University of Virginia Library

20. FLIRTING WITH THE FIXER.

Wherein William Bradley tells a few tales out of school about the underground work of Captains of Industry in the field of official corruption and illustrates the stages by which a business man descends from maidenly shyness to brazen recklessness in the art of "fixing."

Brokenstraw Ranch, —, 19—.

Dear Ned: —

I am not at all surprised at what you tell me about the attempt of the corporation president to reach you and head off your restrictive legislation, or at the brazen way in which he went about the job. When a Captain of Industry starts in at the fixing business he's as shy as an unkissed school girl in her first flirtation; but after he's become a little seasoned in the art of subverting official honesty he gets to be as brazen as the queen of a Dawson City dance hall.

It always riled me to see the reformers get out after a bunch of petty go-betweens and make more noise than an old-fashioned township wolf hunt in full swing—only to pull off the dogs and call a halt when the trail led right up to the door of some prominent Captain of Industry who was too good to have anything to do with politics. But if they could run down an insignificant fixer and land him it was a great moral victory that called for fireworks and the election of the prosecuting officers to some fat office, as a reward of merit.

The stages by which a fairly square business man descends to the moral plane of buying men right and left without a twinge of conscience, or consideration of anything but the price, are not generally known. I always wanted to take the lid off and look into the mental machinery of a man who had gone down that kind of a moral toboggan slide; and finally the chance came to me in a curious way. For six or eight years one of the slickest lobbyists that ever attended a session was hanging around the legislature. He was a mighty likable chap and had a way with him that got right in under your vest. But for all the fact that I cottoned to him from the start, I tried to land him and, session after session, had him watched and shadowed. But he was too cunning for me and sprung every trap I set for him without leaving so much as a hair behind to tell the story.

Then, he suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth and I didn't see a thing of him for years. In fact, I had almost forgotten him when, at the close of a campaign speech, in a Western town, he pushed through the crowd and shook hands with me.

"I've got a whole lot to tell you, Governor," he said, "and I want you to come up to the house, meet my wife and stay all night."

I was a little lonesome and the idea of spending the evening in a home instead of a hotel just fitted into my mood, so I accepted. His wife was a mighty sweet and comfortable little body and it was easy to see that she worshipped the ground Jim walked on.

When she went upstairs to put the children to bed, Jim and I repaired to the library, lighted up, and settled down to a regular heart-to-heart session. We'd never been intimate in the old days, but somehow he warmed up to me that night as if we'd been college chums.

"Governor," said Jim, "I'm mighty glad to have this chance to tell you some things that may make you think a little differently of me than you used to. You led me a lively dance when I was in the fixing business and I was busier dodging your shots than a lame rabbit chased by a pack of beagles in full cry.

"But now I'm out of all that kind of game—and out for good. What did it? The little woman! When I met her and got a line on her way of looking at things I saw a great light and dropped the whole business like a hot potato. Not that I didn't always hate it—I despised it. But I was born into it. My first job was as a page for a shifty old Senator who made a pet of me. Before I was fifteen all the dirty tricks of official life were commonplaces to me and I lived in an atmosphere that made me feel that the only question about such tricks was whether they were done in a smooth or a bungling way. And as soon as the men about me found out that I was up to snuff and as clever as any of the old hands at the game, I was pushed to the front fast.

"Because I was young and everybody seemed to take to me, the capitalists who had dirty work to do put the business up to me as swift as I could take care of it. Sometimes the jobs were pretty rank and I rebelled. Then they would simply put it cold that my hands were already dirty and that they could make it mighty hot for me. In other words, they had me; they knew it and I knew it, and they put the screws to me until I was ready to do anything they demanded.

"But you can bet on one thing, Governor—that I despised every psalm-singing hypocrite in the whole bunch of 'em. The boodle business starts right at the doors of the Captains of Industry, and those who are the loudest in howling for morality and reform are the meanest in the bunch. If men of their stripe didn't set out to get things fixed there would be precious little boodling and the professional fixer would be out of a job."

"Did you ever have a good chance, Jim," I asked, "to watch the way in which a capitalist starts into this game and develops as he goes along?"

"You bet I have!" he answered. "And it's funny how they change their tactics as they get seasoned to the game. There was old Donald McNeil—worth a million and as canny a Scotchman as ever sung a psalm. He sent for me to come to his house at eleven o'clock and 'rap lightly on the glass of the front door.' I did so, and he let me in himself. Evidently, all the other members of the family were in bed. Then he spent fifteen minutes preaching about the awful depravity of the gang of office holders that compelled respectable business men to resort to such 'doubtful means' to protect their interests. Then he haggled about the price—a petty $300—thought $200 ought to more than satisfy the 'public leeches.'

"Naturally I expected him to hand out the currency and finish the matter up. No, sir-ee! He put his voice way down and confided to me that if I would go into the writing room of a certain hotel, the next day at sharp noon, I'd see a man, at the desk, wearing a speckled carnation. I was to wear one of the same breed. The man would probably get up and go as I came in and I was to take the place he vacated at the desk and look under the blotter for an envelope. There was a scheme that, as a non-conductor of incriminating evidence, was worthy of a sophomore detective, and I'll bet it had taken Old Don a week to figure it out. In spite of the fact that he was mighty nervous when he whispered the plan to me, the faint smile on his lips as he finished his directions told me that he thought it was about as cunning a scheme as was ever hatched.

