Caleb Conover, Railroader

by Albert Payson Terhune

He, on his part, knew he must forego the “landslide” he had once so confidently hoped for. But in the stress of later crises, this ambition had grown quite subservient to his greater and ever-augmentive longing for election at any terms and on any majority. The strengthening intensity of this ambition surprised Conover himself. At first mere pride had urged him to the office he sought. But as time went on and new obstacles arose between him and his goal, that goal waxed daily more desirable, until at last it filled the whole vista of his future.

His fingers ever on the pulse of the State, Caleb therefore noted with annoyance, then with something akin to dread, the swelling onrush of Clive’s popularity. To offset it the Railroader threw himself bodily into the fight, personally directing and executing where of old he had only transmitted orders; toiling like any ward politician; devising each day new and brilliant tactics for use against the enemy.

He stuck to the letter of his pledge to Anice. Its spirit he had never regarded. He was everywhere and at all hours; now spending his money like water in the exact quarter where it would do most good; now propping up some doubtful corner of the political edifice he had reared, and again lending the fierce impetus of his individuality at points where his followers seemed inclined to lag.

Little as he spared himself, Caleb spared his henchmen still less. With deadly literalness he saw to the carrying out of his earlier order that everyone, from Congressman too bootblack, must put his shoulder to the wheel. The ward heelers, the privileged lieutenants, the rural agents and the high officials in the Machine, alike, were driven as never before. No stone was left unturned, no chance ignored. Nor was this all. Forth went the call to all the hundreds, rich and poor, whom Conover at various times had privately aided.

The capitalist whose doubtful bill he had shoved through the Assembly; the coal-heaver whose wife’s funeral expenses he had paid; the Italian peddler whose family he had saved from eviction; the countless poor whom his secretly-donated coal, clothes and food had tided over hard winters; the struggling farmer whose mortgage he had paid; the bartender he had saved from a murderer’s fate: all these beneficiaries and more were commanded, in this hour of stress, to remember the Boss’s generosity, and to pay the debt by working for his election.

Checks of vast proportions (drawn ostensibly for railroad expenses) were cashed by Shevlin, Bourke and the rest, and the proceeds hurled into every crevice or vulnerable spot in the voting phalanx. The pick of the Atlantic seaboard’s orators were summoned at their own price, and commissioned to sway the people to the Machine’s cause. Conover even had wild thoughts of winning favor with his home-city’s cultured classes by beautifying Granite’s public gardens with the erecting of a heroic marble statue of Ibid (who, he declared, was his favorite poet, and had more sense than all the rest of the “Famous Quotation” authors put together). When at length he was reluctantly convinced as to “Ibid’s” real meaning, the Railroader ordered the papers to suppress the proposed announcement and to substitute one to the effect that he intended to donate a colossal figure of Blind Justice for the summit of the City Hall.

On waged the fight. Disinterested outsiders beyond the scope of the Machine’s attraction were daily drawn, by hundreds, into the Standish camp. In the country districts his strength grew steadily and rapidly. The people at large were aroused, not to the usual pitch of illogical hysteria incident on a movement of the sort, but to a calm, resolute jealousy of their own public rights. Which latter state every politician knows to be immeasurably the more dangerous of the two.

Conover’s efforts, on the other hand were already bearing fruit. His tireless energy, backed by his genius and the perfection of his system, were hourly enlarging his following. The “railroad wards” and slums of Granite and of other towns were with him to a man, prepared on Election Day to hurl mighty cohorts of the Unwashed to the polls in their idol’s behalf. Loyalty, self-interest, party allegiance, and more material forms of pressure were binding throngs of others besides these underworld denizens to the Conover standard. Not even the shrewdest non-partisan dared forecast the result of the contest.

Caleb, colder, harder, less human than ever, gave no outward sign of the silent warfare that had torn him during that study-fire vigil on the night of Anice Lanier’s defection. Beyond curtly stating that the secretary had left his service of her own accord, he gave no information concerning her. He had heard she was living with an aunt in another part of town; and twice, with stony face and unrecognizing eye, he had passed her on the street, walking with Clive. He had also received from her a brief, business-like note telling him that her brother had instructions to deliver to Conover’s representative, any time after noon on Election Day, the Denzlow letters.

It was on the eve of election. The campaign work was done. One way or another, the story was now told. The last instructions for the next day’s duties had been given. Conover, returning home from his headquarters, felt as though the weight of weeks had rolled off his shoulders. Now that he had done all mortal man could, he was not, like a weaker soul, troubled about the morrow. That could take care of itself. His worrying or not worrying could not affect the result. Hence, he did not worry.