CHAPTER IX
A CONVENTION AND A REVELATION
The day of the State Convention!
The Convention Hall at Granite was a big barn-like building, frequently used for church and school entertainments, and occasionally giving a 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.
On the front of the dingy little stage were a table and chairs for the officers, and a series of desks for the reporters of the local and New York newspapers. Across the back hung a ragged drop curtain showing a garden scene in poisonous greens and inflammatory reds. Stuck askew on the proscenium arch were crudely-drawn portraits of Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Between these alleged likenesses of Democracy’s sponsors, Billy Shevlin had, by inspiration and acclaim, caused a huge crayon picture of Caleb Conover himself to be hung.
This monstrous trio of ill-assorted portrait parodies were the first thing that struck the eye as one entered the main door at the front end of the hall. On seeing them, grim old Karl Ansel had cast about him until he located Shevlin and a group of the Railroader’s other lieutenants.
“Say, Billy,” he drawled in tones that penetrated the farthest corners of the auditorium, “what did you want to show your ignorance of the Scriptures for by hanging Conover’s picture in the middle with Jackson and Jefferson on the outside? You’ve got things reversed. In the original it was the Just Man who hung between two thieves. You ought to have put your mug and Conover’s up there with Clive Standish in the centre, if you wanted to carry out the right idea.”
And Shevlin, in no wise comprehending, looked for the first time with somewhat less pride on his artistic work, and waxed puzzled at the roar of laughter that swept over the massed delegates.
“Them pictures set the Boss back fifteen dollars apiece,” he began, in self-justification, “an’——”
“And like most of the crowd here,” finished Ansel, “they were sold to Conover before the convention began.”
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 drum-majors 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 the 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 his web, sending out warnings, advice and admonitions to his under-strappers.
Although Conover was leaving no ravelled ends loose in his marvellously perfect machine, he took his wonted precautions more through force of habit and for discipline’s sake than through any necessity. He felt calmly confident of the result. He had looked upon his work and he had seen that it was good. 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 formers’ 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 and awaited 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 Standish’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. Nine out of ten knew that it was practically a hopeless fight into which they were about to plunge, and they knew, too, that not one of them would have been given his rightful place as a delegate, had it not been that even Conover feared to outrage sentiment in those ever-turbulent rural counties, as he had done in the larger and more “loyal” sections of the State.
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. If the shadow of defeat was in his heart, it did not rest upon his lignum vitæ features. What mattered it that his every opponent was smugly aware that the League’s cards were deuces? It was Karl’s business to wear the look of a man secure behind a pat flush. And he wore it. But at heart he was sore distressed for the hopes of the brave lad he had learned to like so well. And, as he watched the swelling ranks of Conover delegates, his sorrow hardened into white-hot wrath.
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, some of them men who had run the risk of personal violence in the campaign in their fight to obtain a square deal for the young reformer against the Juggernaut onrush of the Machine. 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 shouters where they would do the most good. This claque, glad to earn their money, kept an eye on their sub-captains and cheered at the slightest provocation. They cheered Shevlin as he brought the gavel down sharply on the oak table in front of him, and went through the customary rigmarole of announcing the purposes of the convention. 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.
Through the din the little square of Standish delegates from Wills and Matawan sat grim and silent, while the contesting delegates in the gallery above muttered to one another under their breath their yearnings for the opportunity to take personal payment on the bodies of those who had ousted them from their lawful places.
Both sides knew that the first and last test of strength would come upon the selection of the Committee on Credentials, since it was to this committee that the contests of the six larger counties for the right to sit in the convention would go for settlement. By an oversight common to more than one State, there was no clause in the party laws setting forth the procedure to be followed in the selection of the committee of a State convention. At preceding conventions the chairman had invariably (and justly) ruled that only delegates whose seats were not contested should be entitled to a hand in the selection of the Committee on Credentials, for custom holds that to permit delegates whose seats are contested to have a hand in the selection of the committee, would be like allowing men on trial to sit as jurors.
