Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1913 — CHAPTER XIV. [ARTICLE]

CHAPTER XIV.

T‘ IHE day of the State Convention! The Convention Hal} ■ at Granite was a big-barn-like building, frequently used for church and school entertainments, and occasionally giving temporary home to some struggling theatrical company. For the holding of the convention which was to name the Governor of the Mountain State a feeble attempt at decorating the vast interior had been made by Conover’s State chairman. There was the usual* noise and tramping of feet and clamoring of brass bands, the customary rabble of uniformed campaign clubs with their gaudy banners and pompous drummajors about the hall and in it, for an hour before the time that had been set for the calling of the convention. Here, there and everywhere circulated busy lieutenants of Boss Conover. Their master, with a little coterie of chosen lieutenants moved early into his headquarters in one of the rooms at the rear of the stage, where he sat like some wise old spider in the heart of hiß web, sending out warnings, advice And admonitions to his under-strappers. Conover felt calmly confident of the result. Even had Standish been the choice of a majority of the people in all eight counties of the State, it would have availed him little, for through the routine tricks whereof the Railroader was past master, his young opponent was at the last able to control the votes of but two counties— Matawan and Wills. Standish’s contesting delegates from the other six counties sat sullen and grim in the, gallery. Fraudulent Conover delegates, who had usurped the former’s places by the various ruses so successfully put into action at the caucuses, held the credentials .and occupied the seats belonging by rights to the Leaguers on the floor of the Convention Hall. There the Machine delegates smilingly sat awaiting the moment when they should name their Boss as candidate for Governor. From the seats of the usurpers there went up a merry howl of derision as Standiah’s two little blocks of delegates from Matawan and Wills marched in and took, their places well down in front, where they formed a pitifully small oasis among the Conover delegates from Bowden, Carney, Haldane, Jericho, Sparta and Pompton counties. There was no cheering by the Standish delegates on the floor of the convention. Tline out of ten knew that It was practically a hopeless fight into which they were about to plunge. Karl Ansel, with an inscrutable grin on his long, leathery face, might have sat for a picture of a typical poker player, as he slipped into his place at the head of the Wills County delegation. Standish was nowhere in sight. Following the ordinary laws of campaign etiquette, he did not show himself before the delegates in advance of the nomination; but, like Conover, sat in temporary headquarters behind the stage. About him were a little knot of Civic Leaguers. One and all they were Job’s comforters, for they knew it would take a miracle now to snatch the nomination from the Railroader’s grip. Promptly at twelve o’clock Shevlin, in his newly acquired capacity of State Chairman, called the convention to order. He had judiciously distributed bunches of his best trained ahoutera where they would do the most good. They cheered when he named the secretaries and assistant secretaries who would act until the permanent organization had been effected. And between times they cheered just for the joy of cheering. Both sides knew that the first and last test of strength would come upon the selection of Committee on Creden- 1 tials, since It was to this commutes that the contests of the six larger counties for the right to sit In the convention would go for settlement Previous conventions had always decided that delegates whose seats were contested should not be allowed to sit as membere of the Committee on Con-' tested Seats. Clive Standish innocently supposed this rule wo'uld be adhered to by this convention. He was wrong. Conover had no Quixotic notion of giving his rival any such advantage. The night before he had decreed that the chairman should rule that this Committee on Contests should consist of three members from each county, and that these members should be chosen by the sitting delegates from each county. This meant that the committee would stand eighteen delegates for Conover and six for Standish. And so it was. Chairman Bourke ruled exactly as Conover had dictated. * When the conveutlon understood the purport of It all the maddest uproar broke out. Alt semblance of or-

