CHAPTER XV
To Gordon, wearied and worn out in body and mind, the last few weeks of the campaign passed like an evil dream. Always the steady stream of callers, all more or less frankly with hand extended, not merely for the clasp of friendship, but with palm upturned as well. Always the same calculations with Doyle, based on the reports of their subordinates in city, town and ward. Always the same disbursements, some large, some small, but in number keeping at one steady high-water mark. And always, when evening came, and Gordon would think longingly of what one night of refreshing, uninterrupted sleep would mean to him, there was the meeting or rally which positively could not be missed, and Gordon, hating the sight of his big white automobile, would climb reluctantly in, and be whirled away to some hazily indefinite point on the map, to mount the platform and make his plea for a fair show for the rank and file, for the curbing of the Combine, and for an honest man—to wit, Richard Gordon—in the governor's chair.
Among the many disbursements made, there was one series which filled Doyle with wonder. In practically every case, Gordon, taking into consideration the fact that he was in a field entirely new to him, had handled the financial end of the campaign with extreme skill and good judgment. Therefore, to Doyle it seemed inexplicable that one Thomas Lynch, who had been appointed Gordon's representative in ward twenty-six, should be able to come to Gordon seemingly with the most outrageous demands, and yet, at the same time, in the vernacular, "get away with them." Once, indeed, Doyle had ventured to suggest that ward twenty-six was being treated in a manner far outweighing its political importance, but Gordon had answered him in a manner not to be mistaken, and Doyle, with an outward shrug of his shoulders, and much inward speculation, had let Mr. Thomas Lynch and Gordon run matters in twenty-six to suit themselves.
Three times in the last week of the campaign, in most unheard-of places and at most unheard-of hours, Gordon met the man whose weak eyes drove him to the wearing of blue goggles and to traveling in the protection of a closed carriage. The conferences were not over-long, and yet they seemed to be regarded as of importance by both of the principals, and after each of them, and especially after the last of the three, Gordon's spirits seemed better, and a certain well-known man about town, who for many years had made a specialty of election bets, in one day not only changed the odds from five to three on Endicott to practically even money, but in addition, even at the altered figures, with the greatest readiness covered everything in sight.
And thus matters went until at length the final night before election was reached. Gordon, in deference to time-honored custom, had reserved the night for a whirlwind tour of the city's twenty-six wards, but when the time arrived it found him for once under a doctor's care—a doctor who did not mix in politics, and who gravely recommended a month's rest, and an instant cessation from all work. Smiling grimly, Gordon left the celebrated practitioner's office, and went home to dose himself with brandy until, on the stroke of seven, gaunt, hollow-cheeked, with dark circles under his eyes, he climbed uncertainly into his place beside Doyle and started on the final effort of the campaign. And somehow, for six solid hours, with the platforms reeling under him, and the red fire dancing drunkenly before his eyes, he managed to get through his evening's task; half mechanically, indeed, and yet, served in good stead by his long practice in speaking and in meeting voters, so well that not one man in a hundred knew they were applauding a candidate who stood on the brink of nervous and physical exhaustion, finishing his battle on sheer nerve alone, game to the core, and ready to fight the people's fight against corruption in high places as long as he could stand or see. From the facts, however, the enterprising Doyle, weighing all the chances, decided that good capital could be made, and, quoting to himself with a grin his favorite phrase, "It has the additional merit of being true," he divulged to the reporters the true state of affairs, with the result that next morning the papers fairly teemed with splendid head-lines. "Gallant Gordon," "A Fighting Candidate," "Democratic Candidate Risks Death in the People's Cause," were some of them, and Doyle felt that for once, at least, the Ideal and the Practical had been effectively united.
And Doyle, indeed, in that last threatening night, came nobly to the front. To Gordon's benumbed brain, at many a critical moment, he furnished the inspiration, and always the inspiration was a happy one. Over in respectable ward ten, Gordon, finishing his plea for righteousness, for decency, for common honesty, had come out into the street to find his motor surrounded by a crowd of street urchins, all anxious in due time to become politicians, and all beginning on solid Democratic principles.
"That's Gordon," they chorused shrilly. "That's the guy." And then, in the jargon of the day, surrounding the automobile, they fairly rent the air with the insistent cry: "Well, what do you say?" "Well, what do you say?" "Can't get elected if you don't scatter the coin." "What do you say?"
The crowd, appreciating the incident to the full, paused. Gordon, not knowing whether he was in ward ten or ward twenty-six, mechanically was on the point of plunging his hand into his capacious, jingling pockets, when Doyle clutched his arm. "For God's sake," he whispered, "don't! Get up and tell the crowd you won't stand for such a thing. Give it to 'em strong."
The suggestion was enough. Gordon nodded, and in an instant was on his feet. "Gentlemen," he said quickly, "I have been telling you that there is something wrong in our state to-day, and when those in authority set the standards they do, what can you expect from the boys who, twenty years from now, will stand in our places? It gives us food for thought to see these boys, the products of our public schools, and yet I think the blame is scarcely theirs. If elected, I pledge myself to see that a course in the simple ethics of right and wrong in respect to our government is included in future in the curriculum of our schools, and for the present, let me say that, rather than give one of these boys a cent of the money for which he asks, without, I believe, fully realizing the enormity of which he is guilty, I will suffer defeat, and suffer it gladly, at the polls to-morrow."
