University of Virginia Library

10. ELEVENTH HOUR SURPRISES.

Touching Ned's announcement that he has the congressional nomination "spiked to the rails," the old Governor replies with the story of how Little Danny once loosened a political cinch and sprung a surprise, at the eleventh hour, that made his political future.

Brokenstraw Ranch, —, 19—.

Dear Ned: —

My father used to say that he never knew of a horse being stolen excepting from a barn that had been locked by a boy—and generally by a boy who had that very night been back, after starting for the house, to wiggle the padlock and "make sure."

Most of the good, sound political drubbings that I've seen administered have been in the nature of eleventh hour surprises. In one respect, at least, the arrival of the new political victor and the last coming of the Lord are strikingly similar; both are illuminatingly described in the words of scripture reading, "like a thief in the night" and "in an hour when ye think not."

This is by way of reply to your statement that there isn't a gap, a weak rail, a rotten stake, or a split rider in all your political fences; that you've got everything inclosed seven rails high and are only waiting for the congressional convention to drive the delegates right into the "stanchels" and have them counted.

Now, Ned, if all political cattle were exactly alike you might safely go and visit your wife's relatives until the morning of the convention; but if the old district is anything like it used to be when I rode it in an open buggy and kept a list of the farm dogs' names it is a safe plan to go out every hour or two and wiggle the padlock on the barn door and put in the rest of the time patrolling the line fences. After you've turned yourself three times around and bedded yourself nicely down into a political situation, like a young hound in a haystack, make up your mind that it's time to hit the trail again and to hang to it until the pelt of the fox is nailed to the barn door.

And it's surprising how trifling a thing it takes to confound the mighty and turn a political certainty into a reminiscence. Perhaps you didn't know the Hon. Xavier Flynn—they called him "Salve" for short—up in the city; but there's a powerful parable in the story of his fall. It came like a sharp frost out of a cloudy sky and struck so deep down to the roots that it hasn't got thawed out yet. Salve had run things in the old Fifth Ward so long and with so high a hand that he didn't dream anything on earth could unseat him. Not that he got careless and didn't keep his promises—he was too good a politician for anything of that sort—but he acquired the habit of putting up business blocks on the west side and always lacked a little of paying for one.

This was mighty stimulating to his sense of thrift, but somehow it kept him constantly paring down his campaign fund until some of the young bucks in his camp, who did the heft of the hard work, got tired of this passion for economy that had gradually taken possession of Salve. Tan Finnegan was especially sore, as the alderman had turned down some of his pet schemes in the council and had refused to refund a thousand dollars that Tan had scattered along the levee in the course of the preceding campaign.

Right then and there Tan notified Salve to count him out and consider him as unattached; he might, he said, do a little work and he might conclude to go over to the enemy. "Anyhow, you'll hear from me one way or the other." Well, after the new campaign opened Tan kept mighty still and appeared to be as completely absorbed in holding his seat on the fence as a boy who is waiting for the circus parade to pass. All his interest in politics appeared suddenly to have oozed out of his toes and he was given the credit of being as disinterested a spectator of the political field as the most aristocratic millionaire-by-inheritance on Brownstone avenue.

This didn't rack Salve with grief to any great extent. Since his mania for business blocks and economy had grown on him the old alderman had come to regard Tan as a prodigiously expensive luxury. To be sure, Tan always got results; but if rentals on business property were as high as the expense of Tan's results, Salve figured he wouldn't need to stay in the council to keep his property up in good shape. So long as Tan didn't line up actively with the opposition the alderman was glad that the young ward hustler was not distributing his money.

Just the day before the election, after old Salve had looked over all his fences and pronounced his work good, Tan took $50 to the bank and had it changed into dimes. Then he started out and began to hit up the old trail, making the rounds of all the river saloons. In every one he came across a few loafers with whom he was personally acquainted. These he called up to the bar and treated them to one round of beers, while the newcomers and strangers glowered and swore in thirsty rage.

"Drink hearty," he would say, "to honest old Xavier Flynn."

But Tan's finishing touch, which marked him as a master in the creation of political discontent, was in solemnly handing a dime to every one of these loafer captains, as they were wiping their lips after the one drink, and saying:

"Now, boys, get out early and put in your best licks for Flynn. He's got to be returned. The opposition is throwing out lots of coin to put him out of business; but he knows he can depend on you, coin or no coin!"

This sort of thing was repeated in practically every saloon in the river ward—and a trail of curses on the niggardliness of old Flynn followed from one groggery to another—for, of course, the loafers all thought Tan was still the accredited distributer for Flynn. But curses were not the only followers that Tan had. He had secretly arranged with the heelers of the opposition to make the rounds right after him and spend a dollar for every dime that had been put out in the name of old Salve. You can bet there wasn't a dry throat in any place where these heelers stopped, and instead of dealing out dimes to the loafer captains they handed over $5 bills.

