University of Virginia Library

16. FRUITS OF VICTORY.

In which Ned gets some interesting light from William Bradley on the subject of whether the game is worth the candle and, incidentally, on the importance of His Majesty the Speaker and of the newspaper men in the making of live congressmen and dead statesmen. The old Governor makes his point with two stories that show what a real Speaker can do when he takes his coat off.

Brokenstraw Ranch, —, 19—.

Dear Ned: —

And so, after all, you're going to Congress! With the convention already held and the opposition in such a state of almost infantile helplessness, I don't see how you can possibly fall down. Yes, I'll bear witness to the fact that you've always stuck to it that your ambition would be completely satisfied if you could be sent to Congress from the old district.

Of course I knew that wasn't true, although you thought it was—and think so now. When a good live American citizen, who has once tasted the blood of public office, sets a stake for his ambition and says: "Thus far and no farther," and promises himself perfect content when he reaches that mark, he puts himself in the position of the old fellow down in Arkansas who lived to eat and insisted that if he once could get outside of a dinner of terrapin, canvasbacks and champagne he'd never ask to eat again in this world.

After you've once fairly warmed your seat in the House you'll realize that you've only begun to live, and that the United States Senate is the only real diamond-pointed stopping place for an able man's ambition. Then, after you've landed in the Senate and grown a little familiar with the scenery there, the White House will be about the only landmark that will loom up on your horizon.

At first you'll be ashamed to acknowledge the thought, even in the secret place of your own inner consciousness. Next you'll argue with yourself that there have been a whole lot of worse Presidents than you would make, and that the woods are full of presidential timber, hollow in the trunk and showing dead limbs at the top. It's not the thing we have in hand but the one that's just ahead of us that we hanker for in politics, as in everything else.

But you are all right, Ned, in your determination to make every hour of your congressional service count, and count hard. You say that you want some advice that gets right down to brass tacks, and will help you to make good with your people before the first crop of soreheads has a chance to go to seed.

Before I went into politics I used to think that Canada thistles were the hardest things in the world to kill down and the swiftest to spread; but I've since discovered that the political sorehead has a cinch on immortality that makes the thistle a thing of the passing moment.

I'm told that a queen bee lays several thousand eggs a day and delegates the tending of them entirely to slaves—but even at that rate Mrs. Bee is at a decided disadvantage in the work of perpetuating the species compared with a political sorehead who keeps reasonably busy sowing dissensions. A social scandal in a country town is a slow spreader alongside a well directed spirit of dissatisfaction with the work of a new congressman.

Keep your sorehead crop mowed tight to the ground and then cover the spot with rock salt every week or two. In other words, give them the Canada thistle treatment in its severest form. And even then they're sure to show their heads in a new place every little while.

You might as well make up your mind, right at the start, Ned, to defer being a statesman until after you're dead. If you're a good enough politician while living, your mourning constituents and the newspapers will take care of your promotion to the statesman class after you're gone. This isn't saying that you are to think of nothing and work for nothing outside of getting things for your fellows and holding your seat.

As near as I was able to size up the situation, there's a sentiment among the members of the national House that every Representative is entitled to have one pet hobby along the line of disinterested statesmanship, so long as he does not allow it to interfere with his regular duties as a "getter" for his own particular constituency.

There isn't much sentiment in this view of the matter but all the same it works out well in actual practice. If it eases his feelings any, let the new member regard the job-hunting and the hustling for special legislation demanded by influential constituents as the routine drudgery by which he is to hold his job while he works out his pet scheme of "broad statesmanship."

There's some consolation in this view of the matter—but he may be sure that the boys who are keeping up his fences at home and trying to kill out the Canada thistles, look at it that he's entitled to potter around. with his pet theory of legislation so long as he doesn't allow it to cut into their interests or those of his district. A fad for collecting old china, colonial furniture or rare coins would be tolerated in the same way by these fellows who man the political machine and keep it going.

If the congressional recruit can hold his seat long enough to make the people of the country at large connect his name with a particular line of legislation, his followers will swell with pride because he has made good, gets his name in the papers and is classed as an authority. But the congressman who allows himself to think that his reputation as a statesman or legislative specialist is going to excuse him from drumming up places in the departments for the boys is going to be left at home with plenty of time on his hands in which to write reminiscences for the Eastern Magazines.

So, set it down at the start, that your statesmanship is a luxury to be cultivated in moments of leisure. Of course, it's not particularly stimulating to one's patriotism to take this view of the case, but the practical man will square himself to actual conditions—and if these are not now the conditions, things have changed mightily since I used to haunt the departments and lie awake nights trying to pipe lines of influence into the working department of the White House.

Perhaps you may feel that you've fooled around a legislature long enough to get on to all the important wrinkles that are really worth knowing so far as the general business of law-making is concerned; but I've found out that familiarity breeds blindness as well as contempt and that a man is likely to overlook an important point of the game in which he is a regular sitter. So, Ned, I'm going to lay down the law as it looks to me, on two things that you may be supposed to know just as well as I do. Anyhow, these tips will come in handy by way of emphasis to your own observation and will help you to start off your congressional career along practical lines.

First, square yourself with his majesty, the Speaker—and keep squared, no matter if you have to sell your shoes and sit up nights to do it. The man behind the gavel is the keeper of your destiny and the captain of your congressional soul. The nod of his head can do more to make or unmake you politically than a dozen speeches that are cheered from the gallery.

I had my lesson in the power of a speaker way back in my second legislative term when old Jeremiah Bless ruled the House. He was a great parliamentarian and his book on that subject was regarded as the real authority in our state. As you probably remember, he was the prince of political straddlers, had been ten times elected to the House and never twice on precisely the same ticket.

That year he was elected on what he called the Independent ticket—and as soon as he arrived at the state house he was powerful particular that there should be no confusion as to the precise complexion of his party affiliations. Oh! But he was a cunning old fox and had the audacity of a brindle bull dog!

There had been a close campaign and when we started in to organize the House and line up the members it developed that the two parties were equally divided and that old Jeremiah held the absolute balance of power. Of course, there was a quick scramble on the part of each side to capture the wily old straddler, who had in years past served one term as sneaker when he called himself a Republican.

But the crafty old fox refused to give definite encouragement to either side, although he kept up a constant flirtation with the leaders of both. This deadlock continued until the House convened and each party placed its candidate for speaker in nomination. After the eloquence of the nominating oratory had subsided old Jeremiah arose. Instantly the House became as still as a church during the passing of the contribution box. With a face masked in almost sober seriousness the man who held the deciding vote began his speech with the declaration:

"I am an Independent. My party has a candidate for the speakership of this honorable House and the necessity of presenting his name and claims devolves upon me."

This beginning was greeted with yells—for he was the only Independent in the assembly! For half an hour old Jeremiah held the House in close attention while he reviewed his own career and analyzed his own character with an impartiality that was magnificent. The sublime effrontery of the man simply dazed the members and carried them off their feet, and when he closed by offering his own name the cheers from both sides made the house ring.

Well, after the deadlock had held on for a few weeks and the public at large was howling for almost any kind of a speaker in order to get at the business of the session, old Jeremiah fixed up a deal with the Democrats, was elected speaker and took the gavel for a rule that undoubtedly gave Tom Reed pointers on the proper conduct of an American Czar. The Prophet, as we called him, ran things that Winter in a style that was a perpetual lesson in personal dictatorship and made the authority of an old-time master pilot on the Mississippi look like child's play.

Things hadn't been going on long before the fate of a big measure turned on the speaker's ruling. It was a simple parliamentary problem and the right of the matter was as clear as a man's privilege to kiss his own wife behind the pantry door. But the ruling that seemed inevitable was contrary to the interests of the forces with which the speaker was training. Naturally we all thought we had old Jeremiah at a decided disadvantage.

When the point was raised, however, he ruled against us and never batted an eye as he declared "The chair decides that the point is not well taken. The bill, therefore, passes to a third reading."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the leader of our side jumped to his feet and demanded the privilege of reading from an authority which he declared "The speaker of the house cannot fail to recognize as conclusive."

"Go ahead," said old Jeremiah.

The excitement was right up to concert pitch as the member finished reading the authority.

"Who wrote that book?" blandly inquired the speaker.

"The paragraph," returned the member, with a smile of triumph on his lips, "which so conclusively maintains our contention, is from the able treatise written by the speaker of this House, the Honorable Jeremiah—"

A howl of derision interrupted the member's remarks at this point and we waited to see how gracefully old Jeremiah would back water. A thump of the gavel restored order and the speaker smilingly said:

"The chair does not recognize the work from which the gentleman quotes as having the weight of an authority. To his personal knowledge the book abounds in statements and conclusions that have been repeatedly proved erroneous—and in the opinion of the speaker of this House there is not in the whole work a more unsound and mistaken statement than that which the gentleman has read in your hearing. The decision of the chair will not be revised unless some member can bring forward a better authority than has been cited."

Some of our crowd were so mad that they couldn't appreciate the sublime audacity of old Jeremiah's ruling against himself; but it hit the funny bone of most of us so hard that the sting of unjust defeat died out with the roar of laughter that went up from every part of the house.

A little later, however, a situation arose which we thought covered all emergencies and didn't leave a hole as big as a pin point through which the old fox could crawl out. Just before intermission the speaker made a ruling which, when brought to bear on a measure that was coming up in the afternoon, would kill the progress of a big railroad bill which the speaker's crowd was pushing. The trap had been carefully laid by our boys, who were fighting the bill, and we were as tickled as a girl with her first proposal when old Jeremiah fell into it and put himself on record regarding the point of issue.

He hadn't been in his room five minutes when the general counsel of the interested road was admitted.

"Mr. Speaker," said the railroad emissary, "I'm afraid that you don't realize that your last ruling will absolutely kill No. 409 dead—and that the opposition is only waiting to throw your own ruling back in your face within three hours after you've spoken it."

Then after stroking his beard for a moment the caller added: "And I've been informed—reliably, I hope—that you are not hostile to the measure."

"No," easily replied Jeremiah, "the bill's all right, but I am going to show that bunch of smartie school boys that there's more than one way to skin a cat and that a real prophet don't have to work a miracle and make the stream of parliamentary practice run up hill in order to leave them in the lurch. You just rest easy and see what happens when they start in on their little game."

After recess, and just before the railroad bill was reached, the speaker called an ambitious young Republican to the chair and then retired to the lounging room. This young chap had served two or three terms before and had a notion that he knew more about parliamentary law than any speaker who had ever occupied the chair—and particularly than old Jeremiah. And besides that, he came from a district in which the railroad most to be benefited by the bill had its largest shops.

In other words here was a chance for him to give the speaker's ruling a black eye and at the same time give the interests that controlled the politics of his bailiwick just what they wanted. Of course, there was a howl of rage, but we had to take our medicine. He ruled against us, and took five minutes in which to explain why he differed from the ruling given in the forenoon by the regular speaker.

After this experience I didn't need to be told that the main thing in making a record as a lawmaker is to have a line on the speaker. And I also concluded that it's worth while to keep in touch with the men who are likely to be called to the chair when the speaker is absent or taking a little breathing spell.

Then don't forget that the press gallery of the House is a most important part of the situation. Many a Washington correspondent wearing a small hat has done more to make certain congressmen into statesmen than all the oratory, flowers and game dinners they managed to pull off in the course of their distinguished careers. Be useful to the newspaper boys, Ned, and you can afford occasionally to step on the toes of some mighty important individuals who prance around in the statesmen stables and consider themselves mighty showy stock.

The only thing that a congressman can afford to steal is news, and he shouldn't do that if there is any harm to come of it. But when he can tip off a good thing to his friends in the press gallery he's adding a leaf to his laurels and a line of praise to his public record as a sure-enough statesman.

You make mention in your letter of the "fruits of victory." I don't wholly share the pessimistic view of the book of Ecclesiastes on this score; they have yielded me something more than "vanity of vanities," but all the same you'll never gather a larger harvest of that sort of fruit than right now, when you're reading congratulations and getting your grip ready for the trip to Washington.

After you get into the harness in the House you'll find just as much trimming and backscratching as in the Legislature, only it's on a bigger scale. Perhaps you think you're going to be thrown with men of big caliber who are above petty things.

I thought so too—until I saw a real statesman, one of the drive-wheels of the House, get as mad as a hornet over the fact that his committee didn't get the room he wanted. You know how a boy acts when he sees his girl on another fellow's sled? Just make up your mind that this kind of juvenile history is repeated every day by the distinguished statesmen with whom you are enjoying the privilege of intimate association.

I don't want to throw cold water on the bare back of your new-born joy, Ned, but in all the fruits of victory you'll never taste anything sweeter than the grip of happiness that clutched your throat that night when you came down from the convention and your wife hugged you as you tried to tell her how it all happened.

Just give her my best regards.

Yours as ever,

William Bradley.