He resumed his seat amid a genuine burst of cheers. "By George," one old conservative was heard to say to a friend, as the motor vanished in a cloud of dust, "that fellow's got the right ring to what he says. He means it, too, every word. I've voted the straight Republican ticket for thirty years, but I'm hanged if I don't give this man a vote tomorrow. I'd like to see what he'll do if he wins."
And so the evening passed. "Something to suit everybody," was Doyle's motto; the reporters were well looked after, and Gordon preached virtue in the tenth, eleventh and the kindred wards, and thence ran down the entire scale, until, out in twenty-six, about two in the morning, he used up the remnants of his voice in a fiery, scathing indictment of the money power—a speech savoring in its radicalism of sheer anarchy. Then, as Doyle got him back into the automobile, outraged nature at last rebelled, and Gordon was got home and to bed in a state bordering on collapse.
A long night's rest, a morning in bed, and the relief of having the strain of the campaign off his mind, all, however, combined to work wonders, and Gordon, choosing to watch the returns from a private office opposite the huge bulletin in front of his own newspaper office, by evening, attended only by Doyle and by his secretary, Field, was able to come down-town in comparatively excellent condition.
The street showed the usual election night scene: the crowds lining the sidewalks in front of the bulletin boards, and overflowing into the street itself; two rival brass bands engaging in a duel of sound; and ever, high above the waiting crowds, the huge lantern throwing the messages upon the glaring white of the screen.
Gordon drew a long breath. "Doyle," he said, "this is like the moment in a race, just after the starter has sent you to your marks, and just before he fires the pistol. Before the start you're all right, and the second you're off you're all right, but the intervening instant is hell."
Even as he spoke, the first returns were flashed upon the screen. The little town of Freeport was the first to register its vote. "Endicott—234; Gordon—139."
Gordon nodded approvingly, for Freeport had been stanch Republican since the memory of man. "What was it last year, Doyle?" he asked.
Doyle ran his eye down the table of last year's vote. "Two hundred ten Republican, eighty-four Democrat," he said quickly, "a good omen."
Quicker and quicker the returns came pouring in, almost faster than they could be flashed across on to the screen. Doyle and Field bent to their work, adding, comparing, calculating; Gordon stood silently watching the bulletins, each bearing its message of good or evil fortune. At length a little frown gathered upon his forehead; things in the western part of the state were not going to suit him. Gains, to be sure, he was making; in many instances, substantial gains; but as a whole he did not seem to be repaid for the efforts he had made. Once he turned disgustedly to Doyle. "The farmer," he observed, "is a pretty conservative animal. A little of the pig about him, and a good deal more of the cow."
Doyle grinned encouragingly. He had never deluded himself as to the leanings of the west and northwest. "Wait for the cities," he said. "They'll make up in five minutes for all you're losing in an hour now."
A half hour more and his words were verified. First, River Falls, with its huge mill population, went in a perfect landslide for Gordon; Linton and Kingmouth followed suit, and by nine o'clock Gordon was able to make the rough calculation that he had come into the capital itself only some fifteen thousand votes behind. On the capital, then, with its twenty-six wards and its vote of ninety thousand odd, depended the result.
From the crowd below Audible comment came floating up to the little group. "Win!" they heard one man shouting at the top of his voice, "of course he'll win! He'll take the city by thirty thousand!" Then a howl of protest, offers of huge sums of money, for the most part put forward by men without a dollar to their names, on the result of the city vote; finally a strident voice, repeating over and over again, "He can't beat the Combine!" "He can't beat 'em." "He ain't got nothing on Endicott through the city—not a vote!" Just for a second Gordon's eye met Doyle's, and simultaneously they smiled.
Ten minutes passed, and then the first ward made return—ward ten, the respectable. It went for Endicott, and by a fairly good margin, so good, indeed, that the Republican sympathizers in the crowd raised a little cheer. Fortunate, indeed, for them, that they did so while they had a chance, for with the next bulletin the rout of the Republicans and the signal defeat of the Combine began. Twenty-six came strong—overwhelmingly strong—for Gordon; twenty-four hundred and fifty-one to five hundred and twelve were the figures; then twenty, the ever-faithful Republican stronghold, actually, for the first time in its history, swung into the Democratic column by the narrowest of margins, then thirteen, fourteen, six and eight went by large majorities for Gordon, and, to complete the ruin already begun, the famous Combine wards, eleven, two and twenty-five, made the weakest showing to be imagined, somehow not even getting out their full vote, and giving Endicott, just where he might well have expected to make one last stand for victory, at the best nothing more than lukewarm, half-hearted support. "Overconfidence," the spokesman of the Combine said to the Press next day when interviewed; they had rated Gordon altogether too lightly, and had paid the penalty. That was all. And Gordon, carrying the city by rising twenty-five thousand votes, left the little room for his home, governor-elect of the state by a plurality of nearly ten thousand.
Doyle, with a hearty hand-shake, left him at his door. "'What we want,'" he quoted, without the shadow of a smile, "'is an honest man in the governor's chair.'"
Gordon, gazing with equal solemnity at his friend, for answer bared his head. "It has been," he said simply, "the people's fight," and then, for the greatest and most successful of us, after all, are only human, the governor-to-be and his right-hand man burst forth simultaneously into sudden, unlooked-for and most unseemly laughter. And they laughed until they could laugh no more.
