“No, sir! He got out and hustled for himself.”
“Then he probably had no machine to back him.”
“Ah, but he had; and some of the best politicians in the city worked for him. Why, nearly all the strongest men in the ward signed a paper in his interest, and every one got a copy a day before the election.”
“But they couldn’t have known the issue at stake—between decency and indecency, character and hoodlumism.”
“They did, if words could make it clear.”
“Then why, in the name of all that is reasonable, in that pious ward of yours, wasn’t Smith elected?”
“Just because about sixty of the pious men stayed at home or let their sons neglect to vote. We know the names of that many who didn’t vote. Tried to get them to come out, telephone and all that; but no good. Too busy. Or they ‘weren’t needed.’ And the other side got out every man.”
“Those pious men go to prayer-meeting?”
“Well, I don’t know what you think about it, but I’d rather have one X opposite Smith’s name on that ballot than ten years of prayer-meeting eloquence without it.”
“Yes, most of them; and my! but they shine when the topic is a patriotic one.”