The American: A Middle Western Legend (25 page)

“Have you ever heard Bryan talk?”

“You know I've heard him. I heard him at the silver convention. I've heard auctioneers and street hawkers and Indian medicine men, too.”

“Pete, see him. Please. Do it for me. You can whittle him down. I don't know who else can. I've insulted him, laughed in his face, and done everything but pull his long, lovely hair—and he still wants to be president. And, so help me God, Pete, I'm afraid of him, the way you're afraid of a little boy who's a lot stronger than most men.”

“I'll see him.”

“Pete—thanks. You know, I'm getting no younger; neither of us is. You get old and you get afraid. You have bad dreams. Well, this is our last chance, Pete. God help me, I don't know my country any more.”

So he saw Bryan. In his thirties, tall, handsome, the long dark hair like something out of another century, Bryan first strutted, then orated, then wheedled. Altgeld watched him, chin in palms, and answered shortly and dryly.

“You don't trust me,” Bryan finally said.

“Look, son, it's not whether I trust you or not. But it's funny about this job of running the country, and what it means to our people. Not that you can't fool them—”

“Then I'm a fraud!”

“Not that you can't fool them—they've been fooled so many times that it makes you ache to think about it. They've been fooled into thinking that their two parties are different, when right now they're as alike as peas in a pod. They've been fooled into voting for the wrong man; they've been fooled into voting themselves into serfdom and chains. They've been fooled into voting themselves into starvation and misery and heartache. And still when it comes to a president, they think it's a job for the best man the country can produce.”

“But
I'm
not the best man,” Bryan said. “Why? Why can't I convince you?”

“Maybe you wouldn't be able to convince the voters for the same reason. You're a young feller.”

“I've been in government. I've been tried—”

“Sure. Sure you have. And maybe someday you'll be five times the man Dick Bland is. Maybe now. But it isn't just a job of making one man president—you know that as well as I do. It's a job of throwing a pack of scoundrels out of Washington and giving the country back to the people who made it. It's bigger than any one man. It's too big to jeopardize. I'd like to be president too, son. I'd like it a hell of a lot. Well, I can't. Neither can Sam McConnell. Neither can Daniel. Neither can Hinrichsen. You see, we can't fool the people. We don't have the forces, the money, the ballyhoo, the machine.”

“But the people would follow me. I tell you—”

“Bill, you're a good speaker. You got a good tongue there. You got a head on your shoulders, too. But I think you're a little young to be president. Don't break down this thing. We've worked too hard on it. We've built too long and-too carefully.”

“All right. If that's the way you feel about it, there's nothing else I can do. Unless they want me—”

Altgeld rose and put his arm around Bryan's shoulder. He walked with him to the door, talking, repeating words and more words. And afterward he felt sick and angry and disgusted. To have to plead like that with a fool, with a strutting peacock who wanted to be president! Afterward, he wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing, be rid of it and done with it, with politics, with this whole business, never to argue or plead or bully or cozen again as long as he lived.

XI

Before the national convention began, Emma took a suite of rooms at the Sherman House. She was glad to be back in Chicago; in some ways, after so long a time at the executive mansion, it was like a homecoming, like a return to an upset normalcy that was not comfortable but certainly natural. It was good to shop again, to stand on the lake-front, to walk on the dirty streets, to watch the crowds that were like crowds in no other city in the world, to see the haze of smoke hanging over the factories, to feel the strong smell and to hear the violent sound of Chicago.

She thought it might be good for Pete's health, but it wasn't; it couldn't have been. He took over the parlor of the suite, and no matter how she aired it, the smell of cigar smoke and stale alcohol never departed. Instead of getting better, the gray pallor of his face increased, and the shuffle in his walk became more pronounced than ever.

All day long a steady stream of men went in and out of that room; all day long the rising, falling sound of voices came from there. A core was being made there, a unit of forces from every state in the union. From the very beginning, Emma had followed the steps of insurgence, the first wildcat state committee meeting, the silver convention, the vicious, all-out attack on Grover Cleveland and the other big business forces who controlled the party, and finally the state convention—yet with all that in mind, she still found it difficult to comprehend how in the short space of one year, her husband had become the undisputed leader of the National Democratic Party. Yet it was a fact. From Texas, from Missouri, Arkansas, Virginia and Pennsylvania and Colorado, from state after state came the delegations, and in almost every case their first point of contact was the suite of rooms in the Sherman House.

She became conscious of two Americas: the surface, vocal America, the America of the Newspapers, the pulpits, the courts, the banquets, and the after-dinner speakers—that America hated and castigated Altgeld; to that America, he was the enemy of his land, the first villain, a horned devil who had espoused socialism, communism, and every other ism that had ever existed—except, of course, capitalism and patriotism—and whose sole purpose was to bring down the republic in ruins. But there was another America, almost voiceless, the America of the farmer, the workingman, the small businessman; and to them, for all the screaming of the newspapers, Altgeld was something rare and new, the kind of a leader they had been waiting for. By an accident of birth, he had been denied the presidency, but no accident denied him leadership of the party.

So they came from every corner of the land, eager to see him, to put eyes on him and shake his hand, to be able to say to him the words most of them had planned so carefully: “We cried down there when we heard about Haymarket and what you had done.” “You got friends in California, Governor.” “I remember old Abe—he used to say, trust a man whom the rich hate.” “Down our way, they tell it, everyone hates Altgeld but the people.”

