“Indeed we’ll not,” replied his sister. “He’d misunderstand and presume. Don’t you think so, Nell?”
“Yes,” replied Miss Clearwater promptly—too promptly.
But long before Helm and his campaign reached Harrison there were other reasons why the Hollisters, indeed all the “best people,” could not show themselves at a Helm meeting.
The ignorance of the mass of mankind has made government an arrangement whereunder the many labor for the prosperity of the few. The pretexts for this scheme and the devices for carrying it out have varied; but the scheme itself has not varied—and will not vary until the night of ignorance and the fog of prejudice shall have been rolled away. All things considered, it is most creditable to human nature and most significant of the moral power of enlightenment, that the intelligent few have dealt so moderately with their benighted fellows and have worked so industriously to end their own domination by teaching their servitors the way of emancipation; for let it not be forgotten that the light comes only from above, that the man who has emancipated himself could always, if he chose, be oppressor. Our modern American version of this ancient scheme of the few exploiting the many consists of two essential parts—laws cunningly designed to enable the few to establish their toll gates upon every road of labor; courts shrewdly officered so that the judges can, if they will, issue the licenses for the aforesaid toll gates, which are not as a rule established, but simply permitted, by the law. The treacherous legislator enacts the slyly worded authorization; the subservient judge—no, rather, the judge chosen from, and in sympathy with, the dominant class—reads the permissive statute as mandatory.
This primer lesson in politics, known to all men who have opportunity to learn and who see fit to seize the opportunity, was of course known to George Helm. But he did not content himself with a dry, tiresome, “courteous” statement of the fact. He brought it home to the people of those three counties by showing precisely what Judge Powers had done in his seven years as the people’s high officer of justice—by relating in detail the favors he had granted to the railways, both steam and trolley, to the monopolies in every necessity of life. He also gave an account of Judge Powers’s material prosperity, his rapid rise to riches in those seven years, and the flourishing condition of his relatives and intimate friends, the men owning stock in the railway and other monopolies. In a word, the young candidate made what is known as a “blatherskite” campaign. In his youth and simplicity he imagined that, as a candidate, it was his duty to tell the truth to the people. He did not know the difference between the two kinds of truth—decent and indecent—decent truth that gives everybody a comfortable sense of general depravity, and indecent truth that points out specific instances of depravity, giving names, dates and places.
“Let those who will benefit by Judge Powers’s notion of justice and law vote for him,” said Helm. “I ask those who will benefit by my notion of law and justice to vote for me.”
The Democratic machine hastened to disavow Helm’s plainness of speech. The newspapers, Democratic no less than Republican, ignored him. But the scandal would not down. The news of Helm’s charges—of his unparliamentary statements of fact—spread from village to village, from farm to farm. Within a week it was no longer necessary for him to distribute handbills and call at farm-houses to announce his meetings. Wherever he went he found a crowd waiting to hear his simple conversational appeal to common-sense—and, after hearing, bursting into cheers. In private, in handshaking and talking with the farmers and villagers, he was all humor, full of homely, witty stories and jests. But the moment he stood up as the candidate addressing the people, the face lost its humor lines, the eyes their twinkle, and he uttered one plain, serious sentence after another, each making a point against Judge Powers.
The strong homely face grew rapidly thinner. The deep-set gray eyes sank still deeper beneath the overhanging brows. As for the frock suit, it soon became a wretched exhibit from a rag bag. The “respectable” people—that is, those owning the stocks and bonds of Judge Powers’s protégé companies—laughed at the fantastic figure, roving about in the mud-stained buggy. But—“the common people heard him gladly.”
After six weeks of campaigning with farmers and villagers, Helm felt strong enough to attack the fortress—Harrison. There are those in Harrison who can still tell in minutest detail of the coming of Helm—driving slowly, toward mid-day, down the main street—the direct way to Mrs. Beaver’s boarding-house. The top hat was furry and dusty. The black frock suit was streaked and stained, was wrinkled and mussed. The big shoulders drooped wearily. But the powerful head was calmly erect, and there was might in the great, toil-scarred hands that held the reins on the high bony knees.
Not in the worst days of the whiskers had George Helm been so ludicrous to look at. But no one laughed. The crowds along the sidewalks gazed in silence and awe. A man had come to town.