Meantime Ald. Flynn was comfortably casting up his greatly reduced election expenses and was glad that Tan was not sowing his money in the barrel houses. He had weathered so many storms and turned so many sharp corners that it didn't occur to him it was possible to unseat him. Such was his confidence in his position that, after he had been told that Tan had been out doing a little work for him, he didn't suspect that some sharp practice was going on.

Well, when the votes were counted, in that election, Salve was buried so deep that they had difficulty in finding his figures on the poll sheet. And it took the old alderman about a month to find out the real nature of the brickbat that had hit him.

But when it comes to turning sharp corners at the eleventh hour the trick that gave Little Danny his start in politics puts all the others in the shade. Little Danny wanted to break into the council, but he lived in a strong Irish Democratic ward, where Republicans were scarce as hens' teeth, and the old alderman was up for re-election. He had the whole rolling mill influence at his back, and he made no bones of saying that so long as he had the mill foreman and bosses solid he could "yell for Queen Victoria," and still be elected.

This incidental remark reached the ears of Little Danny and he made it the subject of meditation and prayer. The more he thought about the boast the madder he was—but he had to admit that it was gospel truth so far as any election records to date could show. The night before election Little Danny had as much chance to come out with a whole skin as a sour apple in a hog pen. As he was walking the floor, jouncing a croupy baby, he suddenly saw a great light. Some say that it came so quick he dropped the baby into the coal hod, but I don't believe that, for Little Danny was never known to lose his head—and, besides, he was as tender as a woman when it came to handling a child.

But, at any rate, Little Danny turned the baby over to his wife and made a dash downtown. Between 2 and 4 in the morning, when all the world, including policemen on their beats, sleeps soundest, Little Danny made a sneak to the cottage of Big Tom, his opponent. When he left, a life size bust picture of her majesty Queen Victoria occupied the lower sash of the alderman's front parlor window, a window in which the shade was never raised excepting on rare company occasions.

Now, this same window fronted on the street along which every hand going to and from the rolling mill must pass. Another pertinent fact which had entered into Little Danny's calculations was that just then the Irish troubles were fierce in Parliament and the old sod of the Green Isle was the scene of evictions and riots that would make the modern American strike look like a game of pingpong. A big collection for "the cause" had just been taken in the rolling mill district, and an orator, fresh from Parliament, had held a dozen "Emmet" meetings in the ward, with the result that, in the language of a mill foreman, the feeling was "right up to heat and ready to pour."

Little Danny's inspiration had taken note of all these incidentals, and he calculated that the chromo of her majesty was about as well calculated to do the pouring act as anything that could be put up in that neighborhood. With his unfailing cunning he had also taken into account the fact that the men leaving from the night shift would vote on their way home, but that those on the day shift would be given a special "knockoff," during the day, in which to deposit their ballots. In other words, every rolling mill hand would see that picture of Victoria Regina before going to the polls. Then, too, he had put up the picture so cleverly that it looked as if hung from the inside.

When the shifts changed and the dinner pail brigade passed the alderman's house a mighty rumbling began, and it grew louder and louder as the sun rose higher. Before one of the alderman's children discovered the portrait, every loyal Irishman on the mill's pay roll had seen the picture and a good share of them had vented their wrath at the polls by a vote for Little Danny, the "opposition" candidate.

Of course, the old alderman sent his hustlers to every precinct and scattered money and explanations right and left—or at least attempted to do so. But, with all the help the big men at the mill could give him, he couldn't explain fast enough to check the landslide of votes that sent Little Danny to the council with a bigger majority than his defeated opponent had ever been able to muster.

Some experiences and observations of this kind, Ned, make me a little sensitive on the subject of sure things. When I get to feeling that there's nothing left to do but count the votes and send up the skyrockets of victory I take an extra hitch in my belt and go out to see that some frisky steer doesn't get scared at a rabbit and stampede the whole bunch at the last minute before the count.

As I said in a former letter, if you've got any sleeping to do, better stand yourself off with a few catnaps until the polls close and take your beauty slumber after the close of the celebration. I hope you'll win, for I think you deserve it, and, besides, a term or two in congress will be good for you, and your wife will enjoy it—if she spends most of the time visiting among your constituents instead of going to Washington and finding out how small a figure a green congressman cuts among the real lawmakers.

When you get down there, Ned, remember that I'm open to all the garden seeds that you can send and that I'm a redhot advocate of all the irrigation legislation that you can frame up for this part of the country.

Yours as ever,

William Bradley.