The hearing at Jackson, the next week, was the cut-and-dried farce that Pratt Judson and Spence had predicted. The governor was friendly but firm. "It's my duty, Mr. Judson, as a servant of all the people, to remove you."
Jane, on fire with the idea of the campaign, caught his hand impulsively when he hurried back to tell her. "Don't mind it. We knew what they would do.... Now—show them!"
The thing moved slowly. There were countless obstacles. Pooley, Bowden, the regular machine, would not hear of it. An uproarious meeting of the Trade Council shoved through an endorsement. The leaders changed their talk then, but Pelham felt their hidden antipathy working against him. So far there had been no open announcement of the race, and it was now the last week of August.
"Ben Spence, you've got to put this thing over. Hire Arlington Hall—the socialist local will put up the money—and start it next Sunday afternoon."
"Hadn't we better wait until things are straightened out a bit——"
"We'll wait until election's over, then. We've waited three weeks now."
"All right. Dawson says he'll back you; he's worth a lot."
Then began first-hand knowledge of the detail of politics for Pelham. Even before the announcement meeting, the socialist local, in its haphazard groping for democracy, selected a committee to steer the campaign. They met in Pelham's office the next night.
Pelham mused over their faces, as they blundered down to business. Surely the most extraordinary group ever assembled to direct the political destinies of Adamsville! Serrano, a bricklayer, a loud voiced, commanding bulk of a man, who banged with the improvised gavel; Christopher Duckworth, pioneer in the Adamsville movement, an impecunious old architect who had had his name on the state ticket at every election for sixteen years; two machinists, fighting units of a fighting group, "Mule" Hinton and Henry Gup; the party's state secretary, Mrs. Ola Spigner, who had come up from her farm in Choctaw County, ever on hand for a fight; Phifer Craft, a failure as a commission merchant, and a deep theoretical student of Marx and Dietzgen; Abe Katz, spokesman of the tailors' union and the Arbeiter Ring; and his landlady, Mrs. Hernandez, invariable woman member on committees. They were not even leaders in their trades, except Serrano and perhaps Katz. Most were poor speakers or spoke not at all. But out of the ill-lit slums and lean cheap suburbs they had been flung together by a burning idealism for a greater world. They were the hands of a people's groping faith.
"I mofe we elect us a treasurer," said Abe Katz seriously. So began the business of the campaign.