University of Virginia Library

19. THE GRAFT AND THE GAFF.

Wherein William Bradley offers a new commandment that "He who takes the graft shall also take the gaff," and tells the story of Senator Soapy, who went after the Assistant Postmaster General and got what was coming to him.

Brokenstraw Ranch, —, 19—.

Dear Ned: —

So your short Washington experience has already taught you that men who have acquired the habit of being much closeted are not always open to the charge of making many prayers—that is, of the devotional sort—and that it's worth a new member's reputation for common honesty and common decency to be seen in private conversation with some of the men who hold down seats in the House and Senate. That's a good beginning, for in Congress a man is known by the company he doesn't keep.

While all of the Ten Commandments are strictly pertinent to the modern politician, I'd like to offer a rider to that omnibus bill on good morals in these words: "He who takes the graft shall also take the gaff."

It's a long time since I took a nip of beauty sleep in a Senate cloak room; but there are some observations that came to my eye there that stick to me like burrs in the coat of an Irish setter, and all of them seem to be focused in this new commandment. There was one incident in particular that drove this home to me hard.

The same winter that gave me a seat in the Senate also elevated to that dignity—and it is a dignity, too—a dapper and oily gentleman who came up from one of the staid old states of the East. He made his appearance in a sack coat and a pair of trousers that would have made a star outfit for a wheel of fortune fakir at a county fair.

The checks of that suit simply shouted, and he wore the first fire-red necktie, so I was told, that had ever invaded the Senate chamber on the neck of a member. The general modesty of the human landscape which he offered for the inspection of his distinguished colleagues was emphasized by the glare of a diamond stud about the size of a marrow-fat pea. To top it all, his head was crowned with a silk hat fresh from the haberdasher's. All in all, his get-up was a work of art if its object was that of giving his fellow Senators a jolt that almost threw them out of their seats.

They took one look at him, and then the frost line began to circle around every one of them. He could empty the cloak room on sight, from that time forward, about as quick as if he had the mange, so far as the dignified old wheelhorses and the society contingent were concerned. They gave him a rating, right at the start, that would have put him out of business if it hadn't been for the fact that party lines were drawn desperately close, that Winter, on several measures of immense importance. The atmosphere that he came into that day would have frozen the fins of an Alaskan seal.

You know that I have a weakness for the under dog, Ned, and so I made up my mind to give him a friendly chance, so far as I was concerned. Then, too, every new member is likely to feel a bit lonesome and awkward when he first tries to live in the high altitude of the United States Senate. He knows that it's up to him to look like a statesman at work and he feels about as useless, isolated and misplaced as a Chinese image on the marble center-table of a farm-house parlor.

Naturally this community of interest drew the new members together like a bunch of yearlings in a first snowstorm. Huddling together helped to take off the chill and make us feel that we weren't quite so much alone in the cold world. And when we bunched up that way we didn't ask for references or pedigrees. We were willing to ask no questions and to find each other out, gradually.

But there was one member of the Awkward Squad who rose superior to his surroundings in the course of a fortnight—and he was Senator Soapy, as the pages and clerks soon nicknamed the new member with checkered clothes and the silk hat. And the boy who gave him that name had bought experience handing up a dollar to a traveling soap-fakir whose wagon had invaded his home town. Never was a fitter name given to a human being for, the minute that fellow was able to get the recognition of the Chair, he began to play the tricks of the soap wagon; and he kept on selling soap until—well; I'm getting a little ahead of my story!

Because I didn't give him the full force of a Manitoba wave and freeze him stiff the minute he came near me, Senator Soapy warmed up to me like a brother in distress and told me the story of his life, in installments. He came, he said, of poor but honest parents and had made his own way since he was big enough to wear long trousers and play with a razor. There wasn't anything in the standard obituaries of self-made statesmen that had been left out of his early struggles excepting nights of study by the glare of a pine knot fire, so he confided to me.

Before he left the district school the fires of oratorical passion had begun to burn in his breast and he was a seasoned spellbinder at sixteen. He didn't say anything about doing stunts at county fairs or serving a long and faithful apprenticeship under the instruction of an expert soap-fakir, but he did confess that his first lucrative employment was in the capacity of a traveling teacher of elocution.

But, according to his account, he soon tired of mouthing the utterances of other great minds and decided to enter a profession in which he could find full swing for his oratorical genius and pour out his soul in the tones with which he had clothed the thoughts of others, to the delight of thousands.

So he settled down to the study of law in a country town and before he had been admitted to the bar he was on the stump making the welkin ring with the noise of his eloquence. From that time forward, he assured me, he had fought his way steadily onward and upward until his triumphal election to the United States Senate.

While he didn't say that he was exactly expecting that the Presidential nomination would be thrust on him in about eight years, he indirectly intimated that a good many repairs would have to be made in the White House in order to make it thoroughly habitable for a man of his sensitive and somewhat delicate physique.

