University of Virginia Library

4. POLITICAL SPANKS AND SPANKERS.

Replying to Ned's letter proposing to follow up one "reform victory" with another bill to "purify the state" by legislative enactment, the old Governor frees his mind on the subject of world-spankers and says a few pointed things regarding professional reformers, that are illuminated by two pertinent stories.

Brokenstraw Ranch, —, 19—.

My Dear Ned: —

After you've shot your rocket don't play with the stick. Start something new. Even the importunate widow of the parable had the good grace to let up after she'd landed what she was after. And it's mighty risky for politicians to rush in where widows fear to tread.

Your little reform game was all well enough and came out a lot better than most schemes to spank the world "by statute made and provided." Of course, we've got to have corrective legislation, but three feet of holdback strap, taken on emergency from the nearest fill of the family buggy and applied at the nerve center of my youthful conscience, did more to make me a good citizen than all the statutes in all the books of the Law since the days of Moses or the Medes and Persians.

And now that you open the way, I'd like to offer a few remarks on the subject of political spanks and spankers. Your notion that you have a divine call to keep everlastingly at the reform work puts you on a par with most other spankers. Mighty few of them know when to begin, and not one in a thousand has sense enough to quit at just the right point. This spanking business is a good deal like tempering steel—the whole trick's in knowing the right minute for cooling off.

When my father used to start in with the buggy strap I was powerful proud and cocky; I knew that I was in the right. But as things continued to warm up, my feelings always reached a point of complete humility. I was licked and I knew it. And what was more, I knew that I ought to be licked. I "conceded everything to the opposition" and was willing to come back into the party fold without asking for any representation on the steering committee. If father had stopped right there he would have had me in a state of total and unqualified surrender. But he didn't. He always kept right on with the reform business, just as you seem bent on doing.

Gradually, on these painful occasions, my feelings underwent another change until I didn't care whether I was right or wrong. All I did care for was to get even with the power behind the strap. And generally about that time, I'd let out a yell loud enough to be heard by some of the neighbors. They usually did hear, too, and then the news would circulate that I'd been "shamefully whipped." That kind of sympathy made me swell up like a martyr and feel that I was the victim of the oppressor.

Now, Ned, the time to let up on spanking the community is at the humble point. When you keep on until the victim gets the secret sympathy of the neighbors and is able to pose as the object of persecution you're overdoing the job just a little. It's all right to be thorough, but stop at a point where you can keep the moral support of the neighbors.

A good many reformers are like pointer pups—they don't get sense enough to work with until they're beyond the age at which a bird dog of any other breed ought to have become full of burrs and honors. I never see a reformer start in, full of his first run of political sap, without thinking of "Pug" Hansom. They called him that because he looked as if part of his face had been left off and kind of squared up in the rough with a meat ax, like a pug dog's.

He had bullyragged a fair sized fortune out of the manufacturing business before he was 35. Then he concluded that he would cover himself with glory by larruping the world into a state of political righteousness. He was willing to start in a small way, just for practice, on his own city of more than a million inhabitants. After he had cleaned that up he would begin on the real job and show the world what he could do when once he got his hand in.

Just then a new man was reaching for a foothold on the party ladder and was doing a clever stunt in the shape of organizing young men's clubs. When the young world spanker came to him asking for work, just to save himself from ingrowing patriotism, the request was granted. The General Overseer said:

"You organize a dozen clubs in your part of town, get them right where you can change them from a singlefoot to a canter at the turn of your hand, and then you'll have political capital to do business with that'll start you on a real career."

From that time until he was all in, this young reformer was busier than a cock partridge on a drumming log—and he strutted around in about the same style, too. I've never seen anything quite so important of its age as that young chap. But he was a hustler and he went at the organization of young men's clubs in his neck of the woods in the same way that he had invaded a competitor's territory and put in his own goods.

According to his report to the General Organizer, "the work" was coming on in great shape; the petitions were signed upon sight, and there was enough party enthusiasm aroused by his oratory to drive a sawmill with lath and shingle machines to boot. On the surface everything looked all right to the General Organizer and he had about concluded that he had picked a winner when the great night of the actual organization and election of officers came on.

