The Conflict [111]
and the Democratic meetings were equally satisfactory. Hull was ``making a hit.'' Everywhere he had big crowds and enthusiasm. The League meetings were only slightly better attended than during the last campaign; no indication there of the League ``landslide.''
Yet Kelly could not, dared not, doubt that poll. It was his only safe guide. And it assured him that the long-dreaded disaster was at hand. In vain was the clever trick of nominating a popular, ``clean'' young reformer and opposing him with an unpopular regular of the most offensive type--more offensive even than a professional politician of unsavory record. At last victory was to reward the tactics of Victor Dorn, the slow, patient building which for several years now had been rasping the nerves of Boss Kelly.
What should he do?
It was clear to him that the doom of the old system was settled. The plutocrats, the upper-class crowd--the ``silk stockings,'' as they had been called from the days when men wore knee-breeches--they fancied that this nation-wide movement was sporadic, would work out in a few years, and that the people would return to their allegiance. Kelly had no such delusions. Issuing from the depths of the people, he understood. They were learning a little something at last. They were discovering that the ever higher prices for everything and stationary or falling wages and salaries had some intimate relation with politics; that at the national capitol, at the state capitol, in the county courthouse, in the city hall their share of the nation's vast annual production of wealth was being determined--and that the persons doing the dividing, though elected by them, were in the employ of the plutocracy. Kelly, seeing and comprehending, felt that it behooved him to get for his masters--and for himself--all that could be got in the brief remaining time. Not that he was thinking of giving up the game; nothing so foolish as that. It would be many a year before the plutocracy could be routed out, before the people would have the intelligence and the persistence to claim and to hold their own. In the meantime, they could be fooled and robbed by a hundred tricks. He was not a constitutional lawyer, but he had practical good sense, and could enjoy the joke upon the people in their entanglement in the toils of their own making. Through fear of governmental tyranny they had divided authority among legislators, executives and judges, national, state, local. And, behold, outside of the government, out where they had never dreamed of looking, had grown up a tyranny that was perpetuating itself by dodging from one of these divided authorities to another, eluding capture, wearing out the not too strong perseverance of popular pursuit.
But, thanks to Victor Dorn, the local graft was about to be taken away from the politicians and the plutocracy. How put off that unpleasant event? Obviously, in the only way left unclosed. The election must be stolen.
It is a very human state of mind to feel that what one wants somehow has already become in a sense one's property. It is even more profoundly human to feel that what one has had, however wrongfully, cannot justly be taken away. So Mr. Kelly did not regard himself as a thief, taking what did not belong to him; no, he was holding on to and defending his own.
Victor Dorn had not been in politics since early boyhood without learning how the political game is conducted in all its branches.
Because there had never been the remotest chance of victory, Victor had never made preelection polls of his party. So the first hint that he got of there being a real foundation for the belief of some of his associates in an impending victory was when he found out that Kelly and House were ``colonizing'' voters, and were selecting election officers with an eye to ``dirty work.'' These preparations, he knew, could not be making for the same reason as in the years before the ``gentlemen's agreement'' between the Republican and the Democratic machines. Kelly, he knew, wanted House and the Alliance to
Yet Kelly could not, dared not, doubt that poll. It was his only safe guide. And it assured him that the long-dreaded disaster was at hand. In vain was the clever trick of nominating a popular, ``clean'' young reformer and opposing him with an unpopular regular of the most offensive type--more offensive even than a professional politician of unsavory record. At last victory was to reward the tactics of Victor Dorn, the slow, patient building which for several years now had been rasping the nerves of Boss Kelly.
What should he do?
It was clear to him that the doom of the old system was settled. The plutocrats, the upper-class crowd--the ``silk stockings,'' as they had been called from the days when men wore knee-breeches--they fancied that this nation-wide movement was sporadic, would work out in a few years, and that the people would return to their allegiance. Kelly had no such delusions. Issuing from the depths of the people, he understood. They were learning a little something at last. They were discovering that the ever higher prices for everything and stationary or falling wages and salaries had some intimate relation with politics; that at the national capitol, at the state capitol, in the county courthouse, in the city hall their share of the nation's vast annual production of wealth was being determined--and that the persons doing the dividing, though elected by them, were in the employ of the plutocracy. Kelly, seeing and comprehending, felt that it behooved him to get for his masters--and for himself--all that could be got in the brief remaining time. Not that he was thinking of giving up the game; nothing so foolish as that. It would be many a year before the plutocracy could be routed out, before the people would have the intelligence and the persistence to claim and to hold their own. In the meantime, they could be fooled and robbed by a hundred tricks. He was not a constitutional lawyer, but he had practical good sense, and could enjoy the joke upon the people in their entanglement in the toils of their own making. Through fear of governmental tyranny they had divided authority among legislators, executives and judges, national, state, local. And, behold, outside of the government, out where they had never dreamed of looking, had grown up a tyranny that was perpetuating itself by dodging from one of these divided authorities to another, eluding capture, wearing out the not too strong perseverance of popular pursuit.
But, thanks to Victor Dorn, the local graft was about to be taken away from the politicians and the plutocracy. How put off that unpleasant event? Obviously, in the only way left unclosed. The election must be stolen.
It is a very human state of mind to feel that what one wants somehow has already become in a sense one's property. It is even more profoundly human to feel that what one has had, however wrongfully, cannot justly be taken away. So Mr. Kelly did not regard himself as a thief, taking what did not belong to him; no, he was holding on to and defending his own.
Victor Dorn had not been in politics since early boyhood without learning how the political game is conducted in all its branches.
Because there had never been the remotest chance of victory, Victor had never made preelection polls of his party. So the first hint that he got of there being a real foundation for the belief of some of his associates in an impending victory was when he found out that Kelly and House were ``colonizing'' voters, and were selecting election officers with an eye to ``dirty work.'' These preparations, he knew, could not be making for the same reason as in the years before the ``gentlemen's agreement'' between the Republican and the Democratic machines. Kelly, he knew, wanted House and the Alliance to