An American Politician: A Novel

by F. Marion Crawford

On the oak writing-table that filled the middle of the room lay an open telegram. It was dated from Washington, and conveyed the simple information that Senator Caleb Jenkins had died at five o’clock that morning. It was signed by an abbreviation that meant nothing except to John himself. The name of the senator was itself fictitious, and stood for another which John knew.

The table was covered with Government reports, for when the message came John was busy studying a financial point of importance to him. The telegram had lain on the table for half an hour, and John still stood before the fire-place, staring at the clock.

The senator had not been expected to live, in fact it was remarkable that he should have lived so long. But when a man has been preparing for a struggle during many months, he is apt to feel that the actual moment of the battle is indefinitely far off. But now the senator was dead, and John meant to stand in his place. The battle was begun. No one who has not seen some of the inside workings of political life can have any idea of what a man feels who is about to stand as a candidate in an election for the first time in his life. For months, perhaps for years, he has been engaged with political matters; his opinions have been formed by himself or by others into a very definite shape; it may be that, like Harrington, he has frequently spoken to large audiences with more or less success; he may have written pamphlets and volumes upon questions of the day, and his writings may have roused the fiercest criticism and the most loyal support. All this he may have done, and done it well, but when the actual moment arrives for him to stand upon his feet and address his constituents, no longer for the purpose of making them believe in his opinions, but in order to make them believe in himself, he is more than mortal if he does not feel something very unpleasantly resembling fear.

It is one thing to express a truth, it is another to set one’s self upon a pedestal and declare that one represents it, and is in one’s own person the living truth itself. John was too honest and true a man not to feel a positive reluctance to singing his own praises, and yet that is what most electioneering consists in.

But to be elected a senator in Massachusetts is a complicated affair. A man who intends to succeed in such an enterprise must not let the grass grow under his feet. In a few hours the whole machinery of election must be at work, and before night he would have to receive all sorts and conditions of men and electioneering agents. The morning papers did not contain any notice of the senator’s death, as they had already gone to press when the news reached them, if indeed it was as yet public property. But other papers appeared at mid-day, and by that time the circumstances would undoubtedly be known. John struck a match and relit his cigar. The moment of hesitation was over, the last breathing-space before the fight, and all his activity returned. Half an hour later he went out with a number of written telegrams in his hand, and proceeded to the central telegraph office.

The case was urgent. In the first place the governor of the state would, according to law and custom, immediately appoint a senator pro tempore to act until the legislature should elect the new senator in place of the one deceased. Secondly, the legislature, which meets once a year, was already in session, and the election would therefore take place immediately, unless some unusual delay were created, and this was improbable.

In spite of the article which had so outraged Josephine Thorn’s sense of justice, there were many who believed in John Harrington as the prophet of the new faith, as the senator of reform and the orator of the future, and his friends were numerous and powerful, both in the electing body and among the non-official mass of prominent persons who make up the aggregate of public opinion. It had long been known that John Harrington would be brought forward at the next vacancy, which, in the ordinary course of things, would have occurred in about a year’s time, at the expiration of the senior senator’s term of office, but which had now been suddenly caused by the death of his colleague. John was therefore aware that his success must depend almost immediately upon the present existing opinion of him that prevailed, and as he made his way through the crowded streets to the telegraph office, he realized that no effort of his own would be likely to make a change in that opinion at such short notice. At first it had seemed to him as though he were on a sudden brought face to face with a body of men whom he must persuade to elect him as their representative, and in spite of his great familiarity with political proceedings, the idea was extremely disagreeable to him. But on more mature reflection it was clear to him that he was in the hands of his friends, that he had said his say and had done all he would now be able to do in the way of public speaking or public writing, and that his only possible sphere of present action lay in exerting such personal influence as he possessed.

John Harrington was ambitious, or, to speak more accurately, he was wholly ruled by a dominant aspiration. He was convinced by his own study and observation, as well as by a considerable amount of personal experience, that great reforms were becoming necessary in the government of the country, and he was equally sure that a man was needed who should be willing to make any sacrifice for the sake of creating a party to inaugurate such changes. In his opinion the surest step towards obtaining influence in the affairs of the country was a seat in the senate, and with an unhesitating belief in the truth and honesty of the principles he desired to make known, he devoted every energy he possessed to the attainment of his object.

To him government seemed the most important function of society, the largest, the broadest, and the noblest; to help, if possible, to be a leader in the establishment of what was good for the country, and to be the very foremost in destroying that which was bad, were in his view the best objects and aims for a strong man to follow. And John Harrington knew himself to be strong, and believed himself to be right, and thus armed he was prepared for any struggle.

The quality of vanity exists in all men, not least in those whose chief profession is modesty; and seeing that it is a universal element, created and inherent in every one, it is impossible to say it is bad in itself. For it is impossible to conceive any human creature without it. A recent philosopher of reputation has taught that by vanity, by the desire to appear attractive to the other sex, man has changed his own person from the form of a beast to the image of God. Vanity is a mighty power and incentive, as great as hunger and thirst, and much more generally active in the affairs of civilized humanity. And yet its very name means hollowness. “The hollowness of hollowness, all things are hollowness,” said the preacher, and his translators have put the word vanity in his mouth, because it means the same thing. But in itself, being hollow, it is neither bad nor good; its badness or goodness lies in those things whereof a man makes choice to fill the void, the inexpressible and indefinable craving within his soul; as also hunger is only bad when it is satisfied by bad things, or not satisfied at all, so that in the one case it leads to disease, and in the other to the committing of crimes in the desire for satisfaction. Many a poor fellow was hung by the neck in old times for stealing a loaf to stop his hunger, and many a man of wit goes to the mad-house nowadays because the void of his vanity is unfilled.