There was no doubt about enthusiasm or activity. Every young man in the party under 80 years of age was there and doing business. When the ceremony of electing officers was over the young reformer was so hypnotized by the applause that greeted his oratory that he actually didn't recognize the fact that the enemy had come in like a flood and swept all his work right into the opposition camp. He wasn't a high private in the organization that he had built up—and he didn't realize it until the General Organizer heard of the news and explained it to him with a diagram.

Some of these little things are calculated to give a real politician the feeling that it's about as sensible to hunt prairie chickens with a hound pup as to go after votes with a reformer who wants to make the party into one large bible class, with himself as teacher and substitute.

I notice that lately you have been sending up quite a few fireworks directed at the bosses of your party. What's the matter, Ned? You haven't been trying to get frisky with the old crowd of fellows and ring in new rules on the boys without giving due notice, have you? When I hear that kind of talk from a man who has been in the political game as long as you have and has as much horse sense as you usually carry about, I can't help suspecting that something like this has happened.

It's all right to put up a howl against the boss, but the outcry would be a whole lot more convincing if it did not come from a throat that has sung in his choir since it was organized. There has been more nonsense talked on both sides of the boss question than on the tariff and free silver combined. I guess that I have said enough to indicate that, to my notion, a reformer isn't to be accepted as having a divine call simply because he can pound the pulpit and shout loud enough to start the nails in the mourners' benches. I look at it about this way:

A boss is frequently a reformer who has finally grown up, got on to the rules of the game and is willing to play it square. And the professional reformer is often only an appetite for power that mistakes itself for moral courage.

Since cutting my eye teeth I have had a good chance to learn considerable about how a reformer can grow up into a boss, and how a boss can get cocky and exceed his privileges. One experience has shed a good deal of light on the subject for me, so I give it to you for what it's worth.

It was the second year after I came back to the city. A young married man out in the newer section of the town saw that certain things in his line of trade ought to be protected by stricter laws. He kept the drug and school book store right next to the schoolhouse.

When he asked the local boss for representation on the ward committee and for some other reasonable things that would help him to make a strong fight for his reform legislation he was turned down.

He was green in politics, but you didn't have to tell him a thing but once—and sometimes not at all. Because his was the only drug store in the region and was close to the schoolhouse, he knew practically every man, woman, and child in the ward. When the smoke cleared away from the primaries this little druggist had fourteen of the delegates to the county convention and the local boss had one.

That night the druggist didn't feel sleepy, and so he managed to see the fellows who were doing things on his side of the river. He was just as easy and modest in his way as if he'd never thought of going out after a little reform legislation. Somehow the boys who held the whip hand took a shine to him and concluded that he'd play square. Then they were so tickled over the way he had drubbed the boss that they fell right in with his plan for doing things in the convention.

When he walked into the room where the "Big Three" slate makers were figuring out things he was abruptly asked: "How many delegates have you?"

"One hundred and thirteen," he answered.

"No; how many delegates do you control? We're not asking how many there are on your side of the river," was the impatient return.

"I control 113—all there are on my side of the creek, just as I said. We all got together last night, and I'm sent up here to treat with you and find out just what can be done."

"Done!" exclaimed one of the veteran bosses. "Why, we can simply control that whole convention without another vote. Now, what do you want, young man?"

He told them precisely what things on the ticket would have to go to his side of the river, and he capped the whole business by demanding that his men must be nominated first.

"Because," he explained, "you see, this game is all new to me, and I can't take the chances that you old hands can."

Right then one of the big leaders looked up and said:

"I thought that you were just a reformer—but, by mighty! you're a boss, and a real boss, too."

From that time to this the little druggist has played a gentleman's game and played it on the square. Some folks don't approve of games at all, and others don't like that kind of a game, but all are agreed that the way to play it is according to the rules.

So, Ned, if you're going to cast your lot with the world spankers, just try and be as decent and square with your political partners as you have been while just a plain politician, playing the game for the fun of it and because you like it better than golf, poker, pingpong, or pinochle. If you do this you're likely some time to break your chrysalis, "leave your low vaulted past," and find that you have changed from a professional political spanker to a boss whose word is good to the limit of the game with all who know how to play it.

Yours as ever,

William Bradley.