14. 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 number of phonographs, with not only dance records and
comic but also the best operas, such as Verdi, rendered by the
world's highest-paid singers.
" `In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of
shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti,
but in America the successful writer or picture-painter
is indistinguishable from any other decent business man; and
I, for one, am only too glad that the man who has the rare
skill to season his message with interesting reading matter and
who shows both purpose and pep in handling his literary wares
has a chance to drag down his fifty thousand bucks a year, to
mingle with the biggest executives on terms of perfect equality,
and to show as big a house and as swell a car as any Captain
of Industry! But, mind you, it's the appreciation of the Regular
Guy who I have been depicting which has made this possible,
and you got to hand as much credit to him as to the
authors themselves.
" `Finally, but most important, our Standardized Citizen,
even if he is a bachelor, is a lover of the Little Ones, a supporter
of the hearthstone which is the basic foundation of our
civilization, first, last, and all the time, and the thing that
most distinguishes us from the decayed nations of Europe.
" `I have never yet toured Europe—and as a matter of fact,
I don't know that I care to such an awful lot, as long as there's
our own mighty cities and mountains to be seen—but, the way
I figure it out, there must be a good many of our own sort
of folks abroad. Indeed, one of the most enthusiastic Rotarians
I ever met boosted the tenets of one-hundred-per-cent pep in a
burr that smacked o' bonny Scutlond and all ye bonny braes o'
Bobby Burns. But same time, one thing that distinguishes us
from our good brothers, the hustlers over there, is that they're
willing to take a lot off the snobs and journalists and politicians,
while the modern American business man knows how to
talk right up for himself, knows how to make it good and
plenty clear that he intends to run the works. He doesn't
have to call in some highbrow hired-man when it's necessary
for him to answer the crooked critics of the sane and efficient
life. He's not dumb, like the old-fashioned merchant. He's
got a vocabulary and a punch.
" `With all modesty, I want to stand up here as a representative
business man and gently whisper, "Here's our kind
of folks! Here's the specifications of the Standardized American
Citizen! Here's the new generation of Americans: fellows
with hair on their chests and smiles in their eyes and adding-machines
in their offices. We're not doing any boasting, but
we like ourselves first-rate, and if you don't like us, look out—
better get under cover before the cyclone hits town!''
" `So! In my clumsy way I have tried to sketch the Real
He-man, the fellow with Zip and Bang. And it's because
Zenith has so large a proportion of such men that it's the most
stable, the greatest of our cities. New York also has its
thousands of Real Folks, but New York is cursed with unnumbered
foreigners. So are Chicago and San Francisco. Oh,
we have a golden roster of cities—Detroit and Cleveland with
their renowned factories, Cincinnati with its great machine-tool
and soap products, Pittsburg and Birmingham with their
steel, Kansas City and Minneapolis and Omaha that open their
bountiful gates on the bosom of the ocean-like wheatlands, and
countless other magnificent sister-cities, for, by the last census,
there were no less than sixty-eight glorious American burgs
with a population of over one hundred thousand! And all
these cities stand together for power and purity, and against
foreign ideas and communism—Atlanta with Hartford, Rochester
with Denver, Milwaukee with Indianapolis, Los Angeles
with Scranton, Portland, Maine, with Portland, Oregon. A
good live wire from Baltimore or Seattle or Duluth is the twin-brother
of every like fellow booster from Buffalo or Akron,
Fort Worth or Oskaloosa!
" `But it's here in Zenith, the home for manly men and
womanly women and bright kids, that you find the largest
proportion of these Regular Guys, and that's what sets it
in a class by itself; that's why Zenith will be remembered in
history as having set the pace for a civilization that shall endure
when the old time-killing ways are gone forever and the
day of earnest efficient endeavor shall have dawned all round
the world!
" `Some time I hope folks will quit handing all the credit
to a lot of moth-eaten, mildewed, out-of-date, old, European
dumps, and give proper credit to the famous Zenith spirit,
that clean fighting determination to win Success that has
made the little old Zip City celebrated in every land and
clime, wherever condensed milk and pasteboard cartons are
known! Believe me, the world has fallen too long for these
worn-out countries that aren't producing anything but bootblacks
and scenery and booze, that haven't got one bathroom
per hundred people, and that don't know a loose-leaf ledger
from a slip-cover; and it's just about time for some Zenithite
to get his back up and holler for a show-down!
