Learning the Ropes
The next morning's newspapers were embellished with scare-head-lines, all more or less complimentary to the women's candidate.
"Women Take Matters in their Own Hands."
"Senator's Daughter Runs for Mayor."
"Men to be Laid on the Political Shelf."
"Senator Van Deusen Will Turn in His Grave if Daughter Accepts Nomination."
were some of the head-lines which Roma editors had produced by late use of midnight oil, and the articles that followed them were incredulous, mildly tolerant, openly snobbish or given over to ridicule, according to the policy of their several papers.
One of them read:
"It is both a disgrace and a menace to this fair city that city politics have sunk to such a level that our best men will have nothing to do with them, and that no one with the ideals of good government, other than a handful of women, will undertake the improvement of our municipal government. With all deference to the ladies,—and who knows their many charming qualities better than we?—it is inevitable that, 'trained to keep silence in the churches'—(and the City Hall as well)—our women are without the large-minded grasp of affairs,—the broad and liberal judgment, necessary to cope with these affairs. Neither can we as self-respecting husbands and fathers, consent to see them so belittle their own dignity and influence as to step out into the arena of public life. The election of a woman,—no matter how able and high-minded she might be,—would be a step downward for our city. It can never be."
Another editor said:
"The late Senator Van Deusen was one of the most distinguished jurists in the country. He had a mind singularly open to the best interests of his native town; his constituents always knew where to find him on questions of law and polity. He did not favor woman suffrage, nor giving important offices to the 'weaker sex'; although personally he was distinguished by a gentle courtesy for and towards women. What, then, would he say to this wild proposition of a few so-called 'progressive' women to put his daughter in the mayoral chair of Roma? Verily he would turn in his grave. Neither can we believe that this movement has the sanction of one who was so near and dear to the late senator's heart, nor that Miss Van Deusen herself has given her consent to let her name be used as candidate for the highest office in the city."
A third paper announced:
"It is not to be wondered at that the women of Roma, casting around them to view the kind of men who occupy high seats in Roma politics, should say 'we will have none of them' and should desire to enforce a little petticoat government themselves. Roma has long been proud of its homes, its wives, its mothers and its housekeepers. Perhaps it would be for the public good, were we to set a few of these model housewives to cleaning up City Hall. Let them go ahead and elect a woman-mayor. Then let her proceed to eject the money-changers from the temple. Perhaps the women can do it. Certainly we men cannot,—or do not."
Gertrude Van Deusen read these articles during the hour after breakfast when a woman loves to "drop down" for a little in her library, with her feet to the fire, as if to gather her forces for the day.
"It is what I must expect, I suppose," she said to the cousin who shared her home. "Man's favorite method of defeating a candidate from time immemorial has been to villify him in the newspapers. What can a mere woman expect?"
"Well, it all adds to the gaiety of politics," returned her cousin. "What shall you do about it?"
"Nothing. At least, I don't know. I have already sent for Bailey. He will advise me. He knows all the ins and outs of politics."
"And he's secretary of the Union Club, isn't he?" asked the cousin. "At least, he was. Although that isn't a political club, still its influence would be worth a great deal."
"If we can get it," added Gertrude.
Bailey Armstrong was her second cousin and since the Senator's death had acted as adviser to Miss Van Deusen whenever she could be imagined to need advice. He was a rising lawyer with considerable political influence, and, what cheered the two women most this morning, he was a thorough feminist.
Senator Van Deusen had been dead only three years. He had left a large fortune to his daughters, one of whom had married and gone to Europe. The other lived here on the handsome estate that had long been one of the show-places of the town. Surrounded by every luxury, with no want left unsupplied, there were many to wonder why Gertrude should consent to be a candidate for public office. But her wealth had not so carefully guarded her that the modern unrest of her sex could not penetrate her soul, and she was strongly possessed of a desire to do something for the public good.
Educated thoroughly and broadly, in an American college and later at Girton, her mind had been developed still further through constant association with her father. Her life with him in Washington had unfitted her for the fashionable career which she might have had if she had desired. Several times her hand had been sought in marriage, once by a diplomat of renown, but so far love had not touched her heart and she was not a woman to marry for any other cause. She was now thirty and looking forward instead of backward (as unmarried women of her age once did) towards a "career."
