Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 211, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1913 — Reform in the First [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Reform in the First

By BRAND WHITLOCK

AUTHOR Or “THE THIRTEENTH DISTRICT.” “HER JHFIOTTE VARIETT,” “THE HAPPY AVERAGE,” “THE TDRH OF THE BALANCE," ETC. ETC

\ HE senatorial convention in the First district was I to convene at Id o’clock, in a dingy little hall in aggSjeu lower Clark street, lighted hy windows so long fly Al|| unwashed that they wsl Jrc looked lika.ground glass. Jj&b From the chandeliers, black and sticky with dead flies, shreds of tissue paper fluttered, relics of some boisterous fete an Italian society had given there long ago. The floor was damp in arabesque wrought by a sprinkling-cah, for jtte janitor had sprayed water there to lay the dust he was too indifferent to remove Perhaps a hundred chairs were set in amphitheatrical order, and before them stood a kitchen table, on which was a white water pitcher, flanked by a glass, thickened by various sedimentary deposits within. In the saloon below, at 9 o’clock, scores of delegates were already shuffling in the sawdust tha| covered the floo*, holding huge schooners of beer in their hairy fists, gorging grossly at the free lunch table, with bologna, rank onionß and rye bread. The foain of the beer clung to their mustaches, which, after each sip, they sucked between their lips. Most of them managed, at the same time they were eating and drinking, by' a dexterous sleight-of-hand, to - smoke cheap domestic cigars, and a cloud of white smoke rolled along the low ceiling. Each new arrival was greeted with softie obscene but endearing epithet, and the room rang with laughter and profanity. A keg of beer had been provided by one of Conway’s managers, and the bartender, wiping his hands on a dirty towel, was rid, so long as the keg lasted, of the responsibility of keeping account of drinks, and oi ringing up the change on the cash register. At 11 o’clock the keg was empty, the free lunch table abandoned to the flies, and the delegates scuffled up the dingy stairs to the hall. Half au hodr later the chairman of the senatorial district committee pounded the kitchen table with a leg of a broken chair, and shouted: "The convention will be in order.” This declaration made no impression upon the babel of voices, the laughter, the profanity, the noise of shuffling feet and scraping chairs. Finally the chairman of the committee, growing impatient, split the table with his club and yelled: “Damn it all, boys, come to order!*’ And then, eager to resign such a difficult command, he hastened to announce: V.... “The committee haß named Honorable John P. Muldoon to act as temp’ry chairman.’’ He handed the chair leg to John P. Muldoon, who, stroking back his curly * hair from bis brow, began to b<&t the table Impartially. All this while Underwood stood against the wall, looking on. The question that had been agitating him for weeks was about to be decided, but now that the ordeal was actually upon him, the consciousness beat numbly agalnßt his/brain, so that the whole scene lacked .reality, almost interest. He was dazed. He was about to take his baptism political fire, and he trembled like a white novitlate. Underwood belonged to one of the oldest families of Chicago—the name had been known there before the fire. His father, who had lately taken him into his law firm, continued to cling in his conservatism to an old stone house in Michigan avenue long after his neighbors had abandoned their mansions to uncertain boarders, and either .retreated farther south or advanced to the North Side. John Underwood had comer out of Harvard with a young lawyer’s ambition in politics, an ambition that had the United States senate merely as a beginning of its home stretch, and when the year rolled around in which state senators were to be elected in the ' odd numbered districts he decided that it was tlmp to begin. / The newspapers had scented the sensation that liirked in the Candida-, ture of a young man like Underwood in the district like the First, and because he went into what is called society, promptly dubbed him a reformer, and thus weighted he had set out upon his race for the nomination. He liked to see his name in the newspapers, liked to think of himself as a reformer, though he was embarrassed in this attitude by the fascinating figure of the political boss he had hoped to become —a well-dressed, gentlemanly boss, of course, who, while at home in thou*? saloons where be permitted the convivial familiarity of the boys, nevertheless took his luncheons at his club. He fell into a way of speaking of the First as “my district,” spoke of it. In fact, as if he. Instead of Malachl Nolan and “Cinch” Conway, owned it, and when certain ward politicians in the first days of the campaign called upon him, Underwood was pleased to lend them money, just as he was pleased to comply with the requests of certain others who organised the John W. Underwood First Ward Campaign 9lub, and sent a committee to inform him that they were assembled in the club rooms ready to transact business, and beer only four

