Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1911 — THE MAN HIGHER UP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MAN HIGHER UP

BY HENRY RUSSELL MILLER

CHAPTER X. THE 6ILVER TOSGCE. MRS. ELEANOR GILBERT, very handsome in her morning gown, was pouring a second cup of coffee for her brother. “A pretty woman at the breakfast table,” remarked Henry Sanger. Jr., “is the most charming picture in the world.” Mrs. Gilbert shrugged her shoulders listlessly. “Save your compliments for your wife. I’m in no humor for them. I’m dying of stagnation. Henry, you must—you simply must—come to my rescue today.” His brow puckered regretfully. “I’m sorry. Eleanor. I’d like to help you out. but really I can’t My morning is filled with important board meetings. And this afternoon I have planned to go to the bull baiting.” “Bull baiting? I thought that sport”— “Figure of speech- I mean the convention at which the local G. O. P. Is to choose the next mayor—perhaps—of our great city.” “Oh, politics! And who is to play bull?”

“Our political lord and master. Robert McAdoo. alias Knockout Bob. alias the boss of the Steel City.” “This McAdoo—is be a good boss?" “Where is your Americanism? There’s no such thing as a good boss—unless he happens to be on your side. Then he becomes a leader.” “I am to suppose, then.” Mrs. Gilbert laughed, “that Boss McAdoo isn’t on your side?” “You are.” Sanger answered shortly. “I consider him the most dangerous politician in the state.” “Dangerous? Because he is not on your side?” She laughed again. Henry Sanger believed himself sincere as he answered: “No! Because of the manner of man he is. He is the most absolutely self centered, self willed man I know. He will listen to no one else. s He would sacrifice any man or interest to forward his own ambition. He is essentially a bully. He was the prize barroom bully of his neighborhood in his younger days. He thrashed an ex-prizefighter, I believe, and that gave him his start in politics. As a boss whose power is continually growing I consider him a menace to this state. Bosses we must have. It is only through the boss that capital holds the balance of power against the harebrained radicals infesting the country. But the boss must be a man who wi?l listen to reason and consider others than himself.” “That is. you demand bosses whom you capitalists can boss?” “And who has a better right to control than the men whose brains and industry and money have developed our wealth?” Sanger demanded hotly. “But if the people can elect whom they please I can’t see why”— “Oh. the people!” Sanger broke in disdainfully. “They can no more be trusted vVith the industrial and financial interests than can a man like McAdoo.”

"I think.’- Mrs. Gilbert said-“I think I sflould like to go to the convention with you. Would it be proper?” “Well.” Sanger said thoughtfully, “it won’t be a very nice crowd, but”— “Then I’ll go!” If Eleanor Gilbert felt the many curious glances turned upon her as she entered the box her brother had managed to reserve for her she gave nooutward sign, but proceeded to study the excited crowd with amused eyes. Her sensitive nerves caught the contagion of excitement with which the atmosphere was charged. Sanger saw a tinge of color come to her usually pale cheeks, -and her eyes brightened perceptibly. She caught him smiling at her. Tm glad I came,” she said brightly. *T’m excited already, just as though I were a part of it all. 1 feel just as 1 did when 1 was a little girl and my governess took me to the play.” “Humph!” Sauger grunted. “Look ’over there in the box opposite. You will find an interesting study." A group of men was just entering the box. Eleanor immediately fixed her attention upon one. the last to enter, whose identity she guessed at once. As was the case with most people, her first impression was of his physical strength. “It’s the boss” What tremendous shoulders!” Bob sat dowu in the rear of the box. but even seated he towered above his companions by half a head, and Eleanor could note the strongly marked face. Even across the theater she could catch the cold, pierciiig glance with which he swept the delegates. The glgnee traveled toward the box in which she sat. met hers, and while one might count ten. against her will, his eyes held bets and then passed on to the stage

Eleanor leaned back and drew a long breath. “So that’s your barroom bully? 1 should bate to be in that man's power. He is—relentless.” The convention was called to order. A permanent chairman was chosen, who after a brief speech declared the meeting open for mayoralty nominations. At once a man sprang to his feet and in a speech bristling with high flown metaphors nominated "that clean man. that sterling friend of the people. James Rusting.” His speech was greeted with perfunctory applause. As the applause died down another man secured recognition. “Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the convention.” he began, “it was to have been my privilege to place before this convention the name of William Hemenway. whose devotion to the Republican party and to the interests of the people needs no praise from me. It Is therefore with the keenest regret I have received from him a letter, which I now hold, in which he gives me the distressing news that he has been stricken with ill health, such as to incapacitate him for the arduous duties of a campaign and of the office of mayor. He therefore authorizes me to withdraw his candidacy and requests those delegates instructed for him to cast their votes for the gentleman who has been so eloquently nominated. James Rusling.” For a moment the great crowd sat in the silence of blank bewilderment Then as the import of the announcement dawned upon them an angry murmur arose from the galleries. Down in the body of the house a delegate. a big. burly ruffian, sprang to his feet “Sick h—!” he shouted. “We know the kind of sickness Bill Hemenway has.”

