Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 294, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1912 — CALEB CONOVER, RAILROADER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CALEB CONOVER, RAILROADER

BY ALBERT PAYSOH TERHUNE

Author of “Srri» from the Saddle.'' “Colombia Stone," Etc. Cqprtmf*. 1907, AbatßomTaW

CHAPTER 11. Caleb Conover Makes a Speech. P had broken, that . I night, two rules that had for years formed inviolate t«frtaSssJ ets of his life creed. In the first place, he —whose battles bad for the most part been won by the cold eye that told nothing, and by the colder brain that dictated the words of his every-day speech as calculatingly as a diplomat dictates a letter of state —he had forced himself to throw away ais guard and to. chatter and make himself agreeable like any bargain counter clerk. The effort had been irksome. In the second, he had departed from his fixed habit of total abstinence. The love of strong drink ran high in his blood. Early in life he had decided that such indulgence would militate against success. So he had avoided even the mildest potations from thenceforward. To-night (his usually stolid nerves tense with the excitement of the grand cast tie was making for “social recognition'’) he had felt, as never before In campaign or in business climax, the need for stimulant to enable him to play his awkward role. Moreover —he had his son. Gerald’s high authority for the statement —total abstinence was no longer in vogue among the elect As soon, therefore, as he had taken his seat in the supper-room he had braced himself by a glass of champagne. The unwonted beverage sent a delicious glow through him. Hig puzzled brain cleared, his last doubts of the entertainment’s success began to fade. . Supper was still in its early stages when a fourth glass of heady vintage champagne followed the other three. From doorways and walls his political followers looked on with amaze. To them the sight of the Boss drinking was the eighth wonder of the world. The waiter filled his glass for the fifth time. After all, champagne had an effect whiskey could never, equal. The fifth draught (for he allowed but one swallow to the goblet) seemed to Inspire him even more than had its predecessors. Then it was that fifty generations of irishmen who, under the spell of liquor, acquired a flow of language not their own, clamored for voice in this their latest and greatest descendant. Conover rose to his feet and rapped tor silence. He would speak while the gift of eloquence was still strong upon him.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Caleb, clearing his voicq and looking iown the great room across the concourse of . wondering, amused, or expectant faces that gently swayed In t faint haze before his “I guess rou all know, without my telling you,. haw glad. I, am to see you here tonight, and. 1 want you should enjoy svery minute of your evening. Some if you are oldYrtebda of mine. There’s more’n a few here to-ntght that remembers me whqn. I was barefooted Cale Conover, without a dollar to say tame nor any very hectic prospects ■f getting one, j "But there’s a lot more of you here tto|s I hadn’t the honor of knowing then, nor for that matter of meeting at all till to-night It’a to these, mostly, that Fin talking now. For I want ’em to ttpow me better and MR* #• better- Maybe if they bear riaore

