CHAPTER XXII.—THE ELECTION
THE Tuesday following the incident of the foot-race was election day. The Patriot prophesied that, out of the three thousand probable votes cast in the county, fully sixteen hundred would be for the Populist ticket.
In private conversation Major Hampton confessed to Hugh that he really had no idea how the election would go. “You see, Stanton,” said he, “I am not a politician, although many believe me to be one. No, I am simply trying to use a political organization as a vehicle to carry into practice certain ideas emanating from truth, and which, practically applied, would better the condition of the masses. Politics with me is only a means to an end.”
They were in Hugh’s room at the hotel when this conversation occurred. The major walked back and forth across the room, as he talked in confidence with Hugh about the probable result of the election.
Hugh noticed that the lines in his old friend’s face would deepen at times like veritable hillside gullies that had been plowed deep by the waters of a mountain torrent. Then, again, when he approached his one absorbing, altruistic idea of helping the poor, lifting up the suffering and benefiting mankind by surrounding them with conditions that would enable them to help themselves,—at such times the deep lines and furrows would almost wholly disappear from his face, and it seemed illuminated from some great light within, a phosphorescent reflection from some mighty reservoir of molten gold—perhaps from the old major’s heart.
Election day came, and Democrats, Republicans, and Populists all turned out in force to try to elect their different candidates. Crops of all kinds had been remarkably good in every township of the county, and both the Democrats and Republicans said that good crops argued well for their success. They contended that hot winds and poor crops were necessary adjuncts to a triumph of Populism at the polls. Each of the three parties, as is usual at election time, claimed that it would elect its own candidates by rousing pluralities.
The day after election, when the returns were all in, the astonishing fact was developed that the Democrats and Republicans had divided the elective offices about equally, while the Populists had polled in the entire county only fifty-five votes.
The Patriot came out the next day with a double-leaded editorial, in which Major Hampton scathed pretending Populists in unsparing terms. The article was as follows: