Show STUDENT LIFE what is usually termed “a rising young man” He had been elected from a district which always had returned heavy majorities for Chamberlain’s party The election in which McEwan was a candidate was an exception however and after a personal canvass he was elected by a small majority McEwan was always a thorn in the sides of the machine workers First because he had come from a district which had always been "‘red hot” for the machine and secondly because he had ideas about impeaching the mayor and creating inquiry and investigating boards It was evident that should any critical measure come up in which the “machine” was directlv interested McEwan would be the center of the fire from the “machine guns” Such a measure was the water works bill In the first place the water works system of Lakeport had been the property of the municipal corporation but now some brilliant mind concocted a scheme to lease the plant to a private company for a period of twenty-fiv- e years the municipality to receive a remuneration in the form of free water for all city public buildings and grounds as well as a specified sum of money This sum of money however was extremely small The matter was passed up to the Board of Aldermen for consideration The “machine” stood for leasing the plant so the four “machine” aldermen voted “aye” It was evident that now the strength 203 of the Reform party was going to that the “machine” was not going to lose the fight until all efforts had proved fruitless A two-thirmajority was necessary to pass the leasing measure and when the fight began the “machine” had four Pressure was first brought to bear upon Castleton of the Reforms Castleton owned a bakery and joined the Reform party for personal reasons rather than public ones so several tempting baits were thrown at him by the “machine” politicians and as Hodson put it “He swallowed bait and all” This gave five for leasing and four for the city keeping the water w’orks system There was a meeting of the “machine” leaders one day in “Boss” Chamberlain’s office and after long consultation they came to an agreement to mass all the strength on McEwan and to use both persuasion and threats upon him to bring him “into line” and thus give the necessary two-thirmajority For days the different leaders visited With McEwan and wined and dined him They brought all the pressure possible to bear upon him but yet he remained loyal to the Reforms Chamberlain and his crowd were getting desperate as the final vote was to be taken on Saturday night Accordingly on Thursday night Hodson was instructed to throw the last bait out to catch McEwan Hodson went to McEwan on Friday morning and promised him the nomin- be put to test and ds ds |