Show 67 P L U T cwb R eri I 1 TAVI by by DAVID D ga GRAHAM aal 1 P ghouls author 1 I h of 0 I 1 the ct coit co V T the he deluge dilago c tie etc tf d MOU 1 I io do not think you can cal bo be elect elected cl t replied As he be sat silent the puns puffs under his eyes swelled into brigs bass and the pallor of oe his sl skin in changed to the gi liay ay v which roa makes es the face look as it if a haze or a cloud lay upon it I 1 pitied him so profoundly that had I 1 ventured to speak I 1 should have uttered impulsive generosities orosi ties that would have cost me dear how rarely are our impulses of generosity anything but impulses to tolly folly injustice and wrong we shall see was all he said and he rose and aad shambled away they told me lie he made a sight wheedling and vh ning among the legislators but lie he degraded hlin sell self to some purpose ho he succeeded in rallying round him enouch members to deadlock the party caucus tvr for a month members from the purely rural districts where the sentiment of loyalty Is stion strongest gest where his pl piety aty and unselfish devotion to the ll 11 arty arty were believed in and his s 12 IfIe Filice as a statesman I 1 let this de dean tock continue 41 for dunkirk 11 ll 41 for schoolcraft until I 1 felt that the party throughout the state was sick of the struggle then woodruff bought at apiece D dierk Di chirk irk men to vote to transfer the conten center to the floor of a joint session of the tw houses after tour four days of balloting there seven dominick crof crofut ut men loreo me my first appearance as a cardl date on the seven seventy ty seventh hillot schoolcraft withdrew and all cne dominick croffut ciofi ut men voted for sc C on the seventy ninth ballot I 1 sot got in addition two opposition votes av kaoi n ruu ruff had bought for me at 1800 apiece the ballot was 11 0 grassmere Grass mere who was t ia positions complimentary vote 36 3 sayler 43 3 I 1 was a se ator C I 1 L tae aa united states there was a wild scene insults blows even wire exchanged and down at the car tal city laate dunkirk crawled upon a table and denounced me as an infamous ingrate i tr traitor altor a serpent lie he had warmed c r his bosom but the people of the stats state accepted it as natural and satisfactory T 1 A 1 V p ax enli i J 1 i 0 y A 34 nobody that knows me ever seas me when at that time that the vigorous and fearless earless yo boim chairman of the bartys state com commit in 1 tee lee should be agreed on as a promise an hour after that last b li l i lot he a filand left except some galling sympathizers from whom lie hid bid himself those who had been his firmest supporters were paying court to the new custodian of the plum tree tn the e governor was mine and tile the le legislature mine allne was the federal patronage also all ot of it it if I 1 chose tor for croffut was my dependent though lie he did not realize it mine also were the indefinitely vast resources ot of the members of my combine without my consent no man could get office anywhere in my state from governorship and judgeship down as tar far as I 1 cared to reach subject only to the check of public sentiment so easily defeated it if it bo be not defied I 1 was master of the malting making and execution of laws why not because I 1 was leader of the dominant party not because I 1 was a senator of the united states solely because I 1 controlled the sources of the money that maintained the political machinery of both parties the hand that holds the purse strings Is the hand that rules it if it knows how to rule tor for rule Is power plus ability I 1 was not master lecause because I 1 had the plum tree I 1 had bad the plum tree bo be cause was master the le legislature Isla turo attended to such of the demands ot of my combine and such ot of the demands of the public as I 1 thought it expedient to g grant ant and then adjourned woodruff asked a three months leave I 1 did not hear from froin or of him until midsummer when he sent me a cablegram from london lie he was in a hospital there out of money and out of health I 1 cabled him 1000 and asked him to come home as soon as he be could it was my first personal experience with that far from uncommon american type the periodic drunkard I 1 had bad to cable him money three times before h he e started when e cams came to me at washington in december ho he looked just as before calm robust cool cynical ard dressed in the very extreme of the extreme faglon fah fa chion lon I 1 reveled rt him as it if not gotling ling had happened it was not until the current of mutual liking was again flowing freely between us that I 1 said dor doc may I 1 impose on en your friendship to the extent of 0 an all intrusion into your private affairs aKal rs he started and gave me a quick look his color mounting yes he sat salil after a moment when I 1 heard froin you I 1 went on 1 I made some inquiries I 1 owe you no apology apol ORv you had riven given me a shock one of tho the severest of my life but they told me that you never let that that that peculiarity of yours interfere with business his head was hanging 1 I always go away he nobody that knows me ever sees me when at that time I 1 laid ray my hand ban on his arm doc why do you do blat sort of thing the scar came up into his f face ace to put agony into the reckless despair that looked from his eyes for an instant I 1 stood istook on the he threshold of ill his chamber of remorse and vain regret and well I 1 knew where I 1 was why not he asked bitterly theres always a of ln in side me and it grows until I 1 cant bear it and then I 1 irown drown it why IT I 1 very stupid for a man of your br brain airl cw an 1 theres nothing nothing in t alo 0 o world except deahn that cannot be wiped out or set right flay the game doc djay it with me for five years play it for all there is in it then go back isyou it you wan want to Us ile thought a long ions time and I 1 did not try to hurry him at length he said in ills his old offhand manner well ill go you senator ill not touch a drop and lie he