dottarr A~keg: winked confldentially at himself in the mirror that night as he gave a final touch to his white cravat and surveyed his fine youpg form arrayed evening clbthes for the reform banquet at the Palmer house. . His speech was The of Modem Politics. The newspapers said it, was a very brilliant speech, breathing lofty political sentiments that were bound to make John W. Underwood votes. Also, the Reform club indorsed his candidature. As Unddrwood leaned against the greasy wall of the little hall on lower Clark street this morning, the whole campaign flashed before him, just as the events of a lifetime are said in books to flash before the mind of a drowning man. He recalled every vivid detail of the call Baldwin had made upon him, how he entered his private office * without troubling the .pale, pimpled office boy to announce him, how he difted from hia carefully parted hair his straw hat with ite youthful hand of blue, and laughed out, “John, my boy, how are you? Hot, isn’t it?” He could see Baldwin as he sat in the solid oak chair that stood intimately beside his roll-top desk, fanning his ruddy face with thh hat, which £ad impressed a broad red band on his forehead. Underwood had been glad enough 4 to close “Cooley on Taxation” and revolve his chair to face Baldwin, just ,as if he had been a client, for Baldwas the most important politician who had ever called upon him professionally. f.

He knew Baldwin had come' with some practical proposition, and when the lobbyist suggested that he was too respectable, and would run better in some residence district, that the boys looked upon hlni as a reformer, and that the silk'stdekings were not practical enough to help him, Underwood had felt that at last it was coming. It was simple enough. Baldwin had been talking that very morning about Underwood’s candidature to Mr.’ Weed of the Metropolitan Motor System, and to Mr. Peabody, president of the Gas company, and they had been very much Interested. They had an anxiety to see good men nominated that year, for they had large business interests/ that were more or less affected by legislation, and had feared they would have 'to Bettle on Conway. Conway had experience in legislative matters, and had been friendly enough in the city council, ygt they felt they could hardly trust him—he was such a grafter, and In such things, Baldwin blandly assured Underwood, they had to depend upon a man’s honor alone,* and so they had sent Baldwin to suggest that Underwood meet them at luncheon, and talk matters over. Baldwin, with his love of ea£e and luxury, had preferred a dinner over at the Cardinal’s in the evening, but Mr. Peabody bad something on band with the trustees of his church and couldn’t .meet them then. Baldwin had taken out his watch at this point, with the a|r of a man who suddenly remembers some Important engagement—the details all came back with a fidelity that was painful—and stood awaiting Underwood’s reply, with the open watch ticking Impatiently in his palm. Of course, Underwood had understood —and he wished ardently to be nominated and elected. He could see himself swinging idly In a big chair behind a walnut desk In the senate chamber, just as an actor sees himself, with an artist’s ecstatic, halffrightened gasp, in some new part he is about to study. The position would give him much importance, he would be riding back and forth between Chicago and Springfield on a pass, it would be so pleasant to be addressed as senator, to be consulted, to head delegations in state conventions and cast the solid vote for any one he pleased; besides, it would be a good training for Washington, he could practice in oratory and parliamentary law just as he practiced on friendless paupers over in the, criminal court when his father influenced some judge to appoint him to defend an indigent prisoner. It meant only one little word, he could be wary of promises. His heart had expanded, he had turned half around in his chair to face Baldwin, when suddenly the reformer within him rose to object, pointed to his Ideals, rehearsed the speech on “The Tendencies of Modern Politics,” recalled all the good words the independent papers had spoken of him, urged' thtf beauty of great sacrifices for principle. At the idea of kelf-sac-riflee, Underwood had felt a melting self-pity, ke admired himself in this new role of a self-sacrificing reformer. And so he flung the cigarette out of the window, watched it whirl down to the' melting tar of the roofs below and said firmly: “I have an engagement this morning, Mr. Baldwin. I’m sorry, but 1 guess I can't come.” Once more Underwood saw the pleasantness leave Baldwin’s faoe, saw him fleck a flake of ash from the white waistcoat be wore with his summer suit of blue, and snapping the lid of hia watch shut, he once more heard him aay In a final and reproachful toner * “Well, all right; sorry, my boy.** Underwood wondered that morning in the noisy convention hall, whether.

