A Spoil of Office: A Story of the Modern West

When the service was over he went out into the anteroom with the young fellows, who were anxious to meet him. Quite a number of farmers were in from the country, and they all crowded about, shaking his hand with great heartiness. He moved on with them to the sidewalk, where many of the congregation stood talking in groups. The women came by in their starched neatness, leading rebellious boys in torturing suits of winter thickness topped with collars, stiff as sauce pans; while the little girls walked as upright as dolls, looking disdainfully at their sulking brothers. Some of the merchants passing by discussed the sermon, some talked about crops with the farmers, and those around Bradley dipped into the political situation guardedly.

While he was talking to some of the town people, he saw Nettie come up and join a young man at the door whom he had recognized as the tenor in the choir; and they sauntered off together under the full-leafed maples – she in dainty white and pink, he in a miraculously modish suit of gray, a rose in his lapel. Bradley looked after them without special wonder. It was only as he went back to his room that he began to see how fully Nettie had outgrown her passion for him.

He met her the next day as he was going home from the office.

"Hello, Bradley," she said, without blushing, though her eyes wavered before his.

He held out his hand with a frank smile. "Hello, Nettie, which way are you going?"

"Going home now, been up to the grocery. Want to go 'long?"

"I don't mind. How are you, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm all right. Say! that beard of yours makes you look as funny as old fun."

"Does it?" he said.

"You bet! It makes you look old enough to go to Congress. Say! heard from Radbourn lately?" Bradley shook his head. "Well, I haven't, but Lily has. He's writing – writing for the newspapers, she said."

"Is that so? I haven't heard it."

"E-huh! Say, do you know Lily's all bent on him yet! Funny, ain't it? I ain't that way, am I?" she ended, with her customary audacity.

"No, it's out o' sight, out o' mind with you," he replied, with equal frankness.

"Oh, not quite so bad as that. Ain't yeh comin' in?" They were at the gate.

"Guess not. You remember your father's command; I must never darken his door."

She laughed heartily. "I guess that don't count now."

"Don't it? Well, some other time then."

"All right, but gimme that basket. Goin' to lug that off with you?"

XVI.

NOMINATION

On the Monday evening following Bradley's return, there was quite a gathering at Robie's along about sundown. Colonel Peavy and Judge Brown came down together, and Ridings and Deering were there also, seated comfortably under the awning, in mild discussion with Robie, who had taken the side of free trade, to be contrary, as Deering said.

"No, sir; I take that side for it's right." There was something sincere in his reply, and Ridings stared.

"How long since?"

"About a week."

"What's got into yeh, anyhow?"

"A little horse sense," said Robie. "I've been a readin' the other side; an' if a few more of yeh'd do the same, you'd lose some of your damn pig-headed nonsense." The Democrats cheered, but the Republicans stared at Robie, as if he had suddenly become insane.

"Well, I'll be dinged!" said Smith, his brother-in-law. "I'd like to know what you'd been a readin' to make a blazin' old copperhead of you."

Robie held up two or three tracts. The Judge took them, looked them over, and read the titles out loud to the wondering crowd.

"'The Power of Money to Oppress.' 'Free Trade Philosophy.' 'The Money Question.' 'The Right to the Use of the Earth,' by Herbert Spencer. 'Land and Labor Library.' 'Progress and Poverty,' by Henry George."

"Oh, so you've got hold of Spencer and George, have you?" said the Judge.

"No; they've got hold 'f me."

"Spencer!" said Smith, in vast disgust. "What the hell has he to do with it?" The rest sat in silence. The occasion was too momentous for jokes.

"Where'd you get hold o' these?" said the Judge, fingering the leaves.

"Radbourn sent 'em out."

"I'll bet yeh! If there was a rank, rotten book anywhere on God's green footstool, that feller'd have it," said Smith.

The Judge ruminated: "Well, if that's the effect, guess I'll circulate a few copies 'mong the young Republicans of the county. Gentlemen, this is our year."

"You've been a sayin' that for ten years, Judge," said Ridings.

