The American: A Middle Western Legend (30 page)

IV

Emma was alone when Buck Hinrichsen came up, some what sheepishly, but Emma said, “Anyway, you felt that you had to see him today, and that's good, isn't it?”

“I think so.”

“Shall I order some breakfast for you, coffee anyway?”

“Nothing, nothing, thanks. How is he feeling, Emma?” Hinrichsen was dapperly dressed, fawn gloves, fawn spats, a large single-pearl tiepin, tight-fitting black coat, and a black bowler hat which he mechanically dusted with the edge of his gloves. He looked and acted the part of a routine middle-western politician, unimaginative, shrewd, calculating, a little better than average scavenger in the offal-heap of spoil; but with him, as with so many others, a relationship with Altgeld had induced a qualitative change. He became something more than he was; he had found a direction and he groped along it. His switch from Bland to Bryan had not altered his belief that there was nothing in America like Altgeld.

Emma replied, “I don't know.”

That could be; he understood that.

“You think you know Pete, but then you don't know him. I'm married to him, and I don't know him. But I learned about strength and I learned about struggle, Buck. You know, they crucified him; they nailed him up, and they put nails into every part of him. But it wasn't enough.”

“I know.”

“Why did they have to do it? Every paper in the country—until there isn't a little child anywhere who won't dream of that evil face, the popping eyes, the leer; that's the way they've painted him. No man ever was treated that way before. Buck, what's happening to this land of ours?”

“That's politics, Emma.”

“It's more than politics, and you know it. What did he do that they hate him so? Because he pardoned three men who were innocent? Because he spoke up for labor?”

Hinrichsen nodded.

“Did you see the cartoon in
Harper's Weekly
?”

Hinrichsen nodded again. He had seen the cartoon, Altgeld cloaked like a devil, the face contorted diabolically, the flames of hell rising from a smoking capital, and in his hands a shredded Constitution. Over his shoulder leered the insane face of Guiteau, Garfield's assassin, drawn to parody Altgeld, and a skeleton hand reached forward, holding a revolver. The caption beneath had read, “Guiteau was a power in Washington for one day. Shall Altgeld be a power there for four years?” No one who had seen it would ever forget it.

“Is that politics?” Emma asked. “Is it politics when you see those pictures every time you open a paper? I won't ask you if you think we can win, Buck; I won't insult your intelligence that way. They own this free country of ours. They own the press; they own the pulpit; they even own the food that comes from the earth. Do you see how much I've learned? Only, sometimes I wish I never knew any of it. Sometimes I wish I had been Emma Ford, quiet, stupidly, but maybe more happily. You ask how Pete is—when we went across the state and he spoke from the train, well, each time after he spoke he had only enough strength to crawl back into bed, and each time I thought he was dying. Do you know how pleasant that can be, Buck?”

Again, Hinrichsen nodded, and now Emma was overcome with remorse. “But you don't have to listen to all this. I'm insufferable. Can't I tell you something nice? I think that this time, when this is over, we'll tour the Continent. That's something I've always wanted—to get away from this and see all those wonderful civilizations, Italy and Paris and England. Do you know, we'd be presented to Queen Victoria—Pete says so and calls her an evil old bitch in the same breath. You see, my language has improved too; it would in such circumstances.…”

