Chapter 21

A POLITICAL DEBUT.

Peter declared the meeting adjourned as soon as the results of the election had been read, and slipped away in the turmoil that immediately followed, without a word to any one. He was in truth not bewildered—because he had too much natural poise and phlegm—but he was surprised by the suddenness of it all, and wanted to think before talking with others. So he took advantage of the mutual bickerings and recriminations which seemed the order of the day, to get back to his office, and there he sat, studying his wall for a time. Then he went to bed, and slept as quickly and as calmly as if he had spent his evening in reading the “Modern Cottage Architecture” or “Questions de Sociologie,” which were on his table instead of presiding at a red-hot primary, and being elected a delegate.

The next morning Dennis came to see him as early as well could be.

“Misther Stirling,” he said, his face expanding into the broadest of grins, “let me salute the delegate to the State convention.”

“Look here, Dennis,” said Peter, “you know you had no business to spring that on me.”

“Ah, sir! Shure, when that dirty little spalpeen av a Caggs went back on us so, what could Oi do? Oi know it’s speak to yez Oi ought, but wid de room yellin’ like that it’s divilish tryin’ to do the right thing quick, barrin’ it’s not hittin’ some one’s head, which always comes natural.”

“Well,” said Peter, “of course I’m very much pleased to have been chosen, but I wish it could have been done with less hard feeling.”

“Hard feelin,’ is it?”

“Yes.”

“Shure, the b’ys are as pleased and kindly this mornin’ as can be. It’s a fight like that makes them yieldin’ an’ friendly. Nothin’ but a little head-punchin’ could make them in a sweeter mood, an’ we’d a given them that if little Caggs had had any sense in him.”

“You mean Gallagher and Blunkers and the rest of them?”

“Av course. That little time last night didn’t mean much. No one feels bad over that. Shure, it’s Gallagher was in my place later last night, an’ we had a most friendly time, he treatin’ the whole crowd twice. We’ve got to fight in the primary to keep the b’ys interested, but it’s seldom that they’re not just as friendly the next day.”

Peter looked at his wall. He had not liked Gallagher at either time he had met him. “Still,” he thought to himself, “I have no right to prevent him and Dennis being friends, from the little I’ve seen.”

“Now, sir, about the convention?” said Dennis.

“I suppose Porter is the best man talked of for the nomination,” remarked Peter.

“Begobs, sir, that he’s not,” said Dennis. “It’s Justice Gallagher was tellin’ me himself that he was a poor kind av creature, wid a strong objection to saloons.”

Peter’s eye lost its last suggestion of doubt. “Oh, Justice Gallagher told you that?” he asked. “When?”

“Last night.”

“After the primary?”

“Av course.”

“Whom does he favor?”

“Catlin.”

“Well, Dennis, you’ve made me a delegate, but I’ve got to vote my own way.”

“Shure, sir, Oi’d not have yez do any thin’ else. It’s yezself knows better than me. Oi was only tellin’ yez what the Justice—”

A knock at the door interrupted him. It proved to be Gallagher, who greeted them both in a hearty, friendly way. Peter brought another chair from his bedroom.

“Well, Mr. Stirling, that was a fine contest we had last night,” said his honor.

“It seemed to be earnest,” said Peter.

“It’s just as well our friend here sprang your nomination on us as a surprise, for if we had known, we should not have put up an opposition candidate. You are just the sort of a man we want to represent us in the convention.”

“I have never met my colleagues,” said Peter. “What kind of men are they?”

So he got Gallagher’s opinion, and Dennis’s opinion. Then he wanted to know about the candidates, asking questions about them at considerable length. The intentions of the other city delegates were next introduced. Finally the probable planks of the platform were brought up. While they were still under discussion Gallagher said the sitting of his court compelled him to leave.

“I’ll come in some time when I have more to spare.”

Gallagher went to his court, and found a man waiting for him there.