If he bad the decision to make over again, he would decline such influence. It had been the cause of much doubt and some regret at the time. The boss within him had protested—surely it was a political mistake—and the boss was louder than the reformer, and more plausible. He came forward with a brilliant schema He recalled Baldwin’s reference to the rivalry betweert Nolan and Conway. Underwood remembered that when he suggested the possibility of Nolan’s running for the nomination himself; Baldwin had shaken hiß head—there wasn’t enough In Itr be. said: —Nolan could do very much better in the council, where h§ was. Besides, Mr. Weed and Mr. Peabody disliked him. Underwood thought out his scheme that afternoon, while hunting in the digest for cases in point to be cited Ip a case his father was preparing for the appellate court The work of looking up cases in point, while its results are impressive “and seem to smell of the lamp, had in reality grown quite automatic to Underwood, and as he loafed over digests and reports and jotted down his notes, he elaborated the scheme, just what he would say and do, how he would appear, and so forth. And so, when he entered Malachi Nolan’s place in Dearborn street, early that evening, he was fully prepared. The details of this incident came back just as the details of Baldwin’s visit had done—the empty saloon, the alderman himself leaning over his bar, his white apron rolled into a big girth about his middle, the cigar in the round hole at the corner of his mouth gone out, denoting that It was time for-him to go down the alley to JBllly Boyle’s and get his porterhouse and baked potato. * Underwood watched Malachi Nolan mix his Martini cocktail, splash it picturesquely Into a sparkling glass and bejewel it with a Maraschino cherry, then gravely take a cigar for himself and stow it away in his ample waistcoat. Then, as Nolan mopped the bar with professional sweep of his whitesleeved, muscular arm, Underwood unfolded "his brilliant scheme, -skirting

carefully the acute suspicions of an old politician. But Nolan mopped, blinking inscrutably, at last putting the damp cloth away in some mysterious place under the counter. The fat Maltese cat, waiting until the moisture on she bar had evaporated, stretched herself again beside the silver urn that held the crackers and the little cubes of eheese. Still Nolan blinked in silence, like a hostile jury with its mind made up, until at last, In desperation, Underwood blurted out hia proposition. Nolan blinked some more, then, half opening hia blue Irish eyes, grunted; “Weil, I like your gall.” Underwood’s spirits fell, yet he was not.disappointed. It was, after all, just what he had expected. It served him right for hia presumption, if nothing more—though the subdued reformer within had hinted at other reasons He hung his head, twirling his empty glass disconsolately. He dldspot see the light that twinkled In the bine eyes, he had not then known how very ready Nolan was to form any com bination that would beat-Conway and Baldwin, especially with a reformer like himself who had money to spend on his ambitions. He had* not' discerned how badly the man whom the newspapers always cartooned with the First ward sticking out of his vest pocket needed a reformer in his business, as the saying is. Hence his glad surprise when Nolan wiped his big band on hia apron like a washerwoman and held it out, saying: “But I’m wit’ ye.” Then the campaign, under Nolan’s management, in the most wonderful legislative dtatrict-r-a cosmopolitan district, bristling with sociological problems, a district that has fewer homes and more saloons, more commerce and more sloth, more millionaires and more paupers, and while it confines within its boundaries the sky-, scrapers, clubs, theaters and hundred churches of a metropolis, still boasts a police station with more arrests on its blotter than any other in the world. Night after night, with Nolan’s two candidates for the house, be spent in saloons where a candidate must treat and distribute hia cards that the boys may 'size him up. , > But they were balloting tor permanent chairman xynr.; ft would bo a

