“No,” said Big Phil Lee, Bragdon’s chief lieutenant, “I’m a Kentucky Democrat, boys, as you all know, but in this fight I’m for Bragdon—a Bragdon Republican—and we’ve got the whip-hand and by the Eternal we will hold it. We Bragdon fellows have already agreed upon a chairman and a secretary for both the temporary and permanent organizations of tomorrow’s convention, and we have selected Charlie Winter to name Bragdon in a nominating speech that will be so dangnation eloquent—well, it will simply carry everybody off their feet. He is the boy that can talk, you bet he is. Oh, you bet we’ve got ‘em licked, Carlisle and all his cohorts. And let me tell you something else,” continued Big Phil Lee, gesticulating, “we’ll hold them responsible for the final result. If Bragdon’s not elected, it will be because Carlisle and his gang knife him at the polls. Just let them do such a dirty contemptible piece of political chicanery and they’ll be marked men ever afterwards in this senatorial district, and not one of them could be elected even to the office of dog pelter.”
CHAPTER XXVI.—UNEXPECTED POLITICAL HARMONY
IT WAS just such talk as Big Phil Lee’s that kept the Bragdon forces lined up and defiant to the point of an open rupture and a total disregard for the minority, while the Democrats cheered Big Phil Lee’s remarks with enthusiastic hoorays.
The individual who really held the destiny of the party that year in the hollow of his hand and within the next few hours proved himself the Moses to lead all factions from the paths of bickering into the highway of absolute harmony, was the newspaper man, Earle Clemens. All through the evening hours the editor of the Herald had been a most eloquent listener. He was on good terms with everybody, jovial and mixed with all factions, and yet was scrupulously careful to avoid giving any expression of advice or stating an opinion. He had, however, been very outspoken in his editorial advocacy for harmony.
Earle Clemens was not only known and respected all over the state as an able newspaper man, but he was the possessor of a rich tenor voice that had delighted many an audience up in the hills, and then, too, he had composed the melody of the state song, entitled “Wyoming”—all of which tended to his great popularity and powerful influence.
While it was quite generally known that Clemens was perhaps closer in his friendship for Bragdon than any other man in the district, dating from way back when the generous-hearted young lawyer had helped Clemens at a time and in a way that money could not buy or repay, yet the editor of the Herald had all along insisted that unless the Bragdon sympathizers effected a reconciliation with the Carlisle crowd, it virtually meant, if Bragdon’s nomination were forced upon the convention, a Democratic victory at the coming November election.
In his last editorial, before the convention was to assemble, he had, in reply to Democratic newspaper gibes about a high old row which was likely to obtain at the oncoming Republican convention, branded the writers one and all as political falsifiers. He boldly announced that not a single discordant note would be heard when the Republican host came to nominate its standard bearer, and furthermore that the choice would be emphasized by a unanimous vote of the delegates. And in the final event the Republican candidate, he declared, would be elected by such an overwhelming popular vote that it would make the false Democratic prophets and bolting Republican malcontents, if there were any, “hunt the tall timber.”
The Democratic press in reply had said that the editor of the Herald was whistling to keep up his courage, and of course much amusement had been caused by the spirited controversy. So when the eventful day arrived fully as many Democrats journeyed to Rawlins to see the fun as there were Republican delegates. Of course, as good Democrats, they lost no opportunity to help embitter the two factions and widen the breach between the Bragdon and the Carlisle forces.