“He’s either very simple or very deep,” said Gallagher. “He did nothing but ask questions; and try my best I could not get him to show his hand, nor commit himself. It will be bad if there’s a split in a solid delegation!”

“I hope it will be a lesson to you to have things better arranged.”

“Blunkers would have it that way, and he’s not the kind of man to offend. We all thought he would win.”

“Oh, let them have their fights,” said the man crossly; “but it’s your business to see that the right men are put up, so that it doesn’t make any difference which side wins.”

“Well,” said Gallagher, “I’ve done all I could to put things straight. I’ve made peace, and got Moriarty on our side, and I’ve talked to this Stirling, and made out a strong case for Catlin, without seeming to care which man gets the nomination.”

“Is there any way of putting pressure on him?”

“Not that I can find out. He’s a young lawyer, who has no business.”

“Then he’s a man we don’t need to conciliate, if he won’t behave?”

“No. I can’t say that. He’s made himself very popular round here by that case and by being friendly to people. I don’t think, if he’s going into politics, that it will do to fight him.”

“He’s such a green hand that we ought to be able to down him.”

“He’s new, but he’s a pretty cool, knowing chap, I think. I had one experience with him, which showed me that any man who picked him up for a fool would drop him quick.” Then he told how Dennis’s fine had been remitted.

In the next few weeks Peter met a good many men who wanted to talk politics with him. Gallagher brought some; Dennis others; his fellow-ward delegates, more. But Peter could not be induced to commit himself. He would talk candidates and principles endlessly, but without expressing his own mind. Twice he was asked point blank, “Who’s your man?” but he promptly answered that he had not yet decided. He had always read a Democratic paper, but now he read two, and a Republican organ as well. His other reading lessened markedly, and the time gained was spent in talking with men in the “district.” He even went into the saloons and listened to the discussions.

“I don’t drink,” he had to explain several times, “because my mother doesn’t like it.” For some reason this explanation seemed to be perfectly satisfactory. One man alone sneered at him. “Does she feed yer still on milk, sonny?” he asked. “No,” said Peter, “but everything I have comes from her, and that’s the kind of a mother a fellow wants to please; don’t you think so?” The sneerer hesitated, and finally said he “guessed it was.” So Peter was made one of them, and smoked and listened. He said very little, but that little was sound, good sense, and, if he did not talk, he made others do so; and, after the men had argued over something, they often looked at Peter, rather than at their opponents, to see if he seemed to approve of their opinions.

“It’s a fine way he has wid the b’ys,” Dennis told his mother. “He makes them feel that he’s just the likes av them, an’ that he wants their minds an’ opinions to help him. Shure, they’d rather smoke one pipe av his tobaccy than drink ten times at Gallagher’s expense.”

After Peter had listened carefully and lengthily, he wrote to “The Honorable Lemuel Porter, Hudson, N.Y.,” asking him if he could give him an hour’s talk some day. The reply was prompt, and told Peter that Porter would be glad to see him any time that should suit his convenience. So Peter took a day off and ran up to Hudson.

“I am trying to find out for whom I should vote,” he explained to Porter. “I’m a new man at this sort of thing, and, not having met any of the men talked of, I preferred to see them before going to the convention.”

Porter found that Peter had taken the trouble to go over a back file of papers, and read some of his speeches.

“Of course,” Peter explained, “I want, as far as possible, to know what you think of questions likely to be matters for legislation.”

“The difficulty in doing that, Mr. Stirling,” he was told, “is that every nominee is bound to surrender his opinions in a certain degree to the party platform, while other opinions have to be modified to new conditions.”

“I can see that,” said Peter. “I do not for a moment expect that what you say to-day is in any sense a pledge. If a man’s honest, the poorest thing we can do to him is to tie him fast to one course of action, when the conditions are constantly changing. But, of course, you have opinions for the present state of things?”

Something in Peter’s explanation or face pleased Mr. Porter. He demurred no more, and, for an hour before lunch, and during that meal, he talked with the utmost freedom.