On the observance of this unwritten rule hinged Clive Standish’s last and greatest hope. If this precedent were to be followed now, it would, of course, as he had pointed out to the doubting Ansel, result in the selection of a committee by the Standish delegates from Wills and Matawan counties, since in those counties alone there were no contests. This must mean a fair struggle. On it Clive staked his all. Staked it, forgetting the endless resource and foresight of his foe. For Caleb Conover had no quixotic notion of giving his rival any advantage whatever. On the preceding night he had written out his decree. This command Shevlin now hastily read over before acting on it:
“Announce that the chairman rules there shall be three members of the Committee on Credentials from each county, regardless of that county’s voting strength, and that the delegates holding the credentials from each county shall be allowed to choose those committeemen.”
To the layman such an order may mean little. To the convention it meant everything. Six counties were, officially, for Conover. Two for Standish. Thus eighteen of Caleb’s adherents could, and would, vote to ratify the seating of the Railroader’s delegates. The opponents of this weird measure could muster a numerical force of but six.
Meanwhile, the preliminary organization of the convention had been effected without much delay. The Standish delegates, knowing the futility of making a fight at this time, had raised merely a perfunctory opposition to the nomination of Bourke as temporary chairman. Through Bourke (by way of Shevlin) Conover now proclaimed his plan of choosing the all-important Committee on Credentials.
Bourke, well drilled, repeated the decision in a droning monotone. Instantly the convention was in the maddest uproar. All semblance of order was lost. Bedlam broke loose. In the gallery the contesting Standish delegates writhed in impotent rage, leaning far over the rail, shaking their fists and howling down insult, curse and threat.
On the floor the delegates from Wills and Matawan were already upon their feet, yelling furious protests, shrieking “Fraud;” “Robbery!” and kindred pleasantries, without trying or hoping to secure recognition from the chair.
Foreseeing the inevitable trend of affairs, the Conover “heelers” and the fraudulent delegates from the six larger counties had been prepared for this. At a signal from Billy Shevlin they burst into a deafening uproar of applause.
The furtive-faced Bourke rapped on the table, but the bang of his heavy gavel was unheard. The Standish delegates would not be quieted, and the Conover crowd did not want to be.
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 farmer 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 for once his inherited New England calm, Karl Ansel drove his big gnarled fist flush into the grinning face of the dock-rat, and sent him whirling backward amid a splintering of broken seats.
As the ’longshoreman staggered to his feet, wiping the blood from his face, the sergeant-at-arms (foreman of a C. G. & X. section gang), made a rush for Ansel, but prudently held back as the gaunt old man fell on guard and grimly awaited his new opponent’s onset.
Ansel, smarting and past all control, ploughed his way down the main aisle, and halting below the stage, shook his clenched fist at Caleb’s crayon likeness.
“I’ve seen forty pictures of Judas Iscariot in my time,” he thundered, apostrophizing the portrait in a nasal 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. Through the tumult, the pounding of Bourke’s gavel upon the table was like the unheeded rat-tat of a telegraph ticker in a tornado. It was fifteen minutes before a semblance of order had been restored. By that time there were on every side a kaleidoscopic vista of bleeding noses, torn clothing, and battered, wrathful faces.
Thus it was that, at the cost of a brief interim of fruitless rioting, the Machine had its way. Over the hopeless protests and bitter denunciations of the tricked minority the empty form of choosing the Committee on Credentials was carried through. As a foreseen result, Standish had but six members on the committee, three from Wills and three from Matawan, while from the Conover faction eighteen were to sit in judgment upon the merits of their own cause.
The contest was over. The Standish delegates offered but a perfunctory opposition to the work of choosing the Committees on Organization 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 counties crowing exuberant glee at their easy triumph.
The adjournment announced, Clive slipped out of the Convention Hall by 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 pluck, his faith in his mission, had upheld him above colder, saner reason. Even the repeated warnings of Ansel had left him unconvinced. Up to the very moment Conover’s final successful 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 strength of his foe. Far worse, 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 as 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 as a man should. In the interim, with the hurt animal’s instinct, he wanted to be 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, his 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.
“It was good of you to come,” he 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 his 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 hopes, 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 loneliness.
“I am beaten,” he went on, “but I think, we made as good a fight as we could. Perhaps another time——”
She withdrew her hands from his. 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 Anice Lanier.