whenever I 1 thought I 1 saw signs of the savage internal battle against the weakness I 1 gave him something important and absorbing to do and I 1 kept him busy until I 1 knew the temptation had bad lost last its power for the time this Is the proper place to put it on the record that he was the roost most scrupulously honest man I 1 have ever known ile he dealt with the shad shadiest lest and least scrupulous of moil men those who train their consciences to be the eager servants of their appetites he handled hundreds of thousands of dollars millions first and last all of it money for which he could uever never have been forced to account lie he had at one time as much as half a million dollars in checks payable to bearer I 1 am not confiding by nature or tiala training but I 1 am confident that he kept not a lionny for himself beyond his salary fi rd hs his fixed commission I 1 put his sary at the outset at ten thousand a year afterward after vard at fifteen finally at twenty ills his cimmie perhaps pei haps doubled it there are many kinds of honesty nowadays there Is corporate honesty not unlike that proverb pro verbia a honor among thieves which secures a fair or fairly fair division of the spoils then there is personal honesty v aich which subdivides into three kinds legal moral and instinctive legal honesty needs no definition moral honesty defies definition how hov untangle its Inter of motives of fear pride insufficient temptation sacrifice of the smaller chance in the hope of a larger finally there is instinctive li honesty the rarest the only bedrock bed rock kind give me the man who Is honest simply p fj because r it t never oce occurs to him and never could occur to him to be anything else that Is woodruff i there la is to be b e sure another kind ot of instinctively honest man lie he who disregards loyalty as well as self interest in his uprightness hut but there are so few of these in practical life that they may be disregarded perhaps I 1 should say something here as to the finances of 0 my co combine though it was w a S managed in the main like all these ical commercial machines that control both parties in all the states except c h a fo fow in the south my assessments upon the various members ot of my combine were sent fo for r several sears to me afterward to woodruff directly in 1000 and 1000 checks sometimes by mall mail and at other times by empress or messenger those these chocks checks woe wee always air ays payable pa bable to hearer bearer and I 1 made through woodrun woodruff for I 1 kept to the far background nall my combines affairs an arrangement ran gement with severa several 1 large banks in different parts of the state including one at the capital that the these checks were to be cashed with out ques 0 no matter who presented them provided there was a certain flourish under the line where the amount was written in figures sometimes t mes t those ese checks were signed by the corporation and sometimes they were ere the personal checks of the president or some other high official often the signature was that of a person wholly disconnected so far as the public knew once I 1 remember roebuck sent me a thousand dollar chock check SI signed tied by a distinguished chicago lawyer who was just then counsel to ills his opponent in a case involving millions a case which roebuck afterward won who presented these checks I 1 could more easily say who did not from the very beginning of my control I 1 kept ray my promise to reduce the cost of the political business to my clients when I 1 got the mach machine ine thoroughly in land hand I 1 saw I 1 could make it cost them less than a third of buhat they had been paying on the average for ten tell sears 3 ears I 1 cut off 02 almost at a stroke a horde of lobbyists hobbyists lawyers threat eners without vi influence and hangers on of various kinds I 1 reduced the payments for legislation to a system instead of the shameless scandal candal creating and wasteful abc tio do that had been going on for years in fact so cheaply did I 1 run the machine that I 1 saw it would be most imprudent to let my clients have tho the full benefit cheapness would have made them uncontrollably greedy and exacting and would have given them a wholly false idia of my value as soon as it 11 had bad slipped their short memories how cearly they used to ray so I 1 continued to make heavy as and put the surplus surp liis in a dserve fund tor for emergencies I 1 thought for example that I 1 might some day have trouble with one or more cre members member of my combine ny my reserve w would supply me with the munitions for forcing insurgents to return 0 on their agreements this fund was in no sense part of my private fortune nowhere else I 1 think do the eccentricities of 0 con belenco show themselves more inter stingly than in the various attitudes jt r the various political leaders to ivard the large sums which the ebig acles of commercialized politics place absolutely and securely under their I 1 have no criticism for fol any of cf these attitudes I 1 have hied long enough and practically enough to learn not to criticize the morals of men any more than I 1 criticize their facial contour or their physical physical build As many men so many minds and morals wro wrong dg tor for practical purposes is that which a roan man can cajole or compel h his I 1 s conscience to approve it so happened that I 1 had J L sense that 40 0 o use my aly assessments for my private financial profits would be wrong therefore my private fortune has been wholly the result of the opportunities which came through my intimacy with roebuck and such others of the members of my combine as were personally a agreeable ree able or perhaps it mould be more accurate to say not disagreeable for in the circumstances ell cum I 1 naturally sawa side of 0 those men which a friend must never see I 1 in n a friend I 1 could not help toward most of 0 these distinguished clients of mine much the feeling his lawyer his has for the guilty criminal he is defending to be continued |