Luke followed the Power along thread after thread through the labyrinth of American life, and he made it clear that the Power was one man. He pictured the stock-market, where the trade in traitors began and where the fortunes of speculators and the riches of the country were counters in the game of roulette that this Power conducted with a braced wheel. He passed on, across the map of the Union, through the wrecks of industries that this Power had razed. He showed how it had ruined numberless houses and spoiled countless lives. He pointed to the bloated bodies of the suicides it had flung into rivers it had never seen, the graves it had filled in the potters' fields of distant towns, the twisted limbs of children it had enslaved, the bodies of women it had forced into the arms of lust, the muscles of men it had condemned to lifelong servitude. He described its command over Congress, legislatures, and judges; its collar around the necks of the police, who brought to its service, in return for criminal immunity, gamblers, thieves, highwaymen, tramps, prostitutes, and pimps. He clutched its hairy hand in the ballot-box, and called upon his hearers to end this Power's practices as they loved their souls.
Luke pledged himself, if elected, to drive the thing out of every department of the city's life that the District-Attorney could in any way influence. He pledged himself to fear no man and to serve none.
"You have the eyes!" he shouted. "If you'll only use them, you have the eyes to see. Look about you, and what you see will give you the strength you need. This thing thwarts and perverts the purposes of Government, and you know it! The men that are pledged to the people, it buys with gold. These are its crimes, but not the worst of its crimes. The worst it does is not what it does to things material. The worst it does is what it does to things spiritual. The spoiling of high aims, the rape and ravage of honorable purposes: these are its sins against the Holy Ghost!"
§2. Betty had gone to the mass-meeting, and so had the Rev. Pinkney Nicholson. Even in the rush of his campaign, Luke had found time to see Betty every day, and, because the Ruysdael loan had resolved all her doubts, she was his most ardent supporter. He sent her two stage-tickets to the gathering at Cooper Union, one of which he hoped that her father would use; but Forbes was busy with plans to meet the competition of the clothing trust and to quiet the grumblings of his employees, who wanted a raise of wages to the sums paid by his rivals, and so was kept late at the offices of the firm. Betty, therefore, brought Nicholson with her, and Nicholson, thinking that it would not be wise for a clergyman to seem to give the sanction of the Church to any party in a political fight, had taken her not to the stage, but to the body of the auditorium.
The girl listened to Luke's speech with parted lips and flushed face. She was inspired by her lover's every word and proud for each interruption of applause. She was so inspired and so proud that she did not notice the increasing frigidity of her companion.
"Isn't he wonderful?" she demanded of Nicholson as the meeting ended with the entire audience on its feet.
The band was playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," and it had been hoped that the crowd would sing that national anthem. Most of the people present did not, however, know the words, and those who did know them had voices of too slight a range to accede to the severe demands of the music.
"Isn't he just wonderful?" repeated Betty. She caught Nicholson's arm. "He reminds me of a French orator father and I once heard in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris. You must take me up to the stage to tell him so."
Nicholson had listened with mixed emotions. His attention, moreover, was loose because he had lately been much worried by the presence of a heavy debt on his church.
"I think he is an excellent speaker," said Nicholson, "but I'm afraid I don't approve of his tone."