There was, however, one fly in his ointment that always bobbed up on the surface whenever he discussed the favorite theme of his own hand-made career. This was an implacable enemy. Although he seasoned his talk with frequent hints of this mysterious and relentless pursuer who had "dogged his footsteps" from the time he made his first run for the Legislature, I noticed that Senator Soapy was careful not to call names or give me any clew to the identity of his dark Nemesis. But he made it clear that this fellow had the vengeful malice of an Apache Indian.

"But I'll have his scalp before long," the Senator would chuckle in his sudsy way. "That's one of the things I'm here for. He'll get the gaff and get it hard if I don't turn another trick while I'm here. You just wait and see. Every man who has ever reached any degree of achievement, I guess, has had some envious dog snapping at his heels. Of course, I'm beyond his power to harm and I could afford to ignore him—but I'm human, sir, and I propose to put him where he can no longer nag me. I intend to have my mind clear for the larger tasks and responsibilities of my position."

Just about this time I happened to meet up with one of the Assistant Postmaster-Generals—a tall, lanky, raw-boned, grass-fed man who made me feel that he was sound to the core the minute I grasped his hand. He was as handsome as a hemlock slab, and you could feel the slivers of his aggressive honesty at first touch. Somehow I cottoned to him right from the start and whenever I got to feeling a little lonesome for the company of a man who looked at things on my level, had the smell of the good old country sod about him and hadn't been coated with Washington varnish, I would send for Hank Murray and we'd have a heart-to-heart talk at Harvey's.

We didn't swap family secrets for a long time. He knew how to hold his tongue and I liked him better for not giving up all he knew. One night, however, we touched up a little closer than ever and finally, in his shy, awkward way he said:

"I've had something on my mind a long time, Senator, and I guess I'm close enough to you now, to speak out in meeting."

"Sure," I replied, "spit it right out."

"Well, I'll do it," he replied, putting down his knife and fork and looking me square in the eye. "You've been in Washington long enough to know that one of the chief branches of business here is knocking; scandal is a fine art in these parts and the 'poison of asps,' as the Scriptures say, is one of the principal circulating mediums. I've made it a rule to keep my mouth shut along those lines, but tonight I'm going to break over and make an exception.

"I've noticed that you train a good deal with Senator Soapy—and, what's worse, I've heard some of the best men here comment on that fact. He's a grafter from way back—I know what I'm talking about—and you're getting tarred with his stick, in the minds of some mighty good men who wouldn't be seen in private talk with him, just by the mere fact of your association with him. I know you're not his kind and I don't want to see you handicap yourself with a reputation for intimacy with him."

"What do you know about him?" I asked.

"I know all about him," replied Hank, rapping the table with his fist. "I've fought him in his own district from the time he made his first stump speech—fought him because he was as crooked and slippery as a water snake. He's spent the best part of his life since he began to read law trying to kill me out because I couldn't be scared or bought into silence on the subject of his grafting.

"I came into his district and bought a country newspaper about the time he showed his head above the political waters and began to wriggle his way toward a seat in the Legislature. Before I'd been in the place two months I caught him, red handed in a nasty piece of graft that turned my stomach. Of course, I said things in my paper and washed out a few articles of party linen in the editorial, columns. That started the fight, and it's been going ever since.

"But he was as slick as he was slimy and I couldn't always head him off. He finally landed in the Legislature and there he turned some tricks to make a square politician ashamed of his race. Later we locked horns for the Congressional nomination; he captured it, but was snowed under at the polls. In fact, the whole state went against us. He became the leader of one faction in the state and I flocked with the other. When we went into the Presidential campaign a sort of truce was patched up and I was made Secretary of the State Central Committee. The fight was a stiff one but by hard plugging we won out.

"Of course that cut a considerable figure in the general result and the President indicated that he'd like to do the handsome thing by us. The leaders of our side went on to Washington and had a talk with him. They told him that I wasn't much good in the log-rolling branch of politics but I couldn't be scared or bought; that I was too square-toed to make much headway for an elective position—in short, that I was just a plodder without any streak of graft in me. The President said that he was looking for just that stripe of a man for a certain place—and that's how I came to be appointed to this position."

"But," I interrupted, "didn't Soapy make a fight against your appointment?"

"Oh! yes; a little one, just to save the point," answered Hank. "But he was glad to have me taken out of the state so I'd be less in his way. He had some dirty schemes he wanted to work when I couldn't be there to watch him. And he worked 'em, too!

"Then came the Senatorial fight. All my life I've preached against offensive partisanship and insisted that the men on the government payroll, especially in the Departments here in Washington, ought to stick to their desks and tend to their knitting instead of riding the country in the interests of politics. So, you see, he rather had my hands tied on the score of offensive partisanship and there was nothing for me to do but stay here and let the other boys make the fight against him.

"But he played the soap trick to the limit and finally landed—by the help of every big corporation doing business in our state. But he can't last for he can't pass up the chance to make a petty graft—and men who are after small graft invariably get careless and sooner or later play themselves into the hands of justice. All this and much more to the same point has made me break over and warn you against Senator Soapy."