"I think Bailey will run in on his way down town," she said, rising and walking to the front window, where her slight form stood silhouetted against the late-September sunshine that shimmered and filtered through the plate glass. "There's the postman."
A moment later a letter was handed in to her. She tore it open and read:
"Dear Miss Van Deusen:
I've just heard, privately, that the Municipal League has turned us down. How's that for their boasted progress and reform? For they will combine with the Burke crowd. But never mind. Keep a brave heart and we'll win out yet.
Yours to command,
Mary Snow."
"You're wanted at the telephone," said the maid at the door, and Gertrude hurried out to find that it was Mrs. Bateman at the other end of the wire.
"I'm so wrathy, I don't know what to say," she began. "I have a letter from John Allingham. Shall I read it to you?"
"Oh, yes," said Gertrude.
"Well,—'Dear Mrs. Bateman:' he begins.
At a meeting of our directors last night, we decided,—regretfully, I beg you to believe,—that it would not be wise nor safe for the Municipal League to accept the woman's candidate for mayor. We beg that you will change your mind and select, if you choose (or at least, endorse) a good man for that office. In which case we shall gladly meet you more than half way in any plan you may have for his election. Awaiting your reply and hoping most earnestly for your reconsideration and co-operation with us, I am,
Most respectfully yours,
John Allingham, Chairman.'
There! What do you think of that?"
"I'm not surprised," answered Gertrude. "Did you not perceive how uncomfortable he was when he discovered who our candidate was—after all his talk about the influence of women in public affairs? He began to crawl and hedge even then."
"I know it," Mrs. Bateman replied, "but I didn't think he would go against us. He's always been such a nice boy. But now,—"
"Moreover," interrupted Gertrude, "I've just heard that the League will combine with the Burke forces, if it comes to a choice between us."
"Oh—not so bad as that," said Mrs. Bateman. "What are you going to do? It doesn't frighten you?"
"My dear," and Gertrude's gentle tone had a ring that was familiar to those who had known the Senator, "did you ever know a Van Deusen to scare easily? They may defeat me, but they will not frighten me. I've sent for Bailey and after I've had a good long confab with him, I'll run over to talk with you."
"That's good. You're true blue," was the response.
As Gertrude turned from the telephone, Bailey Armstrong was entering.
"Well, well, what's this I hear?" he exclaimed, coming forward with outstretched hand. "You'll have Roma shaken to its foundations if you keep on.—And I suppose you'll keep on?" he added, with a keen look into her eyes.
"I am my father's daughter," she replied, and led the way into the library, where she told him her latest news.
"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been there last night myself," said Bailey. "There was a pretty hot discussion. Some of us want to help you, but the majority want a precedent back of them. And there's no precedent for a woman-mayor, you know. Say, Gertie, are you fully determined to run?—because the Augean stables aren't exactly what you've been accustomed to,—and that's what you will find."
"I'm fully determined," answered the other quietly.
"That settles it, then," said the young man. "Now let's plan out the work."
"Then you're going to help, Bailey."
"Sure thing. Want me?"
"Of course we do."
"Not 'we,' Gertie,—I," he answered in a voice as quiet and as determined as hers. "Now, I've been through several campaigns and am not only a good fighter, but I'm conceited enough to believe I'm a pretty good organizer,—and that's a hundred times better."
"Well, tell me just how to go to work to enlist the multitude, to win the populace;—in short, to get votes," said Gertrude. "How do I begin?"
"Well, there are two ways," answered the young man. "If you were a man I would say, you can break in by sheer force of audacity, without definite purpose; or, you can enter quietly, with a fixed principle in mind which you wish to see worked out in public life. The first is the old idea, the latter is the new."
"And the old way?" said Gertrude.
"Well, if you enter in the old-fashioned way, you will have to place yourself at the disposal of the chairman of some campaign committee in the city; you will read a great deal of 'literature' prepared by the committee, mostly vituperative nonsense about the opposing party; you will learn this by heart, follow the red light and the brass band to the nearest 'stump,' and mixing what you have read, but not thought out, with some stories of considerable age and questionable humor, will deliver it all to a bored and weary audience, confident that you have established a reputation for eloquence.