about me they wilL That’s why I'm an my feet now. », .A :' “I b’lieve, it isn’t customary to make I speech any more at parties. But you’ll hare to forgive me. I’m not much onto the latest frills and fashtots. But give me a chance, and I*ll.. team as easy as a Chinaman. It came. to me all of a sudden to say what I’ve got to say, right here and now, even. If.it’B at the expense of a little etifuette. I’ve asked you here to-night, ■Mdnly, of course, for the pleasure of entertaining you, and I hope you’re all having a real good time. But I had another reason, too.” The men at the tables looked perflexed. «Vas this the Caleb Conover they had met and cringed to in the enter world, this garrulous, rambling man with the flushed face? “You see, I’ve come to be a kind ad. a feature of this city of ours and •f the State, too. I’m here to stay: And I want that my towns-folks and my fellow-residents of the Mountain State should know me. Many of ’em do. There’s a full half-million folks In this city and State that know all. about Caleb Conover. They know he’s ou the square, that he'll look after tttbir Interests, that he’s a white man. They know he’s a man they can trust in, their public life and welcome in their homes. And, as I said,, there’s a lot of these people here to-night “But there’s a lot of other folks here who only know me by what slander pad Jokes they’ve picked up around town or in the out-of-State newspapers. It’s these latter folks I’m talking to now. I want them to know the real me; not the uneducated crook ud illiterate feller my p’litical enemies have made me out. They can’t think I'm all bad, or they wouldn’t be my guests. Would they now? And a little frankness ought to do the rest. “Some people say I’ve risen from the gutter. Well, I’ve risen from it, haven’t I? A lot of men on Pompton Avenue and in the big clubs are just where they started when they were born. Not a step in advance of wheVe their fathers left ’em. Swell chancd they’d have had if their parents had started ’em in the gutter as mine did, wouldn’t they? Where’d they be now? “What does the start amount to? The finish line’s where, the* score’s counted. Gutter or palace. *‘A man’s a man for a’ that’ says a poet by the name of R. Burns. And he was right even if he did waste his time on verse-Btringing. Only it always seemed a pity to me those words wasn’t said by someone bigger’n a measly poet Someone whose name carried- weight and whose words would be quoted more. Because then more folks might hear of It and believe it I don't suppose one person In fifty’s ever heard ot this R. Burns person. (I never did myself, till I bought a Famous Quotation book to use in one of my campaigns. That’s how I got familiar with the writings es, Burns and Ibid and Byron and all. those rhymer people.) Now, if some public character like Tom Platt, er Matt Quay, or someone else that everybody’s heard of. had sarld that Quotation about a man being a man —" Caleb paused to gather up the loose threads of his discourse. This caused him a moment of dull bewilderment, for fie was not accustomed to digress, either in mind or talk, and the phenomenon puzzled him. He rallied and went on: -\.A •ABut that isn’t the point. I was telling you about myself. I started in the gutter, Just as the *knockers’ say I did. Or down by the freight yards, and that’s about the same thing. My mother took" in washing—when she could get it. My father went to the penitentiary for freightlifting when I was ten —he was a ste.vedore —and he died there. I was brought up on a street where the feller—man or boy—who couldn’t fight had to stay indoors. And Indoors was one place I never stayed. I began as coal boy in the C. G. & X. elevators; then I got a job firing on a fast freight, and from that I took to braking on a local passenger run. Then I was yardmaster, and then In the sup’rlntendent’s office, and then came• the Job of sup’rlntendent and after that general manager, and I worked my wfiy up till I ran the C. G. ft X. road single-handed. Meantime 1 was looking after your city’s interests. Three times as Alderman and then once as Mayor, for the boys knew they could babk on me. I got hold of interests here and interests there. Cheap, rundown interests they were, for the most part, but I built 'em up. Taka the: C. G. ft X.. for instance. Biggest road in the State to-day. How’d ft get so? I made it It was all ran down, and -on its last legs when I took hold. I acquired it and —” - He paused once more, fighting back that queer tendency to let slip his grasp on his subject -> b VI remember that 0. G. ft X. deal,** whispered Greer to his wife. “Hs Juggled shares and pulled wires and spread calamity rumors .till..he was: able to smash the stock down to a ! dollar-ten per. He scaled out aU < the other big holders, gabbled their stock, reorganised, and reaped a clean five, million ou the deal” VHuahtV retorted Mw.-Greer. !' 4 *TWa' is too rich to miss. I must remember It aU to—“ ~r - rl *—So you see,” .Caleb was coutin* uififc, “I fought my way up. Every move was a fight and every fight was a win. That’s my motto. Fight to wflA An’ if you don’t win, let it bo year executor, not you, that knows you lost Bat the biggest fight of all wto to come. I contrdOed the city. :t helped control the Stated* I had all the money any man tended, sad f was spending it right here to the town whars It Was earned. I was -a aaoeaseful man. But the man who’s anft faUwa! AaAI wawt’t gatttiteA.SL ******* fir-#*#**-*

