumph--which I also suppressed. I had often wished, perhaps as a matter of personal pride, just this opportunity; and here it was!

"Cromwell must be nominated," said Granby in his insolent tone. He had but two tones--the insolent and the cringing. "He's safe and sound.

Burbank isn't trusted in the East. And we didn't like his conduct last year. He caters to the demagogues."

Roebuck, through his liking for me, I imagine, rather than through refined instinct, now began to speak, thinly disguising his orders as requests. I waited until he had talked himself out. I waited with the same air of calm attention until Partridge had given me his jerky variation. I waited, still apparently calm, until the silence must have been extremely uncomfortable to them. I waited until Granby said sharply, "Then it is settled?"

"Yes," said I, keeping all emotion out of my face and voice. "It is settled. Ex-Governor Burbank is to be nominated. I am at a loss to account for this outbreak. However, I shall at once take measures to prevent its occurring again. Good day."

And I was gone--straight to the train. I did not pause at Fredonia but went on to the capital. The next morning I had the legislature and the attorney-general at work demolishing Granby's business in my state--for I had selected him to make an example of, incidentally because he had insulted me, but chiefly because he was the most notorious of my ten, was about the greediest and crudest "robber baron" in the West. My legislature was to revoke his charter; my attorney-general was to enforce upon him the laws I had put on the statute books against just such emergencies. And it had never entered their swollen heads that I might have taken these precautions that are in the primer of political management.

My three mutineers pursued me to the capital, missed me, were standing breathless at the door of my house near Fredonia on the morning of the third day. I refused to be seen until the afternoon of the fourth day, and then I forbade Granby. But when I descended to the reception-room he rushed at me, tried to take my hand, pouring out a stream of sickening apologies. I rang the bell. When a servant appeared, I said, "Show this man the door."

Granby turned white and, after a long look into my face, said in a broken voice to Roebuck: "For G.o.d's sake, don't go back on me, Mr.

Roebuck. Do what you can for me."

As the curtain dropped behind him, I looked expectantly at Roebuck, sweating with fright for his imperiled millions. Probably his mental state can be fully appreciated only by a man who has also felt the dread of losing the wealth upon which he is wholly dependent for courage, respect and self-respect.

"Don't misunderstand me, Harvey," he began to plead, forgetting that there was anybody else to save besides himself. "I didn't mean--"

"What _did_ you mean?" I interrupted, my tone ominously quiet.

"We didn't intend--" began Partridge.

"What _did_ you intend?" I interrupted as quietly as before.

They looked nervously each at the other, then at me. "If you think Burbank's the man," Roebuck began again, "why, you may go ahead--"

There burst in me such a storm of anger that I dared not speak until I could control and aim the explosion. Partridge saw how, and how seriously, Roebuck had blundered. He thrust him aside and faced me.

"What's the use of beating around the bush?" he said bluntly. "We've made d.a.m.n fools of ourselves, Senator. We thought we had the whip. We see that we haven't. We're mighty sorry we didn't do a little thinking before Roebuck sent that telegram. We hope you'll let us off as easy as you can, and we promise not to meddle in your business again--and you can bet your life we'll keep our promise."

"I think you will," said I.

"I am a man of my word," said he. "And so is Roebuck."

"Oh, I don't mean that," was my answer. "I mean, when the Granby object-lesson in the stupidity of _premature_ ingrat.i.tude is complete, you shan't be able to forget it."

They drifted gloomily in the current of their unpleasant thoughts; then each took a turn at wringing my hand. I invited them up to my sitting-room where we smoked and talked amicably for a couple of hours.

It would have amused the thousands of employes and dependents over whom these two lorded it arrogantly to have heard with what care they weighed their timid words, how nervous they were lest they should give me fresh provocation. As they were leaving, Roebuck said earnestly: "Isn't there _anything_ I can do for you, Harvey?"

"Why, yes," said I. "Give out a statement next Sunday in Chicago--for the Monday morning papers--indorsing Cromwell's candidacy. Say you and all your a.s.sociates are enthusiastic for it because his election would give the large enterprises that have been the object of demagogic attack a sense of security for at least four years more."

He thought I was joking him, being unable to believe me so lacking in judgment as to fail to realize what a profound impression in Cromwell's favor such a statement from the great Roebuck would produce. I wrote and mailed him an interview with himself the following day; he gave it out as I had requested. It got me Burbank delegations in Illinois, South Dakota and Oregon the same week.

XVI

A VICTORY FOR THE PEOPLE

I arrived at Chicago the day before the convention and, going at once to our state headquarters in the Great Northern, shut myself in with Doc Woodruff. My door-keeper, the member of the legislature from Fredonia, ventured to interrupt with the announcement that a messenger had come from Senator Goodrich.