"And it's been a comin' all the time, gentlemen. I tell you, I've had my ear to the ground, and there's something moving. The river is shifting its bed. Look out for a flood. I'm going to make an entirely new move this fall; I'm going to put up a man for legislature that'll sweep the county; and you'll all vote for 'im, too. He's young, he's got brains, he's an orator, and he can't be bought."

Robie brought his fist down on the counter in an excitement such as he had never before manifested. "Brad Talcott! We'll elect him sure as hell!"

Amos hastened to put in a word. "Brad's a Republican."

"He's a Free Trade Republican," said the Judge, quietly.

"How do yeh know?"

"Oh, I know. Haven't I been a workin' 'im for these last two years? Did you expect a man to live with me and not become inoculated with the Simon-pure Jeffersonian Democracy?"

"I don't believe it," Amos replied; "and I won't till I hear him say so himself. I want to see him go to Des Moines, but I want to see him go as a Republican."

"Well, you attend the Independent convention next week, and you'll hear something that'll set you thinking. Your Grange is losing force. You failed to elect your candidate last year. Now, if we put up a man who is a farmer and a clean man – a man that can sweep the county and carry Rock River – why not join in and elect him?"

The railroad interest was the great opposing factor; and the Judge, who was a great politician, had calculated upon a fusion of the farmer Republicans and the Democrats. He was really the ablest man in that part of the State, and could wield the Democratic party like a pistol. He succeeded in getting Amos, Councill, Jennings, and a few other leading grangers to sign his call for a people's convention to nominate county officers and the member of the legislature. It really amounted to a union of the independent Republicans and the young Democrats.

The old liners, however, were there, and set out from the first to control the convention, as was shown in the opening words of the chairman, old man Colwell, whom the Judge had kindly allowed in the chair, in order that he might have a chance to speak on the floor.

"This is a great day for us," said the chairman. "We've waited a long time for the people to see that Republican rings were sapping the foundations of political honesty, but they see it now. This crowded convention, fellow-citizens, shows that the deathless principles of Jacksonian Democracy still slumber under the ashes of defeat."

He went on in this strain, calmly taking to himself and the other old moss-backs (as young Mason contemptuously called them) all the credit of the meeting, and bespeaking, at the same time, all the offices.

Following this intimation, Colonel Peavy presented a slate, wherein all the leading places on the ticket had been given "to the men who stood so long for the principles of Jackson and Jefferson. It was fitting that these men should be honored for their heroic waiting outside the gates of emolument."

Young Mason was on his feet in an instant. "Mr. Chairman," he said, penetratingly.

"Mr. Mason."

"While I appreciate, sir, the fortitude, the patience, of the men who have been waiting outside the gates of emolument so long, I want to say distinctly, that if that slate is not broken, we'll all wait outside the gates of emolument twenty years longer. But I want to say further, Mr. Chairman, that the strength of this new movement is in its freedom from spoils-seeking; is in its independence from the old party lines. Its strength is in its appeal to the farmer, in its support of his war against unjust tariff and against railway domination. Its strength also is in its appeal to the young men of this county, sir."

Applause showed that the young orator had his audience with him. He was a small man, but his voice was magnificent, and his oratory powerful, self-contained, full of telling points.

"If we win, gentlemen of this convention," he said, turning, "we must put at the head of this movement a man who is absolutely incorruptible – a man who can command the granger vote, the temperance vote, the young man's vote, and the Independent vote. That man" —

"Mr. Chairman," snarled Colonel Peavy, rising with impressive dignity and drawing his coat around him with ominous deliberation.

"Colonel Peavy," acknowledged the chairman.

"Mr. Chairman," shouted young Mason, "I have the floor. I deny the right of your recognition of another member while I'm speaking."

"Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of information," said the Colonel.

"State your point, Colonel."

"I would like to ask this young gentleman who holds the floor how many votes he has cast in his whole life."

Young Mason colored with anger, but his voice was cool and decisive. "For the gentleman's information, Mr. Chairman, I will say that I have voted once, but that vote entitles me to stand here as a delegate, and I have the floor."