"Well, it went through like clockwork; the carnation man was there at the writing table, took a look at my speckled posey and then got up and left. I dropped into his seat, picked up the envelope from under the blotter and then went to deliver the goods.

"A few months later I received a telephone call from Old Don asking me to meet him the next Sunday, in the park, at a certain hour. He was on hand and we took a walk into the open where there could be no eavesdroppers. This time he didn't waste any breath in sermonizing about corrupt office holders, but plunged straight at the business in hand. I told him how much it would cost—a thousand dollars—to fix things up as he wanted them. After kicking on the price a little he finally admitted that the amount was just what he had figured on. Then he suddenly switched the subject, pointed to a distant tree and asked me if I could tell what kind it was. A minute later he said he must go and started away. I said I'd walk back to the cars with him when he incidentally remarked: 'Didn't you drop something?'

"On the ground was a long manila envelope and I was just about to spear it with my cane when he remarked: 'Oh! I wouldn't do that.'

"Of course, I tumbled then and picked up the envelope that he had dropped while I was looking at the scenery. This was a little bolder step, and I wondered how long it would take for the old capitalist to get actually careless.

"Not more than three months later, my telephone rang and old Don's voice called: 'Come over to my office right away.' I went and found my cunning, cautious old Captain of Industry in a howling rage. He used a good deal of language detached at random from the scriptures. After he once got it into his head that the only thing for him to do was to put up and put up heavy, and that it would take at least fifteen thousand dollars to grease the deal that he had in hand, old Don went to the vault, brought out several packages, broke the seals and counted out the money in bills of big denominations. As he lifted the last bill he exclaimed: 'Well here goes fifteen thousand dollars to hell—and, damn their hides, I'll never give them another cent!'

"'No so loud!' I interrupted. 'You don't seem to be quite as careful as you were at the start. In fact, I'd call it just a trifle reckless—the way you're carrying on today, leaving your office door wide open and handing out the goods in plain sight. Better use a little of the caution that you were so lavish with in the beginning.'

"'The infernal pirates!' was all he answered, as he fished around and found a shoe box for me to carry the money in.

"But it occurred to me that, while all of us concerned in the dirty mess were pirates all right, he was not only the captain of the crew but the chief enlisting officer. And if I've been on the inside of one such deal I have in a hundred of 'em. There are plenty of clean men at the head of big businesses, as there are lots of clean men in politics—but I'll tell you, Governor, that these reformers will never bring the real forces of corruption to terms until they train their guns on the Captains of Industry and quit throwing away their shells on the smaller fry who are simply the errand boys of the capitalists."

Jim said a whole lot besides this before we broke camp and went to bed that night; but the best thing about it came out when the little woman joined us in the library and Jim incidentally took hold of her hand and said:

"She knows all about it, Governor; I made a clean breast of it before we were married. And she didn't have to do any private preaching or special exhorting to convert me to her way of looking at the business, either. My moral senses had been stunted in the atmosphere which I'd breathed from a boy up and I could justify every trick I'd ever turned by a mighty handy and plausible line of philosophy—that is, I could until I began to get in touch with her conscience. Then my moral eyes began to open and the rottenness of the whole thing stood out before me so I could really sense it. In fact, I could almost taste it. Right there I threw it up, took to plain business and married the girl. I haven't made more than a quarter the money I used to when I was single and serving under the Black Flag—but I've kept in the straight and narrow path and I never knew before what it meant to be a man."

The wife gave his hand a little squeeze and I thought I could see signs of mist in her eyes.

"Did you have any of the money left over from the old chapter to begin the new one on?" I asked.

"I should say not! That kind of money doesn't stick. If any one tells you that there isn't any difference in money, don't you believe it, Governor. There's just as much difference in money as in folks. I didn't believe that once, but I know it now. You may put bad money—I mean money that comes in a crooked way—in a burglar proof safe and it'll get away. Mary and I've seen some rather tough times scraping along, but all the money that we have had has been clean."

While I couldn't bring myself to feel with Jim, that about nine-tenths of the moral responsibility for a corruption deal should be assessed to the capitalist as against one-tenth to the fixer and the one fixed, I tell you, Ned, the boy is right in shouldering the heft of the blame upon the Captain of Industry who is bound to have his taxes reduced, his "interests protected," and his net income increased no matter how many men he has to bribe to accomplish his purpose. When your fighting blood is up and you want to get out after big game these suggestions may be of service in pointing the way to something that is practical and will hit the "great gilded God of Corruption" (as old Cal Peavey used to say) right where he lives.

I'm glad that Kate doesn't like Washington life first rate. It shows she's made of good sensible stuff instead of being filled with the kind of sawdust that goes into the regulation society doll. Give her my best regards.

Yours faithfully, William Bradley.