test vote; It would disclose his own strength and the strength of Conway. He looked over the red faces before him. He saw Conway himself moving among "the delegates, snarling, cursing, quarreling with the friends of years; he saw Conway’s candidate for the house, McGlone, over in the Second ward delegation, his coat off, a handkerchief about his fat neck, a fuming qjgar between his chubby fingers, turning on his heavy haunches to revile tome man who Wat numbered with Nolan’s crowds; fie saw in the First ward delegation, Malachi Nolan, clean-shaven, iir black Coat and cravatT his iron gray hair cropped short, calm alone of all the others. He would have looked the priest more than the saloon-keeper, had he smoked his cigar differently. Now and then he solemnly raised his hand, with almost the benediction of a father, to still the clamor of his delegation, which, with its twenty-one votes, was safe at all events for Underwood. Muldoon was Conway’s man—they would try to make the'temporary organization permanent. D’Ormand was Underwood’s candidate. And Muldoon won. Underwood had lost the first round. The candidates for senator were to be placed in nomination first. Underwood stood in the crowded doorway and heard Conway’s name presented. Then, In the cheering, with his heart in his sanded throat, he beard the chairman say: "Are there any other nominations?” There was a momentary stillness, and then he heard a thick, strong voice: “Misther Chairman.” .. ■ -- “The gentleman from the First ward.V “Misther Chairman,” the thick, Btrong voice said, “I rolse to place in nomynation the name of wan ” It was the voice of Malachi Nolan, and Underwood suddenly remembered that Nolan was to place his name before the convention. He listened an instant, but could not endure it long. He could not endure that men should see him in the hour when his name

was being thus laid naked to the world. Reporters wefe writing it down, perhaps, the crowd would laugh or whistle or hiss. Besides, candidates do not remain in the convention hall; they await the committee of notification in some near-by saloon. He squeezed through the mass of men who stood on tiptoes, stretching their necks to see and hear the old leader of the First ward, and fled. The first ballot was-taken —Conway, 31; Underwood* 30; Simmons, the dark horse, 8; necessary to a choice, 35. The vote was unchanged for twenty-six ballots, till the afternoon bad worn away, and trucks had jolted off the cobblestones of Clark street, till the lights were flaring and hot-tamale men, gamblers, beggars, street walkers, all the denizens of were shifting along the sidewalks, till the policemen had been changed on their beats, and Pinkerton night watchmen were trying the doors of stores, till Chinamen shuffled fortiv and Jewesses and Italian women emerged for their evening breath of air, bringing swart and grimy children to play upon the heated flags. The hall was lighted, just ks If some Italian festival were to be held there. The reporters’ places at the table were taken by the men who did politics for the morning papers, themselves reduced at last to the necessity of taking notes. They brought reports of the results in other senatorial conventions held about town that day—lt seemed to be assured that John Skelley had carried the country towns, Lemont, Riverside, Ev&nston and so on. In certain #est side districts \fcls man had won, In certain north side districts that man bad been successful. It looked as if the old gang was going to break back into the legislature. And so the interest in this one remaining convention deepened, the strain tightened, the crowd thickened. Now and then the leaders made desperate attempts to trade, harrying Simmons, offering him everything for his seven votes. Simmons himself, in his tarn, tried to Induce each taction to swing Its strength to Elm. But the situation remained unchang ed. Once Nolan sent for Underwood and whispered to him. Ho thought he

knew one or two Conway men who could be got very cheaply, but the boy shook his head—the reformer within him demurred—ahd yet he smiled sardonically at the reformer thinking of the primaries and the convention itself. ' Then Malachi Nolan caught the chairman’s shifty eye and moved an adjournment until morning. But even as he spoke, Grogan scowled at Muldoon, shook his head at his followers, and the room rang with their hoarse shouts: T “No! no! no!” Heartened by this confession of weakness on Nolan’s part, they kept on yelling lustily: “Nd! no! no!” . They even laughed, and Muldoon smote the table, to declare the motion lost. jr On the forty-seventh ballot, one of the Simmons votes went bver to Conway, and there was a faint ebeer. On the forty-eighth, one of the Simmons votes went to Underwood, and parity was restored. On the forty-ninth, Underwood gained another of Simmons’ votes —Nolan, it seemed, had promised to get him on the janitor's pay-roll In the state house —and . the vote was tied. This ballot stood: First Second Fifth Ward Ward Ward Total Conway 10 22 32 Underwood 21 4 7 82 Simmons a*..,.,,««•*• *• i ~ 8 The Simmons men were holding out, .waiting to throw their strength to thewinner. When the ballot had been taken, Muldoon, squinting in the miserable light at the secretary’s figures' hlt the table with the chair leg and said: “On this ballot Conway receives 32, Underwood 32, Simmons 5. There being no choice, you will prepare your ballots for another vote.” * Just'then one of the Conway men from the Second ward left his place, and touched one of Nolan ’b fellows In the First ward delegation—Donahue—on the shoulder. Donanue started. The man whispered In his ear, and returned to his delegation, seeping hit eye on Donahue. Underwodd looked on breathlessly. Nolan, revolving slowly, held his hat for every vote —last of all for Donahue’s. The man dropped his folded ballot into the hat and hung his head. Nolan calmly picked the ballot out of the bat and gave It back to Donahue, who looked up in affected Surprise