" `I tell you, Zenith and her sister-cities are producing a
new type of civilization. There are many resemblances between
Zenith and these other burgs, and I'm darn glad of it! The
extraordinary, growing, and sane standardization of stores,
offices, streets, hotels, clothes, and newspapers throughout the
United States shows how strong and enduring a type is ours.
" `I always like to remember a piece that Chum Frink wrote
for the newspapers about his lecture-tours. It is doubtless
familiar to many of you, but if you will permit me, I'll take
a chance and read it. It's one of the classic poems, like "If''
by Kipling, or Ella Wheeler Wilcox's "The Man Worth While'';
and I always carry this clipping of it in my note-book:
When I am out upon the road, a poet with a pedler's load
I mostly sing a hearty song, and take a chew and hike along,
a-handing out my samples fine of Cheero Brand of sweet sunshine,
and peddling optimistic pokes and stable lines of japes
and jokes to Lyceums and other folks, to Rotarys, Kiwanis'
Clubs, and feel I ain't like other dubs. And then old Major
Silas Satan, a brainy cuss who's always waitin', he gives his
tail a lively quirk, and gets in quick his dirty work. He fills
me up with mullygrubs; my hair the backward way he rubs;
he makes me lonelier than a hound, on Sunday when the folks
ain't round. And then b' gosh, I would prefer to never be
a lecturer, a-ridin' round in classy cars and smoking fifty-cent
cigars, and never more I want to roam; I simply want to be
back home, a-eatin' flap jacks, hash, and ham, with folks who
savvy whom I am!
But when I get that lonely spell, I simply seek the best
hotel, no matter in what town I be—St. Paul, Toledo, or K.C.,
in Washington, Schenectady, in Louisville or Albany. And at
that inn it hits my dome that I again am right at home. If
I should stand a lengthy spell in front of that first-class hotel,
that to the drummers loves to cater, across from some big film
theayter; if I should look around and buzz, and wonder in
what town I was, I swear that I could never tell! For all the
crowd would be so swell, in just the same fine sort of jeans
they wear at home, and all the queens with spiffy bonnets on
their beans, and all the fellows standing round a-talkin' always,
I'll be bound, the same good jolly kind of guff, 'bout autos, politics
and stuff and baseball players of renown that Nice Guys
talk in my home town!
Then when I entered that hotel, I'd look around and say,
"Well, well!'' For there would be the same news-stand, same
magazines and candies grand, same smokes of famous standard
brand, I'd find at home, I'll tell! And when I saw the jolly
bunch come waltzing in for eats at lunch, and squaring up in
natty duds to platters large of French Fried spuds, why then
I'd stand right up and bawl, "I've never left my home at all!''
And all replete I'd sit me down beside some guy in derby brown
upon a lobby chair of plush, and murmur to him in a rush,
"Hello, Bill, tell me, good old scout, how is your stock a-holdin'
out?'' Then we'd be off, two solid pals, a-chatterin' like giddy
gals of flivvers, weather, home, and wives, lodge-brothers then
for all our lives! So when Sam Satan makes you blue, good
friend, that's what I'd up and do, for in these States where'er
you roam, you never leave your home sweet home.
" `Yes, sir, these other burgs are our true partners in the
great game of vital living. But let's not have any mistake
about this. I claim that Zenith is the best partner and the
fastest-growing partner of the whole caboodle. I trust I may
be pardoned if I give a few statistics to back up my claims.
If they are old stuff to any of you, yet the tidings of prosperity,
like the good news of the Bible, never become tedious
to the ears of a real hustler, no matter how oft the sweet story
is told! Every intelligent person knows that Zenith manufactures
more condensed milk and evaporated cream, more
paper boxes, and more lighting-fixtures, than any other city
in the United States, if not in the world. But it is not so
universally known that we also stand second in the manufacture
of package-butter, sixth in the giant realm of motors and
automobiles, and somewhere about third in cheese, leather
findings, tar roofing, breakfast food, and overalls!
