Babbitt
himself. If it had any consequences, they have not been discovered.
CHAPTER XIV
I
This autumn a Mr. W. G. Harding, of Marion, Ohio, was appointed
President of the United States, but Zenith was less interested in the
national campaign than in the local election. Seneca Doane, though he
was a lawyer and a graduate of the State University, was candidate for
mayor of Zenith on an alarming labor ticket. To oppose him the Democrats
and Republicans united on Lucas Prout, a mattress-manufacturer with a
perfect record for sanity. Mr. Prout was supported by the banks, the
Chamber of Commerce, all the decent newspapers, and George F. Babbitt.
Babbitt was precinct-leader on Floral Heights, but his district was safe
and he longed for stouter battling. His convention paper had given him
the beginning of a reputation for oratory, so the Republican-Democratic
Central Committee sent him to the Seventh Ward and South Zenith, to
address small audiences of workmen and clerks, and wives uneasy with
their new votes. He acquired a fame enduring for weeks. Now and then a
reporter was present at one of his meetings, and the headlines (though
they were not very large) indicated that George F. Babbitt had addressed
Cheering Throng, and Distinguished Man of Affairs had pointed out the
Fallacies of Doane. Once, in the rotogravure section of the Sunday
_Advocate-Times_, there was a photograph of Babbitt and a dozen other
business men, with the caption “Leaders of Zenith Finance and Commerce
Who Back Prout.”
He deserved his glory. He was an excellent campaigner. He had faith; he
was certain that if Lincoln were alive, he would be electioneering for
Mr. W. G. Harding--unless he came to Zenith and electioneered for Lucas
Prout. He did not confuse audiences by silly subtleties; Prout
represented honest industry, Seneca Doane represented whining laziness,
and you could take your choice. With his broad shoulders and vigorous
voice, he was obviously a Good Fellow; and, rarest of all, he really
liked people. He almost liked common workmen. He wanted them to be well
paid, and able to afford high rents--though, naturally, they must not
interfere with the reasonable profits of stockholders. Thus nobly
endowed, and keyed high by the discovery that he was a natural orator,
he was popular with audiences, and he raged through the campaign,
renowned not only in the Seventh and Eighth Wards but even in parts of
the Sixteenth.
II
Crowded in his car, they came driving up to Turnverein Hall, South
Zenith-- Babbitt, his wife, Verona, Ted, and Paul and Zilla Riesling. The
hall was over a delicatessen shop, in a street banging with trolleys and
smelling of onions and gasoline and fried fish. A new appreciation of
Babbitt filled all of them, including Babbitt.
“Don’t know how you keep it up, talking to three bunches in one evening.
Wish I had your strength,” said Paul; and Ted exclaimed to Verona, “The
old man certainly does know how to kid these roughnecks along!”
Men in black sateen shirts, their faces new-washed but with a hint of
grime under their eyes, were loitering on the broad stairs up to the
hall. Babbitt’s party politely edged through them and into the
whitewashed room, at the front of which was a dais with a red-plush
throne and a pine altar painted watery blue, as used nightly by the
Grand Masters and Supreme Potentates of innumerable lodges. The hall was
full. As Babbitt pushed through the fringe standing at the back, he
heard the precious tribute, “That’s him!” The chairman bustled down the
center aisle with an impressive, “The speaker? All ready, sir! Uh--let’s
see--what was the name, sir?”
Then Babbitt slid into a sea of eloquence:
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Sixteenth Ward, there is one who cannot be
with us here to-night, a man than whom there is no more stalwart Trojan
in all the political arena-- I refer to our leader, the Honorable Lucas
Prout, standard-bearer of the city and county of Zenith. Since he is not
here, I trust that you will bear with me if, as a friend and neighbor,
as one who is proud to share with you the common blessing of being a
resident of the great city of Zenith, I tell you in all candor, honesty,
and sincerity how the issues of this critical campaign appear to one
plain man of business--to one who, brought up to the blessings of
poverty and of manual labor, has, even when Fate condemned him to sit at
a desk, yet never forgotten how it feels, by heck, to be up at
five-thirty and at the factory with the ole dinner-pail in his hardened
mitt when the whistle blew at seven, unless the owner sneaked in ten
minutes on us and blew it early! (Laughter.) To come down to the basic
and fundamental issues of this campaign, the great error, insincerely
promulgated by Seneca Doane--”
There were workmen who jeered--young cynical workmen, for the most part
foreigners, Jews, Swedes, Irishmen, Italians--but the older men, the
patient, bleached, stooped carpenters and mechanics, cheered him; and
when he worked up to his anecdote of Lincoln their eyes were wet.
Modestly, busily, he hurried out of the hall on delicious applause, and
sped off to his third audience of the evening. “Ted, you better drive,”
he said. “Kind of all in after that spiel. Well, Paul, how’d it go? Did
I get ’em?”
“Bully! Corking! You had a lot of pep.”
Mrs. Babbitt worshiped, “Oh, it was fine! So clear and interesting, and
such nice ideas. When I hear you orating I realize I don’t appreciate
how profoundly you think and what a splendid brain and vocabulary you
have. Just--splendid.”
But Verona was irritating. “Dad,” she worried, “how do you know that
public ownership of utilities and so on and so forth will always be a
failure?”
