The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
finance and respectability.
Sometimes political rebels will gallantly and audaciously venture when
they rail behind the backs of their leaders; but when those leaders
appear and fill the foreground with their personalities the rebels
subside; they are impressed by the men whom they behold. They defer,
even when they are stung by knowledge of their leaders' principles.
Colonel Dodd and those with him were the accredited leaders.
Delegates glared, but were cowed and silent.
Farr pondered. Perhaps the advice of Mr. Converse was best:
“Take what we can get in our first skirmish. Keep it for the nucleus of
what we hope to get later. If we put all to the test in our first fight
against forces that have been in power for all the years and lose, then
the cause gets a setback which may discourage our men for ever.”
And Mr. Converse, having so declared, had remained away from the
convention that day, feeling that no more was to be gained.
“And I move you, Mr. Chairman,” called a voice, “that the nominations
for governor do now close.”
This had been the custom in the past.
It was not in the minds of that convention that another candidate would
be put forward. Governor Harwood was waiting in an anteroom, thumbing
the leaves of his speech, and all the delegates knew it. All desired to
expedite matters, nominate by acclamation, hear the inevitable speech,
and go home.
“One moment before that motion is seconded!”
The voice was so loud, so clear, so dominant, so ringing, that the
effect on the convention was as galvanically intense as if somebody had
blown upon a bugle.
Walker Farr had risen to his feet.
Colonel Dodd set his curved palm at his mouth and from behind the
chairman shot a few words at the presiding officer as one might shoot
pellets from a bean-shooter. The chairman scowled impatiently at Farr,
and a delegate among those who watched eagerly for signals from the
throne rose half-way to his feet and bellowed, “Question!” The cry
was taken up by other delegates, just as the unthinking mob follows a
cheer-master.
Farr climbed upon a settee. He stood there, silent and waiting, and
his expression, poise, and mien wrought for him more effectively than
speech.
He towered over all the heads. He was markedly not one of those
New-Englanders there assembled. His mass of dark-brown hair, his garb,
the very set of his head on his shoulders, differed from the physical
attributes of all others in the hall. And, as the delegates continued
to shout for the question to be put, he turned slowly so that his
expression of dignified and mild protest and appeal was visible to all.
And as he turned he gave the girl in the gallery a long look.
The chairman pounded with his gavel.
“I second the motion,” called a delegate, taking advantage of the first
moment of silence.
There was another roaring chorus of, “Question!”
But Walker Farr remained standing on the settee, waiting patiently. He
showed no confusion. There was added dignity as well as appeal in his
attitude and expression.
“Before that vote is taken I want to say one word as a man to men,”
shouted a delegate. “It's plain to be seen that that man standing there
is a gentleman. We are sent here to attend a meeting for the good of
our party. If, as delegates, we refuse to listen to a gentleman because
we're in too much of a hurry, we'd ought to be ashamed of ourselves. If,
on the other hand, we're _afraid_ to listen to him, whatever it is he
wants to say, then God save this party of ours!”
That was a sentiment which promptly struck fire in that assemblage.
There before their eyes stood the subject of that challenge, stalwart,
modest, appealing silently--the sort of appeal which won.
The galleries broke into applause first. Then the delegates took up the
demonstration in behalf of fair play. They beat their hands and pounded
their feet. The applause from the galleries had more or less of rebuke
in it, because it began while the challenger's voice still echoed in the
great hall.
The chairman's gavel thumped ferociously.
Colonel Dodd cursed under his breath. He had been on the trail of that
convention, its movements, its progress, as a hound dog would follow
the trail of a fox. He had seen it safely headed for the corner where
it would be run to earth. He detected sudden peril in this threat of a
detour.
“Good Jericho!” gasped a committeeman near him. “The chairman ain't
letting this convention get away from him, is he?”
It was natural alarm in the case of a man who feared to allow any
expression in a convention except such as had been arranged for
previously and had been passed upon by those in power.
“This isn't the kind of convention that will get away!” hissed the
colonel in reply, bolstering his own convictions that all was safely
harnessed. “But I don't want any fooling.”
He caught the eye of his nephew and summoned him with an impatient jerk
of the head.
Richard Dodd hastened across the platform and bent his ear close to his
uncle's mouth--the colonel pulling him down.
“If your man can stop that fool now--quick--for five hundred dollars,
I'll pay.”
Young Dodd gulped. He needed five thousand dollars!
“He won't consider less than I told you.”
“Well, let the idiot talk to us--he can't do any harm.”
The colonel pushed his nephew away. In spite of that applause he still
half expected that the convention would close the nominations. What else
was there to do?
“The vote is upon the motion to close the nominations for governor,”
stated the chairman. “Those in favor will say 'Aye!'”
Every delegate in that hall was looking at Farr. They were staring at
him with curiosity and interest. But even curiosity does not always
prompt politicians to open a convention to a person who may prove to be
a bomb that will upset plans and precedent.
Then Farr gave them that wonderful smile!
