There was a brief silence, during which Mr. Barnstable joined his finger-tips together and looked at the fire. Then he rose augustly, and putting out his hand with a repellant gesture said, "There is one thing I insist on, which is that I shall know nothing of the details of this disagreeable business. I leave the matter wholly in your hands, Dowling."
"Oh, certainly, sir. And you may rely on my giving the cold shoulder to the rascals wherever it is possible for me to do so."
That is a pitiful story, isn't it? Virtue assaulted almost in its very temple, and given a black eye by sheer force of cruel, overwhelming circumstances. Yet a true story, and the prototype in its general features of a host of similar episodes occurring in the different cities of this land of the free and the home of the brave. Each case, of course, has its peculiar atmosphere. Not every leading villain has the sensitive and combative conscience of Thomas Barnstable; nor every general manager the bold, frank style of Mr. Dowling. There is every phase of soul-struggle and method from unblushing, business-like bargain and sale to sphinx-like and purposely unenlightened and ostrich-like submission. In the piteous language of a defender of Thomas Barnstable (not Josephine), what can one do but submit? If one meets a highwayman on the road, is one to be turned back if a purse will secure a passage? Surely not if the journey be of moment. Then is a corporate body (a corporation has no soul) to be starved to death by delay and hostile legislation if peace and plenty are to be had for an attorney's fee? If so, only the rascals would thrive and honest corporations would bite the dust. And so it happened that Mr. Dowling before election cast his moral influence in favor of the big four, and a little bird flew from headquarters with a secret message, couched in sufficiently vague language, to the effect that the management would be pleased if the employees of the People's Heat and Power Company were to mark crosses on their Australian ballots against the names of Peter Lynch, Jeremiah Dolan, Hon. William H. Bird, and the Hon. John P. Driscoll.
Let us allow the curtain to descend to slow music, and after a brief pause rise on some of our other characters. Behold now the fifty thousand respectable, well-intentioned, tolerably ignorant citizens who vote but are too busy with their own affairs to pay attention to politics, and as a consequence generally vote the party ticket or vote to please a friend. As a sample take Mr. John Baker, amiable and well-meaning physician, a practical philanthropist and an intelligent student of science by virtue of his active daily professional labors. For a week before election he is apt to have a distressing, soul-haunting consciousness that a City Government is shortly to be chosen and that he must, as a free-born and virtue-loving citizen, vote for somebody. He remembers that during the year there has been more or less agitation in the newspapers concerning this or that individual connected with the aldermanic office, but he has forgotten names and is all at sea as to who is who or what is what. Two days before election he receives and puts aside a circular containing a list of the most desirable candidates, as indicated by the Reform Society, intending to peruse it, but he is called from home on one evening by professional demands, and on the other by tickets for the theatre, so election morning arrives without his having looked at it. He forgets that it is election day, and is reminded of the fact while on his way to visit his patients by noticing that many of his acquaintances seem to be walking in the wrong direction. He turns also at the spur of memory, and mournfully realizes that he has left the list at home. To return would spoil his professional day, so he proceeds to the polls, and, in the hope of wise enlightenment, joins the first sagacious friend he encounters. It happens, perhaps, to be Dowling.
"Ah," says Dr. Baker, genially, "you're just the man to tell me whom to vote for. One vote doesn't count for much, but I like to do my duty as an American citizen."
"It's a pretty poor list," says Dowling, pathetically, drawing a paper from his pocket. "I believe, however, in accomplishing the best possible results under existing circumstances. If I thought the Reform candidates could be elected, I would vote for them and for them only; but it's equally important that the very worst men should be kept out. I am going to vote for the Reform candidates and for Lynch, Dolan, Bird, and Driscoll. They're capable and they have had experience. If they steal, they'll steal judiciously and that is something. Some of those other fellows would steal the lamp-posts and hydrants if they got the chance."
"All right," says Dr. Baker. "I'll take your word for it. Let me write those names down. I suppose that some day or other we shall get a decent City Government. I admit that I don't give as much consideration to such matters as I ought, but the days are only twenty-four hours long."
Then from the same company there is Mr. David Jones, hay and grain dealer, honest and a diligent, reputable business man. He harbors the amiable delusion that the free-born American citizen in the exercise of the suffrage has intuitive knowledge as to whom to vote for, and that in the long run the choice of the sovereign people is wise and satisfactory. He is ready to admit that political considerations should not control selection for municipal office, but he has a latent distrust of reformers as aristocratic self-seekers or enemies of popular government. For instance, the idea that he or any other American citizen of ordinary education and good moral character is not fit to serve on the school committee offends his patriotism.
"What's the matter with Lynch, anyway?" he asks on his way to the polls. "I see some of his political enemies are attacking him in the press. If he were crooked, some one would have found it out in ten years. I met him once and he talked well. He has no frills round his neck."
"Nor wheels in his head," answers a fellow-patriot, who wishes to get a street developed and has put his case in Lynch's hands.