" `Our greatness, however, lies not alone in punchful prosperity
but equally in that public spirit, that forward-looking
idealism and brotherhood, which has marked Zenith ever since
its foundation by the Fathers. We have a right, indeed we
have a duty toward our fair city, to announce broadcast the
facts about our high schools, characterized by their complete
plants and the finest school-ventilating systems in the country,
bar none; our magnificent new hotels and banks and the paintings
and carved marble in their lobbies; and the Second National
Tower, the second highest business building in any inland
city in the entire country. When I add that we have an
unparalleled number of miles of paved streets, bathrooms
vacuum cleaners, and all the other signs of civilization; that
our library and art museum are well supported and housed in
convenient and roomy buildings; that our park-system is more
than up to par, with its handsome driveways adorned with
grass, shrubs, and statuary, then I give but a hint of the all
round unlimited greatness of Zenith!
" `I believe, however, in keeping the best to the last. When
I remind you that we have one motor car for every five and
seven-eighths persons in the city, then I give a rock-ribbed
practical indication of the kind of progress and braininess which
is synonymous with the name Zenith!
" `But the way of the righteous is not all roses. Before I
close I must call your attention to a problem we have to face,
this coming year. The worst menace to sound government is
not the avowed socialists but a lot of cowards who work under
cover—the long-haired gentry who call themselves "liberals''
and "radicals'' and "non-partisan'' and "intelligentsia'' and
God only knows how many other trick names! Irresponsible
teachers and professors constitute the worst of this whole
gang, and I am ashamed to say that several of them are on
the faculty of our great State University! The U. is my
own Alma Mater, and I am proud to be known as an alumni,
but there are certain instructors there who seem to think we
ought to turn the conduct of the nation over to hoboes and
roustabouts.
" `Those profs are the snakes to be scotched—they and all
their milk-and-water ilk! The American business man is generous
to a fault. but one thing he does demand of all teachers
and lecturers and journalists: if we're going to pay them
our good money, they've got to help us by selling efficiency and
whooping it up for rational prosperity! And when it comes to
these blab-mouth, fault-finding, pessimistic, cynical University
teachers, let me tell you that during this golden coming year
it's just as much our duty to bring influence to have those
cusses fired as it is to sell all the real estate and gather in all
the good shekels we can.
" `Not till that is done will our sons and daughters see that
the ideal of American manhood and culture isn't a lot of cranks
sitting around chewing the rag about their Rights and their
Wrongs, but a God-fearing, hustling, successful, two-fisted
Regular Guy, who belongs to some church with pep and piety
to it, who belongs to the Boosters or the Rotarians or the Kiwanis,
to the Elks or Moose or Red Men or Knights of Columbus
or any one of a score of organizations of good, jolly, kidding,
laughing, sweating, upstanding, lend-a-handing Royal
Good Fellows, who plays hard and works hard, and whose
answer to his critics is a square-toed boot that'll teach the
grouches and smart alecks to respect the He-man and get out
and root for Uncle Samuel, U.S.A.!' ''
IV
Babbitt promised to become a recognized orator. He entertained
a Smoker of the Men's Club of the Chatham Road
presbyterian Church with Irish, Jewish, and Chinese dialect
stories.
But in nothing was he more clearly revealed as the Prominent
Citizen than in his lecture on "Brass Tacks Facts on
Real Estate,'' as delivered before the class in Sales Methods
at the Zenith Y.M.C.A.
The Advocate-Times reported the lecture so fully that
Vergil Gunch said to Babbitt, "You're getting to be one of
the classiest spellbinders in town. Seems 's if I couldn't pick
up a paper without reading about your well-known eloquence.
All this guff ought to bring a lot of business into your office.
Good work! Keep it up!''
"Go on, quit your kidding,'' said Babbitt feebly, but at this
tribute from Gunch, himself a man of no mean oratorical fame,
he expanded with delight and wondered how, before his vacation,
he could have questioned the joys of being a solid citizen.