“There was still one thing I couldn’t get I couldn’t get one set of people to recognize me when they met me in the street to ask me to their houses, to game to my house. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they dent! know. Maybe they didn’t want to know. There’s a lot of things society folks don’t seem to want to know. And one of those things was me. I couldn’t win ’em over. I built this house. Cost $200,000, more’n any other house in town. If you doubt it, step down to the' Building Commissioner’s and look over the specifications. Built it on the most fash’nable avenue, too.* • But still know you!’ ‘Maybe It’s my lack of blue blood,’ thinks I. ’Though my pile’s been made a good deal cleaner than many an aristocrat’s.’ I mar-. ried a lady of the first families here” —a ripple of unintelligible surprise brakeJjL ondfete :earsJMt jfeicjUxuilfidi ‘What was the result? She was asked out and I wasn’t. But I kept on fighting. And at last I’m in the winning stride. “I’m not a college man myself. All my education’s hand-made and since I was thirty. But I was bound my son should be one. And be is. He’3 in society, too. The best New York affords. I’m told. My girl’s had advantages, too, and you see the result. Do unto others, what you can’t do for yourself. That’s worth remembering sometimes. And now at last I get my comeback for all my outlay. “To-night I guess I cover the final lap of the race. or the bluest blood, of Granite is—are —is among my guests here, and I’m meeting ’em on equal terms. All this talk, maybe, isn’t what the etlqnetto booKs call ‘good form.’ But if you knew how many years I’ve worked for what I’ve won to-night, you’d sympathize with me for wanting to crow just a little.” “So.” resumed Caleb, beaming about him, “I wanted the chance to let you all know me as I really am. Not what my enemies say about me. Is‘ there any reason why I should’nt be your friend’and entertain you often? None in the least, you’ll all si.y. It seems a little thing, perhaps, to you who've been in the game always. But it’s meant a lot to me!” He paused. There seemed nothing more to say, yet he longed to end with a climax. A glorious, dazzling inspiration came, and he hurried on: “And now, in honor of this little meeting between friendß, let me tell you all a secret It won’t be a secret to-morrow, but you can always be able to say you were the first who was told. I have at last yielded to the earnest entreaties of my constituents and friends :.nd party in general, and have consented to accept the nomination for Governor at the coming convention." From the proletariat fringing the walls and blocking the doorway arose an excited, exultant hum. Only the wild efforts of certain efficient. If’unofficial, sergeants-at-arms prevented a mighty yell of applause. At the tables, however, the women looked bored or puwzled; while the men glanced at each other with the blank look of people who, out for a day’s jolly hunting, find themselves caught unexpectedly In a bear trap. “I have heretofore,” went on Caleb, after allowing the Impression of his words to sink in, “refused all State offices. But now 1 feel it a social as well as political duty that I owe. And I shall be grateful to you for your honest support.” Caleb bowed, reseated himself and swallowed another glass of champagne at a gulp. He was not ill pleased with .himself. He had risen merely to thank his guests for their presence. Little by little he had -drifted further than hg, had at first Intended. Yet he was glad he had yielded to this unprecedented, unaccustomed yearning to expand; to show himself at his best before these people with whom he now firmly believed himself on a footing of friendly equality. Yes. on the whole, he was convinced of his success. He glanced about him The buzz of talk had recommenced. Dozens of eyes were upon him, /not with the bored coldness of the duller evening, but with curiosity and open interest. Caleb was glad. Anlce Lanier, alone, met his eye with the frank, hone&t, unafraid look that was her birthright, and which made her the only living person he instinctively felt he could not bully. In her look he read, now, a mute question. He could not fathom the expression. Caleb left his place and made his way among the tables to where she eat ' 4' “How’d It go?” he asked. “It seemed to take ’em.” 1 “I think it did,” she replied, noting tke flush on his- cheek and the brightness of his gase, and wondering thereat • ■ ... ■ too long to hold their interest?” “No. They seemed Interested.” “You think so? Good! Do you know, if I’d had time to think, I*d rather have mgde fifty campaign speeches than that one. I’d have been 'rattled to death. But it waa easier than any speech I ever made. Good cilmax. eh. that announcement?” “How long ago did you make up your mind to ran tor Governor?” "Think it’s queer that, as my secretary; you hadn’t heard of It? Welt, I’ll tell you. I decided it just about seven minutes ago. It came to me ■ like a flash, plumb la the middle or ; my speech. I figgered out all at once ■that if there waa any.flaw in my plans so far, the governorship was dead ■ura te.cinch me in scsifty. Folks'll think twice before they turn up their naass at a governor. It earn# as an Inspiration. A * geMfias hunch. %,1 never have one of them but what It wins. Why. whew—” ' “Jut ran xonjto the nomination?”

"Can I get it?' Can I get it? Say. Miss Lanier/haven’t you learned yet that there isn’t a thing in the city, of Granite or in the Mountain State that Caleb. Conover. RailroasTer,£aiL’t get it if he wants it bad enough? Tonight ought to have showed you that. Why, with the legislature and every newspaper, and the railroad system and every decent State job right here safe between my Angers, all I’ve got to do is to turn the wheel, and the Little ball will drop into the governor’s chair all right, all right” The girl’s big brown eyes were vaguely troubled. The reserve habitual to her when in her employer's society deepened. She thought of Clive Standish and his inspirations. What would become of the young lawyer’s

already desperate hope, now that the Boss himself—and not some mere puppet of the latter’s —was to be his opponent? “Yes,” reiterated Conover, as ne prepared to return to hi 3 own table. “It was an inspiration. And an ounce of inspiration discounts a haif-ton of any other commodity that ever passed over the counter." “What was it like?” rhapsodized Billy Shevlin at 2 a. tn., as he gazed loftily upon a semicircle of humbler querists in the back room of Kerrigans saloon. “It was like the King of England an’ one of them Fashion Joinals an’ a lake of $4-a-bottle suds, all mixed; with a Letter Carriers’ Ball on the side. And”—he added, in a glow of divine memories—“l was ace-high with the biggest of the push. If I hadn’t a’ beeh, would the Van Alstyne dame a’ stood for it so civil when I treads on the, train of her Sunday regalia and rips about ten yards of the fancy tatting off’n it?" “What was it like?” echoed Mrs. Greer to a query of one of her daughters who had sat up to await the parental home-coming. “It was something clear outside the scrlptual prohibition of swearing. For it -was like nothing in ‘the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth.’ ” • “What was it like?” thought Clive Standish drowsily as he fell asleep “A dozen people are certain to a3k me that to-morrow. It’s —her —her —eyes have that same old queer way—of making me feel as if—l were in church." ' (To be Continued.)

'Ladies and gentlemen,” began Caleb, clearing his voice.

“How’d it go?” he asked. “It seemed to take ’em.”