"By this time you will feel like a full-fledged politician; you will become mysterious and tell everybody everything you know in confidence; secret conferences will be held behind closed doors; old clothes and a slouchy manner will be brought out to catch the labor vote; you will speak to all sorts of people, and call them by their first names, thinking all the time that, if a candidate, you would lead your ticket. As a matter of fact, you may have lost hundreds of votes."
"Yes," said Gertrude with spirit, "and then I would be taken up by the machine. They would call me a budding genius and I should look upon the boss as a great man."
"Yes," pursued Bailey, "until you begin to think for yourself. Then it will occur to you as strange that in a representative government you should be selected as a candidate of your party recommended as you have been; still more strange that the platform upon which you are to run was set up in type in the newspaper offices several hours before the convention which nominates you met, and had been submitted to the president of the railroad that runs through your town for his approval or revision."
"Yes,—and then," broke in Gertrude, "some day by accident, if I take the trouble to read at all I shall notice in a statute a little clause concealed in fifty pages of meaningless verbiage, which grants an unjust and special privilege to certain interests closely connected with the dominant party in state politics. I shall be unable to reconcile this law with my ideas of fair play and justice, and it will occur to me that possibly it is a mistake, which can easily be remedied by appealing to the 'party leaders.'"
"And so you protest," Bailey chimed in, "and in your sweet and charming innocence you suggest that this law be amended and the special privilege abolished. The bland smile that greets your remark will get on your nerves, and you will sit down to think it over; and when you have cleared your brain of cobwebs, you will realize for the first time that machine politics, to which you have been an unconscious party, has nothing whatever to do with ideas, principles or policies, but is purely a game of money in its last analysis; that it is a scheme to enrich a few at the expense of the many—"
"And all accomplished under the folds of the flag in the name of the 'grand old party' of Abraham Lincoln, that freed the slaves, or the great party of Thomas Jefferson, that 'preserves the fundamental rights of man'," finished Gertrude. "When the white light begins to play upon all my surroundings in political life, I shall become disgusted and come back to sweet home-life,—or else turn around and have the fight of my life."
"I reckon," said Bailey, smiling, "that you didn't live several years in Washington—or are a great senator's daughter for nothing. But all this, you know, is the old way. You won't follow politics after this fashion. You will take up the 'new idea in politics,' which simply means that reforms should be brought about by the injection of ideas and principles at the outset rather than by campaigns against individuals for wrong-doing. It further means that everything should be done in the open and by the people themselves rather than by a few bosses who have allied themselves with the corporations in nearly all the states of the Union."
"To be of service politically, then, according to the rules of the 'new idea,' the candidate must first ally himself with one of the organized political parties in the country?" asked Gertrude. "But what if they will not have you?"
"No," replied Bailey, "I do not mean to say that this is absolutely necessary, for there are many useful men who do not ally themselves with any party; but experience has shown, I think, that one can be of the greatest service and do the most useful work by joining a party and exerting himself at the primaries, where all government begins, to make his party stand for definite principles rather than remain an organization devoted solely to the task of dispensing patronage.—And there are other allies than the Municipal League," he added. "No. First make a thorough study of the political situation in Roma. I presume you have done this already. You will find that not two per cent of the voters go to the primaries. The ring selects the delegates and their men nominate the candidates as they are told. There is no contest and the worst men get put in offices by the money from some trolley or railroad or other interest, simply because the people do not know—and will not take the trouble to find out what is going on. But you women can get up mass-meetings and attend primaries and do all these things, and if there is not a pretty general waking up in this town before next January, then I'll lose my guess."
"We'll do it," said Gertrude. "And I believe,—am I too confident when I say it?—that we can win."
"Well, if not, we can arouse this community as it never has been yet," was the reply. "We can wake up the people, and educate them to an intelligent vote. And we'll elect you yet, Gertie,—see if we don't."
And five minutes later, when Bailey had left for his down-town office, Gertrude was asking herself, "Why couldn't John Allingham behave as sensibly? He cannot be right and Bailey wrong. No. But I wish—"
She wheeled about very decisively and went upstairs for her hat; for things must be talked over with Mrs. Bateman.