The delegates were mainly with young Mason, and the Colonel sat down grimly in the midst of the Old Guard. Milton and Bradley, sitting together, rejoiced in the glorious attitude of the young champion, who went on —

"I say, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that we cannot win this election on old party lines. I'm a Democrat." (Applause.) "But we are not strong enough as a party in this district to elect, and I'm willing to work with the Independents. There is just one man who can be elected from this convention. He is a young man; he is sound on the tariff; he is an orator; he can sweep the county. I present, as nominee for our next representative, Bradley Talcott, of Rock River."

Bradley sat still, stunned by the applause which burst forth at the mention of his name. Brown had prepared him for the presentation of his name, but he had not dared to hope that any considerable number of delegates would support him.

Judge Brown rose to his feet. "I second the nomination, Mr. Chairman. I am a Democrat – an old Democrat, but I'm damned if I'm a moss-back. I don' allow any young man to get ahead of me on radicalism. I stand for progress; and because I know Bradley Talcott stands for progress, I second his nomination. His canvass will be an honor to himself, and a historical event in this county."

Amos Ridings arose. "Mr. Chairman, I second that nomination as a Granger-Republican. I second it because I know Brad Talcott can't be bought, and because I know he's honest in his convictions. I'll stand by him as long as he stands by principle."

This practically brought to Bradley's support the winning force, for Amos was a power in the county. Somebody called for Milton Jennings, and after some hesitation he got upon his feet.

"Mr. Chairman, I'm not a delegate to this convention, and so it isn't my place to speak here; but I want to say that if I was, I should second this nomination. It's a complete surprise to me to have him nominated. If I had known of it before, I would have been working for him all along. I'm pledged in another direction; but if I could honorably withdraw my support from the regular nominee, I would do everything I could to elect my old classmate and esteemed colleague."

With this boom, the vote was wildly enthusiastic. The chairman pronounced it unanimous.

"Give us a speech!" shouted the crowd.

Young Mason leaped up, a sardonic gleam in his eye. "Mr. Chairman, I move that Colonel Peavy and Amos Ridings escort the nominee to the platform."

The motion was put and carried amid laughter. As they dragged Bradley out of his chair and pushed him up the aisle, everybody laughed and cheered. William Councill kicked the Colonel as he went past and Robie hit him a sounding slap between the shoulders. The Colonel bore it all with astonishing good nature. As they reached the platform, young Mason stepped into the aisle and shouted:

"Three cheers for the Honorable Bradley Talcott!"

With the roar of these cheers in his ears, Bradley turned and faced his fellow-citizens. His knees shook, and his voice was so weak he could hardly be heard.

"Fellow-citizens, do you know what you're doing?" he said, in a curiously colloquial tone.

"You bet we do!" roared the crowd. "What d'ye think we've done?"

"You've nominated a man for your legislature who hasn't got a dollar in the world."

"So much the better! The campaign 'll be honest!" shouted young Mason.

Bradley's throat was too full to speak, and his head whirled. "I can't make a speech now, gentlemen; I am all out o' breath. All I can say is, I'm very thankful to have such friends, and I'll try to do my duty in the campaign, and in the legislature, if I'm elected."

The delegates swarmed about him to shake his hand and promise him their support. Bradley, dazed by the suddenness of it, could only smile and grip each man's hand. The Judge was jubilant. Had Bradley been his son, he couldn't have felt more sincerely pleased.

"We'll see such a campaign this fall as this county never had," he said to everybody; "a campaign with a principle; a campaign that will be educational."

Bradley had now a greater work before him than he had ever undertaken before. He had now to go to his old friends and neighbors in a new light, practically as a Democrat. He had to face audiences mainly hostile to his ideas, and defend opinions which he knew not only cut athwart the judgment of the farmers of the county, but squarely across their prejudices.

But he had something irresistible on his side; he was debating a principle. He was widening the discussion, and he made men feel that. He rose above local factions and local questions to the discussion of the principles of justice and freedom. He voiced this in his speech of acceptance in the Opera House the next day. The house was packed to its anteroom with people from every part of the county. A curious feeling of expectancy was abroad. Men seemed to feel instinctively that this was the beginning of a change in the thought of Rock River. Everybody remarked on the change in Bradley, and his beard made him look so much older.

