“Haven’t had a chance to sound ’em since you declared yourself,” said the president of that body, “but all except Fowler and Brayle are your own crowd and——”
“Tell Fowler the C. G. & X. will give his firm a tip on the price for the next ‘sealed-bid’ contract for railroad ties. Give Brayle a hint about that indictment against his brother. It was pigeonholed, but if I tried real hard, I might induce the District Attorney to look for it. I tell you,” went on Conover, raising his voice for the first time, and glaring about the table, “every mother’s son, from engine-oiler to Congressman, has got to get down to the job and hustle as he never did before. And I’ve got the means of finding out who hustles and who shirks. And I’ve got the means of paying both kinds. And I guess there isn’t anyone that doubts I can do it. Pass that on, too. Caleb Conover for Governor, and to hell with reform!”
CHAPTER V
A MEETING, AN INTERRUPTION AND A LETTER
The campaign was on in sober earnest. Conover, who kept as well posted on his foe’s movements as though the League itself sent him hourly reports, grew vaguely annoyed as, from day to day, he learned the headway Standish was making in Granite. The better classes, almost to a man, flocked to Clive’s standard. By a series of fiery speeches he succeeded in rousing a certain hitherto dormant enthusiasm among the business men of the town. They found to their surprise that he was neither a visionary nor a mere agitator; that he based his plans not on some Utopian Altruria of high-souled commonweal, but on a practical basis of clean government.
He pointed out to them how utterly the Machine ran the Mountain State; how the railroads and the vested interests of the party clique sent their own representatives to the Legislature, and then made them grant fraudulent franchise after fraudulent franchise to the men who sent them there. How the taxes were raised and so distributed that the brunt fell upon the people who least profited by the State expenditures and by the legalized wholesale robberies. How, in fact, the populace of Granite and of the whole Mountain State were being ridden at will by a handful of unscrupulous men.
That Caleb Conover was the head and front of the clique referred to everyone was well aware, yet Standish studiously avoided all mention of his name, all personal vituperation. Whereat Caleb Conover wondered mightily. Stenographic reports of Clive’s speeches and of the increasingly large and enthusiastic meetings he addressed were carefully conned by the Railroader. And the tolerant grin with which he read the first of these reports changed gradually to a scowl as time went on.
He had made no effort to suppress or in any way to molest these early meetings. He wanted to try out his young opponent’s strength, gauge his following and his methods. But when, to his growing astonishment, he found Clive was actually winning a respectful, ever larger, hearing in his home town, he decided it was high time to call a halt. Accordingly he summoned Billy Shevlin.
“What’s doing?” he asked curtly, as he received his henchmen in the Mausoleum study.
“To-night’s the big rally at Snyder’s Opera House, you know,” replied Billy. “Standish’s booked to make his star speech before he starts on his State tour. He’s got a team of Good Gov’ment geezers from Boston to do a spiel, and he’s callin’ this the biggest scream of the campaign so far. Say, that young feller’s makin’ an awful lot of noise, Boss. When are you goin’ to give us the office to put the combination on his mouth? On the level, he ain’t doin’ you no good. Them speeches of his means votes. The Silk-Socks is with him already, and he’s winner with the business bunch in fam’ly groups.”
“Look here,” said Caleb, pointing out of the study’s north window, which commanded a view of exclusive Pompton Avenue and its almost equally fashionable cross streets, “how would you figure up the population of that district?”