The “Ayes” were scattered and sporadic! Men did not relish shutting off
a chap who stood there and smiled upon them in that fashion.
At the call for the “Noes” a bellow of voices shook the hall.
The convention had given this stranger permission to speak by that
refusal to subscribe to the cut-and-dried plans. Colonel Dodd was no
longer smug. He scowled ferociously.
“Gentlemen of the convention, I am grateful,” cried Walker Farr. “And I
will not abuse your patience.”
“Platform--take the platform!” called many of the delegates.
He smiled and shook his head. “Let me talk to you standing here where
I can look into your eyes, gentlemen. I feel pretty much alone in this
convention. I _am_ alone! I represent no faction, no interest except the
cause of the humble who have asked for help from the masters who have
been set over them. Perhaps I ought to have remained silent here to-day.
My cowardice has been prompting me to keep still. It is no easy matter
for me to stand up here and disturb the order of events which had been
arranged by the gentlemen who have managed your public affairs for
you so many years. But it would be much more difficult for some of the
others here to speak, because the gentlemen who manage politics have
methods by which they can discredit a man in his profession, ruin him
in his business, stop his credit at banks and in other ways make him pay
dearly for his boldness in speech. I have no money in banks, no business
which can be ruined.”
“I rise to a point of order!” shouted a delegate, obeying a nod from the
stage. “The business in hand is the nomination of a governor.”
“That is my business,” stated Farr, calmly.
With political scent sharpened by his apprehension, Colonel Dodd
narrowed his eyes, sat straight in his chair, and desperately endeavored
to fathom the intentions of this rank outsider.
In spite of his bluster to the state committee he was worried. He had
not felt comfortable since his conference with Judge Ambrose Warren.
He did not like the “feel” of political conditions. There was some
indefinable slipperiness about matters.
He could not bring himself to consider the impossible idea that the
convention would bolt--would run amuck, no matter who addressed it--no
matter what contingency arose. But to have the convention even tolerate
this brazen interloper troubled his sense of mastery; the convention had
been too ready to permit the stranger to speak. It wasn't politics as
the colonel had been accustomed to play the game. And this--this man
from nowhere--it was preposterous!
He snapped his head around and found his nephew close behind him.
“You young whelp,” gritted Colonel Dodd, visiting his anger on the
nearest object, “where's your political loyalty? This isn't any time to
drive bargains. If you can stop that fellow hustle and do it.”
“It's another man's secret, I tell you. I've got to buy it.”
“I'll make it a thousand.”
Young Dodd's face was white, but he knew how desperate his case was and
how vitally necessary it was to play his cards as he held them.
“I gave you final figures,” he whispered.
“Where is that man? Let me deal with him.”
“It must be done through me.”
“If you wasn't my nephew I'd think this was blackmail.”
Young Dodd stepped back to avoid the glare in his uncle's eyes.
The colonel turned away and listened. Farr's voice was raised now in
solemn appeal.
“The idea of my letting myself get rattled by a crack-brained
demagogue,” muttered the colonel. He had been fondling the outside of
his coat furtively, locating his check-book. Now he took his hand away.
“It is well to respect service and to show courtesy, gentlemen. I have
listened with interest to the eulogies which have been given Governor
Harwood. He is, without doubt, an amiable gentleman. But let me tell you
that the next legislature is going to be asked to pass a law which will
be a club with which the people will rap the knuckles of Greed till that
unholy clutch on the water systems of this state will be loosened for
ever.”
The delegates stared at him for a few seconds when he paused, and then a
tumult of applause greeted his utterance.
“I ask you, gentlemen, whether Governor Harwood--and you know him well
and how he has been chosen--will ever sign a bill that will take profit
from the hands of his political makers even to give that profit to the
people who are the rightful owners?”
This time men were silent, but he knew what they thought from the manner
in which they looked at him.
“I do not need to tell you that the veto of a bill by a governor means,
in most cases, its death. Gentlemen, it would be polite and kind and
gracious of you to bow low here to-day and hand up the nomination to the
amiable Governor Harwood. But with the conditions as they are in this
state are you going to be polite, merely, while the hearses are rumbling
down your streets? I have no way of knowing how many of you into whose
eyes I am looking have seen death enter your own homes from the taps of
this much-promising, little-accomplishing water syndicate. But if you
have seen death touch your loved ones, or if you go home from here and
behold fever ravaging your community, it will be poor consolation to
your soul to remember that at least you were polite to an amiable man
who desired the honor of a renomination.”
The faces of the convention showed that this blunt yet shrewd appeal to
the individual antagonism of men had produced profound effect.
“But that is only one feature of what this state demands and needs,
gentlemen,” was Farr's ringing declaration. “This struggle for pure
water has opened a broad avenue. The towns and cities of this state must
take back into their own hands the properties and franchises which have
been mismanaged by the men to whose hands unwise gift by the people has
intrusted the people's own. We need a man in the Big Chair of State who