They talked on, and Emma relaxed. Hinrichsen told a story very well. His own anger could be biting and contemptuous, as when he told about hearing what he described as “… a dirty, miserable character called Theodore Roosevelt …” speak at the Coliseum just a few weeks before. Then, speaking to the Republican College League, Roosevelt had screamed: “Mr. Altgeld is a much more dangerous man than Bryan. He is much slyer, much more intelligent, much less silly, much more free from all the restraints of public morality. The one is unscrupulous from vanity, the other from calculation, and would connive at wholesale murder and would justify it by elaborate and cunning sophistry for reasons known only to his own tortuous soul. For America to put men like this in control of her destiny would be such a dishonor as it is scarcely bearable to think of. Mr. Altgeld condones and encourages the most infamous of murders and denounces the Federal government and the Supreme Court for interfering to put a stop to the bloody lawlessness which results in worse than murder. Both of them would substitute for the government of Washington and Lincoln, for the system of orderly liberty which we inherit from our fore fathers and which we desire to bequeath to our sons, a red welter of lawlessness as vicious as the Paris commune itself.…” And so forth and so on. “Well,” Hinrichsen said, “I got to Mr. Roosevelt afterward and I asked him, Have you ever met Altgeld? Oh, no, he said, oh, no, never. Of course, that was after he had satisfied himself about my credentials. They were Teddying him to death, our Chicago big boys, Teddy this and Teddy that, and there was something about young Theodore very much like a fat little teddy bear, believe me, Emma. A very estimable young gentleman, a damn highbrow snob—forgive the language, Emma—snotnose, I don't know of any other way to describe him, but estimable, distinctly estimable, and didn't want to talk to me or answer any questions until he had really ascertained that I was Secretary of State and not just some poor old bum who had pushed my way into his august presence. Then—oh, no, he had never met Mr. Altgeld, and wouldn't, of course. By god, he said, I should have to fight him if I did. How can I meet a man socially whom I may have to face with bared sword on the barricades?—So help me god, Emma, those were his very words! Can you imagine? But this young fellow is a card, Emma, someone we're going to hear from. It's not just that he's an idiot or a political climber; he's some weird combination of a moron and a Jeff Davis, and I'll be damned if I can figure it out.”

Hinrichsen paused, then spread his hands wide. “But I learned something. It made me see where I was wrong with Bryan, so dead-wrong. Bryan is like setting up pins in an alley, setting them up for no other reason than that they should be knocked down. That's why I'm here. I want to apologize to the Governor. I want to shake his hand.”

“You don't have to apologize, Buck.”

“Let me be the judge of that, Emma. When I make a mistake, I make them. That's an old story. You hear him, and then you go away and you say, what a wonderful speaker he is, and then you vote for McKinley. And Mark Hanna just lets Bryan talk. But tell me, were you in New York with Pete?”

“Yes. It was one of the good things. He walked into their own stronghold, and he was better than they were, better than any of them. Even their newspapers had to admit that Cooper Union was packed, and there were ten thousand more in the streets who couldn't get in, and workingmen—wherever Pete spoke, it was the workingmen who came to hear him. I never saw that before at political meetings. And they listen to what he has to say—”

Hinrichsen watched her and listened to her. He had been part of the same process; he had reacted to Altgeld; he had become something else, and so had she. He was listening to her when the Governor returned. Hinrichsen held out his hand and the Governor took it. There didn't have to be any explanations. But it seemed to Hinrichsen that he had never known what a small man Altgeld was, how frail; of the solid, earthlike strength of four years past, there was left now only the bright, searching eyes and a slow smile that let you into him, that invited you.

“Hello, Buck,” he said. “Have you come to bring me felicitations or condolences?”

Hinrichsen answered, seriously, “I came to see you.”

“Thanks.” Then, after a moment, “A good line at the polls.”

“How does it look?”

“Why, I don't know, Buck. What do you think? You've got a politician's nose. What kind of a smell is in the air today?”

“I think that even if Bryan loses, you'll still be Governor of Illinois.”

“If Bryan loses, I lose too. Let's face it, Buck, the ticket isn't going to win here and lose the rest of the country. Well, that suits me. Emma will tell you—it suits me just fine. I've had enough, Buck. If I'm licked today, I'm licked. My ears are pinned back, and I'll leave them right there. This is a dirty, rotten game we're in, and no matter how you fight it, it's still dirty. I want to wash my hands of it. I want to pay off my debts and go away. My word, Buck, I've never been out of this country, if you don't count the few months when I was on my way here. I want to see things; I want to relax.”

“We've still got a chance.”

“What kind of a chance, Buck? I saw Bathhouse John. He knows. He's got a scent like a hound dog. You know what he said, he said this is just what comes of trying to mix politics and good government. And, by God, he's not so wrong.”

“I still think we got a chance.”

“So do I. But not a hell of a big one.”