der was lest A dozen fist fights started simultaneously. A ’longshoreman—Conover district captain' from one of the “railroad” wards of Granite —wittily spat in the face of a vociferating little former from Wills County, and then stepped back with a bellow of laughter at his own powers of repartee. But others understood the gentle art of “retort courteous” almost as well as he. Losing tor onoe his inherited New England calm, Karl Ansel drove his big gnarled fist flush into the griimlng face of the dock-rat; and sent him whirling backward amid a splintering of broken seats. Ansel, smarting and past all control, ploughed his way down the main aisle, and halting below the stage; shook his clenched fist at Caleb Coo* over’s crayon likeness. “I’ve seen forty pictures of Juads Iscariot in my time,” he thundered, apostrophizingthe portrait-laanasal voice that rose high above the clamor, “and no two of them looked alike. But by the Eternal, they all were the living image of YOU!” Then he went down under an avalanche of Conover rowdies, giving and taking blows as he was borne headlong to the floor. At the cost of a brief interim of fruitless rioting, the Machine at last had its way. Standish had but six members on the com* ✓mittee. >

The contest was over. * The Standish delegates offered bat a perfunctory opposition to the work of choosing the Committees on Organ* izatlon and Platform. This much having been done, the convention took the usual recess, leaving the committees to go into session in separate rooms back of the stage. The delegates filed out, the men from Wills and Matawan angry and silent in their shamed defeat, those from the six victorious countied crowing exuberant glee at their easy triumph. ' + The adjournment announced, Clive slipped out of the Convention. Hall .bjr a rear entrance, and went across to his private office at the League rooms. He wanted to be alone —away from even the staunchest friends—in this black hour. Against all counsel and experience, against hope itself, he had hoped to the last His bulldog plnok, his faith in his mission, had upheld him above other, colder, saner reason. Even the repeated warnings ,of Ansel had left him unconvinced. Up to the very moment Conover’s final succeaaful moVe was made Standish had hoped. And now hope was dead. He was beaten. Hopelessly, utterly, starkly beaten. From the outset Conover had played with him and his • plans as a giant might play with a child. It had been no question of open battle, with the weaker antagonist battered to earth by the greater, the whole campaign had been a futile struggle of an enmeshed captive to break through a web too mighty for his puny efforts, while his conqueror had sat calmly by, awaiting a victory that was.sure as the rise of the sun.

Standish knew that in a few minutes he would be able to pull himself together and face the world aa a nun should. In the interim, with the hart animal’s instinct, he wanted to bo alone. Save for a clerk in the antechamber, the League’s . rooms were deserted. Everyone was at the convention. The clerk rose at Clive’s entrance and-would have spoken, but the defeated candidate passed unheeding Into his own office, closing the door behind him. Then, stopping short, h{s back to the closed door, he stared, unbelieving, at someone who rose at his entrance and hurried forward, hands outstretched. to greet him. “I knew you would come here!” said Anice Lanier. “I felt you would, so I. hurried over as soon as they adjourned. Aren’t you glad to see me?” He still stared, speechless, dumbfounded. She had caught his unresponsive hands, and was looking up into his tired hopeless eyes with a wealth of pity and sympathy that broke through the mask of blank misery on his face and softened .the hard lines of mouth and jaw into a shadow of a smile.

'lt was good of you to come," be said at last. “I thought I couldn’t bear to see anyone Just now. But— It’s so different with you, I —" He ceased speaking. His overstrung nerves were battling against a childish longing to bury bis hot face in those cool little white hands whose lightest touch so thrilled him and to tell this gentle, infinitely tender girl all about his sorrows, his broken tropes, his crushed self-esteem. In spirit he could feel her arms about his aching head, drawing it to her breast; could hear her whispered words of soothing and encouragement. Then, on the moment, the babyish impulse passed and he was himself again, self-controlled, outwardly stolid, realizing as never before that the price of strength is lonelinesa. "I am beaten,” he went on, "but 1 think we made as good a fight as we could. Perhaps another time —" She withdrew her hands from hiA Into her big eyes had crept something almost akin to scorn. “You are giving up?” she asked incredulously. “You will make no further effort to—” “What more Is to be done? The Committee on Credentials—” "I know. I was there. It's all been a wretched mistake from the very beginning. Oh, why were you so foolish about those letters?” “Letters? What letters?" "The letters sent you with news of Mr. Conover’s plans for—” "Those anonymous letters I got? What do you know—-” "I wrote them,” said Anlce Lanipr. (To Be Continued.)