Judge Brown and Dr. Carver sat on the stage with the speakers, young Mason and Bradley. The Judge was very dignified, but there was an exultant strut in his walk and a special deliberation in his voice which proclaimed his pride in his junior partner. He alluded, in his dry, nasal way, to the pleasure it gave him to inaugurate the new era in politics in Rock River. "The liquor question I regard as settled in this State," he said. "And now the discussion of the tariff has free sailing. But you don't want to hear us old fellows, with our prejudices; you want to hear our young leaders, with their principles."

He introduced young Mason, who made one of his audacious speeches. "Death is a great friend of youth and progress," he said. "The old men die, off, thank God! and give young men and new principles a chance. I tell you, friends and neighbors, the Democratic party is being born again – it must be born again, in order to be worth saving."

When Bradley stepped forward, he was very pale.

"Friends and fellow-citizens," he began, after the applause had ended, "I can't find words to express my feeling for the great honor you have done me. I thank the citizens of Rock River for their aid, but I want to say – I'm going to run this campaign in the farmers' interest, because the interests of this county and of this State are agricultural, and whatever hurts the farmer hurts every other man in the State. There is no war between the town and the country. The war is between the people and the monopolist wherever he is, whether he is in the country or in the town. It is not true that the interests of the town dweller and of the farmer are necessarily antagonistic; the cause of the people is the same everywhere. It's like the condition of affairs between England and Ireland. People say that Ireland is fighting England – fighting the English people, but that is not the fact. The antagonism is between the Irish people and the English landlord. So the fight in America is the people against the special privileges enjoyed by a few. It's because these few generally live in towns that we seem to be fighting the towns.

"As the Judge said, we've settled the liquor question in this State; it won't come up again unless office seekers drag it up. It has been our State issue – that and the railroads; and now that is settled, we can turn our attention to the finishing up of the railway problem and to the discussion of the tariff."

"And the money!" shouted some one; "abolish the national banks!"

Bradley hesitated a little. "No, we can't do that, but we can destroy any special privilege they hold. But the first thing that stares us in the face is the war tariff that is eating us up. I'm going to state just what I think in this campaign, and you can vote for me or not. It is sheer robbery to continue a tariff that was laid at a time when we needed enormous revenue. See the surplus piling up in the public vault. You say it's better to have a surplus than a deficit. Yes, but I'd rather have the surplus in the pockets of the people. This taxing the people to death, in order to have a surplus to expend in senseless appropriations, is poor policy."

In this strain his whole speech ran, and it had an electrical effect. They cheered him tremendously, and the meeting broke up, and discussion burst out all over the hall with appalling fury, and continued each day thereafter. The railroad question and the tariff question began right there to divide the county into two camps. The young leader carried the same disturbing influence into every township in which he spoke, and the whole county became a debating school. It took a position far ahead of the other counties of the State in the questions.

Men stopped each other, and talked from plow to plow across the line fence. They met in the road upon dusty loads of wheat, and sat hours at a time under the burning August sun to discuss the matter of railroad commissions, and the fixing of rates, and the question of reducing the surplus in the treasury.

The old greenbackers came out of their temporary retirement, and helped Bradley's cause simply because he was young and a dissenter. They were a power, for most of them were deeply read on the tariff and on the railroad problem; in fact, were all round radicals and fluent speakers.

Judge Brown kept out of it. "I don't want to seem too prominent in this campaign," he said to Colonel Peavey. "We old Mohawks are a damage to any man's campaign just now. The time is coming, Colonel, when we'll help, but not now. We've set the mischief afoot; now let the young fellows and the farmers do the rest of it. Besides, my young man here is quite able to look out for himself. All that scares me is he'll get too radical, even for the Democracy, one of these days. If he does, all is we'll have to build a party up to his principle, for he'll be right, Colonel; there's no two ways about that."

XVII.