“What’s the trouble, Malachi?” he said as innocently as he could. He was not much of an actor. “This won’t do,” Nolan said, giving the ballot back to the man. \ “It's all right, Malachi, honest to God it is!” protested Donahue. “Thin I’ll just put this wan in for ye, hell?” said Nolan, drawing another ballot from the pocket of his huge waistcoat and poising it above the hat . The <jjowd had pressed around the First ward delegation.. The convention had risen to its feet, craning red necks, and out of the mass Grogan cried: •V'Aw, here, Malachi Nolan, none o' that now!** Nolan turned his ragged face toward him and said simply: “WhA’s runnin’ this dlliygation, you or me?” “Well-—none o’ your bulldozing—we won’t stand it!” replied Grogan angrily, his blue eyes blazing. “You get to hell out o’ this.” And so saying, Nolan dropped the ballot into the hat and turned to face the chair. ’ , “Have you all voted?” inquired Muldoon. “First ward!” the secretary called. Nolan squared his shoulders, not having looked in his hat or counted the ballets there, and said slowly and impressively: “On behalf av the solid dillygatlon av the First ward, I cast twinty-wan votes lor John W. Underwood.” “Misther Chairman! Misther Chairman!” cried Grogan, waving bis hand In the air, “I i challenge that vote! I challenge that vote!” “The gentleman from the Fifth ward challenges the vote — “Misther Chairman,” said Nolan, standing with one heavy foot on his chair and leveling a forefinger at Muldoon, “a point of order! The glntieman from the Fifth ward has no right to challenge the vote ay the First ward—he’s not a member of the dillygat! on!” v “Let the First ward be polled,” calmly ruled Muldoon. Nolan took bia foot from his chair and stepped to Donahue’s side. Every man in the First ward delegation, as his- name was called from the credentials, cried "Underwood!” As the secretary neared the name of Donahue. Nolan laid his hand heavily on the fellow’s shoulder. , “Donahue!” called the secretary. The fellow squirmed under Nolan's hand. "Donahuef“ "Don't let him bluff you!” cried some one from the Fifth ward. “Vote as you damn please, Jimmie!” “T’row the boots into ’lm, Donnie!” “Soak him one!” “Take your hands eff him. Bull Nolan!” So they bawled and Donahue wriggled. But the hand of Nolan, like the hand of Douglas, was bis own, and gripped fast Grogan, his face red. his eyes on fire, leaped from his place in his delegation, and started across the chairs for Nolan. The big saloonkeeper gave him a look out of hia little eye. His left shoulder dipped, his left fist tightened. Grogan halted. “Tote. Jimmie, me lad,” said Nolan, in i soft voice. “Underwood!” said Donahue, In a whisper. His weak, pinched, hungry tans turned appealingly toward Gro-