It was a signal for uproar. . In an instant men in the galleries and on the floor were on their feet. The protesting murmur grew ,'nto a roar, a storm of anger and derision. Eleanor, for a moment frightened by the furious clamor, turned pale. “What is it?" she asked her brother excitedly. “What do they mean?” “Hemenway was McAdoo’s candidate. He has been persuaded to withdraw in favor of Rusling. the other candidate.” The uproar died down, and tense silence succeeded once more. What the crowd anticipated had happened. They recognized MacPherson’s crafty hand. Was the boss checkmated by his sworn enemy? In the hearts of the McAdoo followers consternation now reigned Out of the tense silence a voice rang out: “Mr. Chairman!” “Mr. Remington!” The big man who had broken the silence before now sprang to his feet again. “Remington! Give ’em b—, Paul: give ’em b—!’’ The crowd took up the shout, “Remington! Remington!" While the applause lasted Eleanor saw a young man walk rapidly toward the stage from his seat in the rear of the parquet. “Who is he?" she demanded of her brother. “McAdoo’s mouthpiece.” he answered shortly, shifting uneasily in his seat. As he stood On the platform, waiting for the applause to subside. Paul Remington thrilled with the knowledge that his moment had come—a moment such as comes but once in a lifetime and to but few men. And before him sat the woman of his dreams.

He raised his hand, and the applause ceased. There was an instant’s hush. “I am not here to upbraid’’— The tragedy that had come into her young life had left Eleanor Gilbert but one relic of her girlhood, a passionate love of music. As the first words fell from Paul’s lips she felt a thrill. For a time, giving no heed to the sense of his words, she listened with the musician’s trained ear to the wonderful voice, deep yet resonant and flexible, under perfect control, carrying a faintly minor quality Gradually the spell of the orator took hold upon her. “When the American republic was founded the triumph of democracy was believed complete But eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. And we—almost to our undoing—have slept." In Simple yet vivid words Paul went on to describe the Commercial, industrial and political evils that have taken root among us. “Yet these evils.” he declared, “pernicious as tuuir immediate effects, might be endured were it not that they threaten the existence of our vital institution, popular government. Time was, perhaps, when our industrial kings were content to build within the pale of the law. But industrial conditions and methods changed- The machinery of the law—government—has

become the creature of corporate wealth." At this point in his speech Paul cast aside restraint and poured forth a torrent of invective against corporate greed and itslservants. At the conclusion of his climax not a sound could be beard in the theater. His audience sat wrapped iu an ominous silence. “What do these things mean?” Paul continued. “Of late a new word has come into use among us. plutocracy! Government by wealth, for wealth—by the very nature of the lust that gives It birth, ever conscienceless, pitiless, ever unutterably selfish, an enemy, to the equal brotherhood of men!" In plain, unmincing terms Paul outlined the political history of the state. In it the forces of plutocracy were most strongly Intrenched. For a genera tiou. until the time when John Dunmeade had dared to set his face against the powers of corruption, it had lain prostrate, unprotesting, under the heel of a great railway monopoly. This monopoly, abetted by the steel Interests of the city, had robbed the greatest state of the Dnion of Its virtue and Independence. One man, by grace of his control of the railway system, had dictated the choice of officers and their official policy. Bosses might come and bosses might go. but one and ! all they owed allegiance to the one i master 400 miles away, whose wrath was more to be feared by the politically ambitious than the anger of God. In return for their allegiance the bosses i had been permitted to pillage the city 1 at will.

“But." cried Paul passionately, “there was a man iu our midst, bred in their school, who saw their power and determined to break it.” Simply, without exaggeration, Paul sketched the local political history, beginning with Bob’s open break with MacPberson and leading up to his victory in the recent primaries, when Hemenway had been nominated. “So this man 'of ~>steel. standing alone against the corporate wealth of a whole state, has put your enemy to rout. To William Hemenway he gave the opportunity to do a great work in the cause of the people. That opportunity William Hemenway declines—for obvious reasons! What are you going to do about it? Whom will you choose in his stead? “My friends.” Paul cried, with a sweeping gesture that included thp galleries in his question. “I ask you who of all our city is the one man fitted to stand at your head and lead your fight?" He paused an instant as a murmur of unbelieving wonderment passed over the audience. Eleanor, following the eyes of a thousand others, looked toward the opposite box. But Bob was gone. In a voice sunk almost to a whisper and tremulous with suppressed feeling Paul spoke again. “In your faces I read the answer. There can be but one answer. You may think that 1 perhaps exaggerate his strength because he is my friend. He is my friend, and therefore 1. who have sounded the depths of bis heart, know the man’s mighty mold. To be a friend—what is it? The finest thing given to man. When the Christ came to earth lie chose to be called The Friend. Friendship is the mirror of

the soul. lii it appear the strength and weakness of a man. This man has been to me the perfect friend— God do so to me if 1 forget He who is capable of such a friendship can be trusted with the people’s cause. “Mr. Chairman," he concluded. “I have the honor to nominate my friend. Robert McAdoo," He walked off the stage into the wings amid a perfect silence. For a full minute the audience under his spell, mute Bud motionless; there was no thought of applause. Finally the chairman started, as if from a dream, and arose. With an audible sigh the audience stirred to life. Paul, listening from the wfngs and fearing to hear applause, breathed deeply in relief. His moment had indeed come. “And gone!" he muttered eomplainingly. He turned away—to meet a stern faced man. who looked at him fixedly. “You did well, Paul.” said the stern faced man. “You've cut out a big job for me.” That was aJL But Paul had received a finer tribute even then than the silence of the audience. Bob’s voice was husky. Henry Sanger vigorously wiped his brow with his handkerchief. “God!” he muttered. “Will you please go and bring Llm here?” Eleanor asked him. *1 must know that man.” i (.To be continued.)

“I HAVE THE HONOR TO NOMINATE MY FRIEND, ROBERT M’ADOO.”