Right after that talk with Hank, I met the Senator at the White House, waiting for an interview with the President. He buckled his arm through mine and said:

"We'll go in together—nothing private in what I want to see His Excellency about."

His Excellency!—that was just like Senator Soapy. He would have licked the President's boots in the presence of witnesses if he'd been given half a chance. His toadying in this direction later made him the laughingstock of Washington. But to get back to my story! We went in together and after Soapy had slobbered over the President a little he came to the point with the remark:

"I've come, sir, to call your Excellency's attention to a man by the name of Hanky Murray now holding a position as one of the Postmaster-General's assistants."

"Senator," interrupted the President, "I'm always delighted to have my attention called to this man. If your state has any more such men I will thank you to present their names. The public service needs more like him. It would be a personal gratification to me to advance him to a still higher position, but that is impossible just now. Besides, his rugged honesty and his plodding faithfulness are especially needed in the difficult place he now fills. Personally, I lean upon him heavily, for his loyalty and judgment save me from many complications and mistakes in the matter of appointments in the post office service."

That was the neatest blow from a glove hand I ever saw given in high places. Soap had come to knock his enemy out of official and political life and the President had taken the words out of his mouth, put forward the presumption that the Senator had called to ask for a promotion for him instead. Of course, Soapy was not fool enough to make any reply to the President beyond a muttered "Thank you, sir." I remained and as the Senator went out of the room I caught a gleam in the tail of the President's eye that showed he had been loaded for his caller and had given him this shot with malice aforethought.

After that Soapy and I didn't spend much time hanging over the garden gate together and the temperature of our relationship dropped to the zero point—and below. And by the same token, my friendship with Hank grew and flourished until we were as thick as two schoolgirls in the throes of a first feminine affinity. When the new President was elected and took hold of the plow handles Hank said to me:

"The first thing Soapy will ask of him will be my discharge. That was why he did such hard work in the campaign and never lost an opportunity to crowd himself into the presence of the chief candidate. He thinks his eloquence and activity have made him so solid with the President that he can yank me out of my place on first call—and maybe he can."

Before the cabinet officers had warmed their chairs, Senator Soapy was on hand to pour his poison into the ears of the new President. But it so happened that a private friend of the Chief Executive had given him a straight line on the two men—and the word of that friend outweighed, with the President, miles of preferred charges and tons of Senatorial pull. I have it on inside authority that the setback the President gave Senator Soapy in that interview was something to shame a goat.

The Assistant Postmaster General stayed in his place and was made to feel that he had the confidence of the administration. With this backing he quietly plodded ahead and soon turned up some big frauds in the department that put a few fellows who had cut a wide swath in Department affairs behind the bars. While this made a big mess in politics it put Hank's stock way up and made him so solid with the President that a load of dynamite couldn't have dislodged him,

About the time this rumpus began to quiet down a little, one of the head inspectors, who came from the Senator's state, dropped into Hank's private office, closed the door and said:

"There's something doing, now, sure. Last night Senator Soapy came to my room and made a—well; I'd call it a straight proposition."

You can bet the Assistant Postmaster General pricked up his ears at that and asked for a full bill of particulars.

"He said," continued the inspector, "that some mighty good friends of his were interested in financing a large industrial enterprise which had just been ruled out of the use of the mails by a Department order."

"A get-rich-quick-scheme?" interrupted Hank.

"Yes; and a rank one, too! Then he explained that they were good fellows, that he was deeply interested in their welfare and that it would be worth a great deal to him if the inspector's report on the matter would be of a character that would lift the embargo against them and give them the use of the mails again. Incidentally he hinted that he could do a great deal for me. I told him I'd consider it."

"Did he say whether he made the request as a United States Senator or as an attorney?" inquired the Assistant Postmaster General.

"No, not in so many words."

"Well," returned Hank, rubbing his square rigged under jaw with his hand.

"You go back to him, get him to commit himself on that point. And have a man who knows him hid somewhere in your room as a witness."

Two days later the inspector returned, accompanied by his deputy.

"He said that he made the request as the attorney of the men—and this man saw him and heard him make the statement."

"That's all," said the Assistant Postmaster General. "And it's good for a term in the penitentiary!"

The Federal grand jury did its work all right and the gaff that Soapy, the King of Grafters, had prepared for quiet, honest Hank Murray landed right under his own liver and there was an empty chair in the Senate and a well-filled cell in a certain penitentiary. If he's out now, I'll bet that his experience with the kind of striped clothes that are fashionable in prisons has spoiled Soapy's taste for loud-checked garments!

And so, again, I say unto you: "He who takes the graft shall also take the gaff!" I never think of either of those political perquisites without reverting to the history of Senator Soapy!

Regards to the wife, Ned, and long life to both of you.

Ever yours, William Bradley.