ELECTION

The interest of the election was very great; and as the vote of Rock River practically settled the contest, the centre of interest was the Court House, which was crowded to suffocation on election night. There was a continual jam and a continual change. Crowds stood around the doorway, or moved up and down the sidewalk. Crowds were constantly running up and down the stairway, and crowding in and out the dingy, dimly lighted court-room, which was roaring with voices, blue with smoke, and foul as a dungeon – with tobacco and vitiated breaths.

All the men of the town seemed to be present, from old man Dickey, the chicken thief and fisherman, to cold, aristocratic R. F. Russell, the banker. Rowdyish boys pushed and banged and howled, playing at hide-and-seek among the legs of the men, who filled every foot of standing space, or were perched on the railings or tables near the Judge's bench, from which the returns were being called. The kerosene lamp shed a dim light, through the smoke. There was no fire, and the excited partisans kept their hats and coats on, and warmed themselves by wild gestures and stamping.

Occasionally a boy's shrill yell or whistle, or some excited Democrat's calling, "It's a whack! I'll take yeh!" rose above the clamor. Upon the benches piled up along the wall, to leave the middle space free, groups of the less demonstrative citizens of both parties sat discussing the chances of the different candidates. Bradley was not there, but young Mason and Milton were considered his representatives, and were surrounded by a constant crowd of sympathizers. It was about nine o'clock at night before the decisive returns began to come in.

Occasionally the sound of furious pounding was heard, and a momentary lull was enforced while the clerk read some telegraphic message or report of a neighboring town. While he stood upon the Judge's bench, at about nine o'clock, the crowd, aware in some mysterious way of the arrival of decisive news, made a wild surge toward the clerk, and shouted for silence, while he announced in a high nasal key: "Rock River gives a hundred and ninety-one for Kimball, two hundred and twenty-five for Talcott." At this a wild cheer broke forth, led by Milton and young Mason.

"That means victory!" said Milton.

"Don't be too sure of it! Wait for Cedarville."

The reading went on, with occasional yells from either the Democrats or Republicans, according to the special quality of the report, but it was plain that the most interest was centered in the contest for representative.

As the evening wore on, messengers clattered up on horseback from other towns of the county, and amid yells and cheers were hustled up the stairway, through the crowd to the clerk, carrying in their hands envelopes filled with election returns. These returns from the townships were almost entirely in Bradley's favor, but Cedarville was the decisive vote. Messengers from the little telegraph station dashed to and fro, and the excitement was fanned into greater fury by the accounts of Democratic gains from other counties and other States. "It is a political landslide," exclaimed Mason. "The Democrats are in it this time."

At length there rose the cry of "Cedarville! Cedarville!" and a messenger bearing a telegraph blank was rushed through to the reading-desk, where his message was snatched by the clerk. Again there was a wild surge toward the desk, and a silence, broken only by derisive cheers from the boys, while the clerk glanced over it.

"Cedarville gives seventy votes for Kimball, and a hundred and ten for Talcott."

The Independents shouted themselves hoarse, and flung their caps in the air. Talcott had carried both of the towns of the county; he was sure of the farmers. The boys howled like savages, and tripped each other over the railings and seats, boxed hats, punched the men in the back, and hid around their legs; while the clerk went on with his reading, at more and more frequent intervals, of reports from other States and districts of the congressional field. The old-line Democrats were delirious with joy. The promised land was in sight.

It was about half past twelve o'clock when Colonel Russell conceded Bradley's election, and two stout men toiled up the stairs, bringing his forfeit of two barrels of apples. Amid wild yells from the crowd, they threw the barrels to the floor, where they burst, and sent Northern Spys rolling in every direction.

Then came a wilder roar and scramble, that outdid everything that had gone before, and a surging mass of struggling men and boys covered the apples. They threw themselves upon each other's backs. They clawed like wild-cats, barked like wolves. They kicked each other out of the way, and scratched and mauled each other, crushing hats, tearing coats, bruising shins. As fast as one man filled his hands or arms or pockets, the others set upon him, struck them from his arm, snatched them from his hands, tore them from his pockets, or tripped him headlong to the floor, where he rolled in the filthy sawdust, under the feet of the crazy mob.