V

For a short while after Hinrichsen left, they were alone, and Altgeld went into the bedroom to lie down. Emma had drawn the shades; it was dark and warm and comfortable, and stretched out there, he was able to let his thoughts wander without any special attempt at cohesion. Vagrant thoughts, old ones and new ones. In his own mind, he felt that the election was lost, and as one does, he thought of the mistakes they had made, how they could have done things differently. If only Bryan had stood fast! If only he had answered charges with counter-charges! If only he had fought! But he didn't know how to fight; accused of socialism, he had denied it; accused of being pro-labor, he had denied it; accused of being against the reactionary supreme court, he had denied that too; he denied being anti-trust, anti-business, anti-labor, and in the end he was nothing but a golden voice that talked on and on of free silver. Well, that was the way, and now it was over. His own gubernatorial campaign had lagged a bad second, and he found himself accepting, very calmly, the fact of his personal defeat. He had come into that frame of mind slowly, and he wondered how he would react to the one chance in ten of victory—to go back to Springfield for four more long and trying years. He had pleaded with Sam McConnell to accept the gubernatorial nomination, but McConnell knew better. But McConnell wouldn't have been any more successful. If he, Pete Altgeld, only knew why—why would the people not rally to a concept of decency and honesty—if it was that? If there were men of good will and firm purpose, the system had to work; it had worked in the past; there were other changes, and somehow the country went on and became firmer and stronger. It had to happen now. Certain men today were richer, more powerful than any who had lived in the past, and it was only natural that they should buy their way into the government. But was it their government—was it their country, body and soul? He had a quick, frightened vision of Rockefeller, Morgan, Pullman and the rest of them—laughing, laughing uproariously at the antics of the middle-country bumpkins, of the naive followers of Abe Lincoln and Andrew Jackson, a pell-mell rabble that presumed to take over this union of states. Ten million dollars sloshing in the middle of a barrel, and a memory of Banker Walsh, who held some notes of his, saying to him, “This party of yours is a phase, Altgeld. When you're ready to talk sense, let us know. You don't run a political campaign on a few hundred thousand, and there's enough money for all, I assure you. Make things easy for yourself; don't worry about those notes. The Republican Party is only too glad to see money go to the Democrats, in reasonable amounts, of course, but they have to be assured that you stand for the same things we do. You're laboring under a misconception of democracy, Altgeld; a democratic election is a contest between individuals, but for the health of this country, both parties must have certain understandings with business.…”

He heard voices outside and sat up, kneading his eyes with his fists. It was better not to think too much today. He heard small voices, and when he went outside, Emma's friend, May Wilson, was there, with her two little girls, one five, one seven.

May Wilson said, “I thought that here it would be like a madhouse today.”

“It will be, it's still too early.”

“The reporters were here this morning, and we got rid of them,” Emma said. “But they'll be back. How do you feel, Pete?”

“I feel good,” he smiled.

In a little while, he was sitting on the floor with the two small girls. They were fascinated by his beard. “Daddy has a mustache but no beard. You got a nice beard. You got a beautiful beard.” “I never thought of it as being very beautiful, but I suppose it is a nice beard.” “Very nice, very, very nice.” That was the younger one; the older one didn't think it was polite to discuss personalities, and told her sister so. She said, “Do you know stories. Could you tell us a story?” So he told them the tale of the princess who lived on a glass hill, and how many horses and brave young men tried to ride up that slope. But it was the end of peace for that day.

VI

Joe Martin came after the two children had gone; he came up straight from the South Side, burning. “Strongarm methods,” he said. “They got Pinkertons covering the polls. It isn't enough that they had a rumor going around about a blacklist, they're out there writing down names, or pretending to. They're intimidating anyone whose looks they don't like; anyone in old clothes, off the line.”

“John said Hennessy would be there.”

“I spoke to John. He says, do you want a riot?”

“I want a riot! You're god-damned right I want a riot! You get Hennessy there and instruct him to vote everyone, everyone. And if he needs men, tell John to put a hundred or two hundred on the spot. They're testing it early, and it's not going to work.”