Mrs. Babbitt reproved, “Rone, I should think you could see and realize
that when your father’s all worn out with orating, it’s no time to
expect him to explain these complicated subjects. I’m sure when he’s
rested he’ll be glad to explain it to you. Now let’s all be quiet and
give Papa a chance to get ready for his next speech. Just think! Right
now they’re gathering in Maccabee Temple, and _waiting_ for us!”
III
Mr. Lucas Prout and Sound Business defeated Mr. Seneca Doane and Class
Rule, and Zenith was again saved. Babbitt was offered several minor
appointments to distribute among poor relations, but he preferred
advance information about the extension of paved highways, and this a
grateful administration gave to him. Also, he was one of only nineteen
speakers at the dinner with which the Chamber of Commerce celebrated the
victory of righteousness.
His reputation for oratory established, at the dinner of the Zenith Real
Estate Board he made the Annual Address. The _Advocate-Times_ reported
this speech with unusual fullness:
“One of the livest banquets that has recently been pulled off occurred
last night in the annual Get-Together Fest of the Zenith Real Estate
Board, held in the Venetian Ball Room of the O’Hearn House. Mine host
Gil O’Hearn had as usual done himself proud and those assembled feasted
on such an assemblage of plates as could be rivaled nowhere west of New
York, if there, and washed down the plenteous feed with the cup which
inspired but did not inebriate in the shape of cider from the farm of
Chandler Mott, president of the board and who acted as witty and
efficient chairman.
“As Mr. Mott was suffering from slight infection and sore throat, G. F.
Babbitt made the principal talk. Besides outlining the progress of
Torrensing real estate titles, Mr. Babbitt spoke in part as follows:
“‘In rising to address you, with my impromptu speech carefully tucked
into my vest pocket, I am reminded of the story of the two Irishmen,
Mike and Pat, who were riding on the Pullman. Both of them, I forgot to
say, were sailors in the Navy. It seems Mike had the lower berth and by
and by he heard a terrible racket from the upper, and when he yelled up
to find out what the trouble was, Pat answered, “Shure an’ bedad an’ how
can I ever get a night’s sleep at all, at all? I been trying to get into
this darned little hammock ever since eight bells!”
“‘Now, gentlemen, standing up here before you, I feel a good deal like
Pat, and maybe after I’ve spieled along for a while, I may feel so darn
small that I’ll be able to crawl into a Pullman hammock with no trouble
at all, at all!
“‘Gentlemen, it strikes me that each year at this annual occasion when
friend and foe get together and lay down the battle-ax and let the waves
of good-fellowship waft them up the flowery slopes of amity, it behooves
us, standing together eye to eye and shoulder to shoulder as
fellow-citizens of the best city in the world, to consider where we are
both as regards ourselves and the common weal.
“‘It is true that even with our 361,000, or practically 362,000,
population, there are, by the last census, almost a score of larger
cities in the United States. But, gentlemen, if by the next census we do
not stand at least tenth, then I’ll be the first to request any knocker
to remove my shirt and to eat the same, with the compliments of G. F.
Babbitt, Esquire! It may be true that New York, Chicago, and
Philadelphia will continue to keep ahead of us in size. But aside from
these three cities, which are notoriously so overgrown that no decent
white man, nobody who loves his wife and kiddies and God’s good
out-o’-doors and likes to shake the hand of his neighbor in greeting,
would want to live in them--and let me tell you right here and now, I
wouldn’t trade a high-class Zenith acreage development for the whole
length and breadth of Broadway or State Street!--aside from these three,
it’s evident to any one with a head for facts that Zenith is the finest
example of American life and prosperity to be found anywhere.
“‘I don’t mean to say we’re perfect. We’ve got a lot to do in the way of
extending the paving of motor boulevards, for, believe me, it’s the
fellow with four to ten thousand a year, say, and an automobile and a
nice little family in a bungalow on the edge of town, that makes the
wheels of progress go round!
“‘That’s the type of fellow that’s ruling America to-day; in fact, it’s
the ideal type to which the entire world must tend, if there’s to be a
decent, well-balanced, Christian, go-ahead future for this little old
planet! Once in a while I just naturally sit back and size up this Solid
American Citizen, with a whale of a lot of satisfaction.
“‘Our Ideal Citizen-- I picture him first and foremost as being busier
than a bird-dog, not wasting a lot of good time in day-dreaming or going
to sassiety teas or kicking about things that are none of his business,
but putting the zip into some store or profession or art. At night he
lights up a good cigar, and climbs into the little old ’bus, and maybe
cusses the carburetor, and shoots out home. He mows the lawn, or sneaks
in some practice putting, and then he’s ready for dinner. After dinner
he tells the kiddies a story, or takes the family to the movies, or
plays a few fists of bridge, or reads the evening paper, and a chapter
or two of some good lively Western novel if he has a taste for
literature, and maybe the folks next-door drop in and they sit and visit
about their friends and the topics of the day. Then he goes happily to
bed, his conscience clear, having contributed his mite to the
prosperity of the city and to his own bank-account.
“‘In politics and religion this Sane Citizen is the canniest man on
earth; and in the arts he invariably has a natural taste which makes him
pick out the best, every time. In no country in the world will you find
so many reproductions of the Old Masters and of well-known paintings on
parlor walls as in these United States. No country has anything like our