“I’m not easily fooled on men,” he told his secretary afterwards, “and you can say what you wish to that Stirling without danger of its being used unfairly or to injure one. And he’s the kind of man to be won by square dealing.”

Peter had spoken of his own district “I think,” he said, “that some good can be done in the way of non-partisan legislation. I’ve been studying the food supplies of the city, and, if I can, I shall try to get a bill introduced this winter to have official inspections systematized.”

“That will receive my approval if it is properly drawn. But you’ll probably find the Health Board fighting you. It’s a nest of politicians.”

“If they won’t yield, I shall have to antagonize them, but I have had some talks with the men there, in connection with the ‘swill-milk’ investigations, and I think I can frame a bill that will do what I want, yet which they will not oppose. I shall try to make them help me in the drafting, for they can make it much better through their practical experience.”

“If you do that, the opposition ought not to be troublesome. What else do you want?”

“I’ve been thinking of a general Tenement-house bill, but I don’t think I shall try for that this winter. It’s a big subject, which needs very careful study, in which a lot of harm may be done by ignorance. There’s no doubt that anything which hurts the landlord, hurts the tenant, and if you make the former spend money, the tenant pays for it in the long run. Yet health must be protected. I shall try to find out what can be done.”

“I wish you would get into the legislature yourself, Mr. Stirling.”

“I shall not try for office. I want to go on with my profession. But I shall hope to work in politics in the future.”

Peter took another day off, and spent a few minutes of it with the other most promising candidate. He did not see very much of him, for they were interrupted by another caller, and Peter had to leave before he could have a chance to continue the interview.

“I had a call to-day from that fellow Stirling, who’s a delegate from the sixth ward,” the candidate told a “visiting statesman” later. “I’m afraid he’ll give us trouble. He asks too many questions. Fortunately Dewilliger came to see me, and though I shouldn’t have seen him ordinarily, I found his call very opportune as a means of putting an end to Stirling’s cross-examination.”

“He’s the one doubtful man on the city’s delegation,” said the statesman. “It happened through a mistake. It will be very unfortunate if we can’t cast a solid city vote.”

Peter talked more in the next few days. He gave the “b’ys” his impressions of the two candidates, in a way which made them trust his conclusions. He saw his two fellow delegates, and argued long and earnestly with them. He went to every saloon-keeper in the district, and discussed the change in the liquor law which was likely to be a prominent issue in the campaign, telling them what he had been able to draw from both candidates about the subject.

“Catlin seems to promise you the most,” he told them, “and I don’t want to say he isn’t trying to help you. But if you get the law passed which he promises to sign, you won’t be much better off. In the first place, it will cost you a lot of money, as you know, to pass it; and then it will tempt people to go into the business, so that it will cut your profits that way. Then, you may stir up a big public sentiment against you in the next election, and so lay yourselves open to unfriendly legislation. It is success, or trying to get too much, which has beaten every party, sooner or later, in this country. Look at slavery. If the Southerners had left things as they were under the Missouri Compromise, they never would have stirred up the popular outbreak that destroyed slavery. Now, Porter is said to be unfriendly to you, because he wants a bill to limit the number of licenses, and to increase the fee to new saloons. Don’t you see that is all in your favor, though apparently against you? In the first place, you are established, and the law will be drawn so as to give the old dealer precedence over a new one in granting fresh licenses. This limit will really give the established saloon more trade in the future, by reducing competition. While the increase in fee to new saloons will do the same.”

“By ——, yer right,” said Blunkers.

“That’s too good a name to use that way,” said Peter, but more as if he were stating a fact than reproving.

Blunkers laughed good-naturedly. “Yer’ll be gittin’ usen to close up yet, Mister Stirling. Yer too good for us.”

Peter looked at him. “Blunkers,” he said warmly, “no man is too good not to tell the truth to any one whom he thinks it will help.”

“Shake,” said Blunkers. Then he turned to the men at the tables. “Step up, boys,” he called. “I sets it up dis time to drink der health of der feller dat don’t drink.”

The boys drank