gas. Hia blear eyes ware filmy wMi disappointment "He votes for Joha W. Underwood, Misther Chairman,” said Nolan complacently. The vote was unchanged. The chairman ordered another ballot And then, all at once, as if a breath; from a sanded desert had blown into the room, Underwood was sensible of a change in the atmosphere. The air was perhaps no hotter than it had been for hours at the close of that stifling day, no bluer with tobaceo smoke, no heavier with the smelt borne- hi from Clark street cm hot winds that had started cool and fresh from the lake four blocks away, a smell compounded of many smells, the smell ascending from foul and dark cellars beneath the sidewalk, the smell of stale beer, the ammoniao smell of filthy pavement*, mingled with the feculence of unclean bodies that had sweated for hours in the vitiated air of that low-ceilinged, crowded room. l A hush fell. Muldoon, bis black, curly locks shining with perspiration, was leaning on his improvised gavel, his keen eye, the Irish eye that a* readily seizes such situations, darting into every face before him. And suddenly came that for which they were waiting. A man entered the hall and strode straight across the floor into the Fifth ward delegation, into the group where the Underwood men were clustered about their leader. He wore evening clothes, hia black dinner coat and white shirt bosom striking a vivid note in the scene. He walked briskly, but his mind was so Intent upon his pose that it was not until he had removed hia cigarette from his lips and haff observed Underwood, that his white teeth showed: beneath his reddish mustache in the well-known smile of George R. Baldwin. He elbowed bis way Into the very midst of the Underwood menfrom the Fifth ward, arid leading one of them aside, talked with him an instant, and then returned him, as it were, to his place in the .delegation. Then he brought forth andther, whispered to him for an earnest moment, and sent him back, wtth a smile .and a slap on the shoulder. The third delegate detained him longer, and; once, as he argued with him, the slightest shade of displeasure crossed Baldwin’s face, but in’an instant the smile , replaced it, and he talked—convincingly, it seemed. Before Baldwin returned this man to his delegation, he shook bands with him. The secretary was calling the wards, and Nolan had announced the result in his delegation. The Fifth ward was a long while in preparing its ballots. There was trouble of some sort there, among the Underwood men. Nolan was urging, expostulating, cursing, commanding. Hie air was tense. It seemed to Underwood that it mast inevitably be shattered! by some moral cataclysm in the soul; of man. Grogan’s brow was knit, as he waited, hat in hapd. The delegates voted. Feverishly, with trembling finger?, Grogan opened and counted the bits of paper. Then he sprang to his feet, with a wild, glad light in his face.

“Mister Chairman ! M he cried, "the Fifth, ward casts twenty-fire rotes for Conway and four for Underwood!” The three bolters In the Fifth ward delegation sat with defiance in their faces, but they could not sustain the expression, eren by huddling close to* gether. They broke for the door, wriggling their way through masses of men, who made their passage uncertain, almost perilous. A billow of applause broke from the Conway men, and submerged the convention. Delegates all orer the halt were on their feet, clamoring lor recognition, but Malachl Nolan’s roice boomed heavily above all other roloes. His fist was In the air above all other fists. "Mlsther Chairman!** he yelled, *1 challenge that rote!” "Mlsther Chairman!** yelled Grogan, "a point of order! The gentleman Isn’t a member of the Fifth ward delegation and can not challenge its rote!” "The point of order Is wsll taken,” promptly ruled the chair. "The gentleman from the First ward is out of order—he will take his seat” Men were screaming, brandishing fists, waring hats, coats, anything, scraping chairs, pounding the floor with them.*’There were heavy, brutal oaths, and, here and there, the smack of a fist on a face. In the tumult, the five Simmons votes went to Conway. Muldoon was beating the table with his club and crying; "Order! order! order!”” "To hell with order!” howled some one from the First ward delegation. "On this ballot,” Muldoon was calling, "there were sixty-nine votes cast; necessary to a choice, thirty-five. James P. Conway has received forty votes;' John W. Underwood, twentynine, and George W. Simmons”-—he paused, as If to decipher the rote — "none. James R. Conway, baring received the necessary number of rotes, is therefore declared the nominee of this convention.” Underwood was stunned. He staggered through the horrible uproar toward the door. He longed for the air outside, eren the heavy- air of lower Clark street, where the people surged along under the wild, d&zxllng lights* in two opposite, ever-passing processions. His head reeled. He lost the sense of things, the voices about him seemed far away and Fagoe, he felt himself detached, as It were, from all that had gone before. But as be pressed hi* wu/ through the crowd that blocked the entrance, and plunged toward the stairs, be saw Baldwin, mopping the red band on his white brow. Baldwin recognised him, and said, with his everlasting smile: “Sorry, my boy— next tlrngl”