They found a small, tired, bearded man. They heard a low voice that had a file-like quality. When he moved, they realized that he was weak and sick, but that was an impression that didn't last, and after a day or two they could no longer think of him as a sick man. The most lasting impression was that of the blue eyes, alert, sparkling, two spots of youth in an aging body.

They came with no united purpose, no formed plan, only the confidence that this was an opportunity for revolt that had not existed before. They met Buck Hinrichsen at the door, and he brought them in and introduced them to the Governor. Those who had been politicians and nothing more than politicians had a new feeling; the job-seekers, for a while at least, thought of other things than their possible spoil; the plain citizens thought about how some day, telling this, they would remember how it had been to meet Pete Altgeld. Altgeld talked to them; he told stories; he dug up mutual acquaintances from their states. Sometimes, he mentioned Dick Bland of Missouri, and hoped they would see their way to supporting him. They all came with local favorite sons, and there was a real danger, which Altgeld recognized, in starting a boom too early. He laid the emphasis on issues they held in common, an anguished need for security, a hatred of monopoly, a dread fear of this new thing that had arisen, government by injunction, or an extension of the power of the court to a point where it could quell revolt by declaring action illegal even before the action had occurred, and the faith in free silver coinage as a cure-all for every kind of evil.

Emma tried to hoard his failing strength, but from the beginning, it was a losing battle. This was his great moment, the time he had worked for and hoped for; now he was not going to hold back, and nothing on earth could make him hold back. When a delegate asked him, “Have you got a slogan for this convention, Governor?” he answered, sharply and shortly, “No compromise—that's our only slogan!”

XII

A big man came to the hotel suite and told Buck Hinrichsen that he wanted to see the Governor, but he wasn't a delegate—still he wanted to see the Governor, he thought it was important that he should see the Governor. His name was Mark Woodbridge, six feet and three inches, with the coal dust deep in his pores and in the lines of his hands, saying plainly enough that he was a miner and never would be anything else. He was dressed in a black Sunday suit of clothes that clung to his ankles and his thick wrists, and he kept turning his hat nervously, over and over.

“What about?”

“About Peoria. About the strike in the mines down along Peoria way.”

Well, didn't he know that the Governor was up to his ears with the delegates and with the business of the campaign, and that this was in the nature of a caucus! And the Governor couldn't see just anyone, although the Governor would. All this patiently, for Buck Hinrichsen was old-timer enough to know that at convention time you don't insult anyone, ten voters or one voter.

“Well, suppose you tell the Governor I'm the brother-in-law of one of the four men he pardoned, up on murder and convicted for killing during the strike. At the Peter Little mines, you remember?”

“I remember,” Hinrichsen nodded. He did. He had argued the matter with Altgeld, pointing out that this on top of the Haymarket pardon would be insane. “Then I'm insane, because these men are as innocent as you are, Buck, and maybe more so,” Altgeld said, and then had gone ahead and pardoned them.

Hinrichsen said, “Wait a minute,” and then went in and told the Governor. “I want to see him,” Altgeld said.

Woodbridge came into the room, and stood there, looking at the little bearded man who was Governor. Two southern delegates were in the parlor, and Bill Dose, who had been taking dictation, and Sam McConnell, standing by the window and smoking a cigar.

“Glad to meet you, Woodbridge,” Altgeld said.

Woodbridge nodded, still turning the hat, appearing to fill all the space left in the room. His Adam's apple moved convulsively, and Altgeld guessed that he was embarrassed and not a little awed.

“You must have had a good reason to come all the way up here to see me,” Altgeld said, trying to make things easier. “If you came up just for that?”

“I did.”

“All right. Don't worry about these folks here.”

“Well—”

“Go ahead and talk, son.”

Sam McConnell turned to look at the miner, and now the two southern delegates were watching him.

“Well—we had a meeting down our way. Maybe I ought to start back. My sister would have been left with three kids, if you'd have let them hang him.”

“Him?”

“At the Peter Little. I swear to God, Mr. Governor—I saw it happen. They were innocent, all right. Never came near the place-where the men were murdered. My God, our own men were murdered, and by the scabs they brought in from upstate. But then they arrested the union leaders—”

“I pardoned them, didn't I?” Altgeld said shortly.

“Yes, sir. I want you to know you didn't make no mistake. So we held a meeting and took up a collection to send me up here, to tell you that you and whatever man you're standing for got three thousand votes down there, just as solid as anything could be. That's all.”

“You came up here for that?”

“Yes—we didn't know what else to do. They thought they ought to send me.”

“Thank them for me,” Altgeld said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I hope you get a good man to vote for, a good man for president.”

“Yes, sir. The way we feel—well, they told me to say it ought to be you. We don't know how you do it, but we feel it ought to be you.”

“Thanks.”

“I couldn't go back and say to them that it'll be you!”

“No—it won't be me. It'll be a good man.”

“All right. I'll tell them that. Thank you.” He started for the door, but Altgeld stopped him.

“Wait a minute. What did it cost you to come up here”

“Twenty—” Altgeld was digging into his pocket; the miner stopped short, shaking his head to the rhythm of his turning hat. “No, sir,” he said.

“Expenses, that's all. You ought to get it back.”

“No, sir,” the miner said evenly. Then he left. Then Altgeld turned to Judge McConnell and murmured, “Jesus Christ! Oh, Jesus God.”

“So it's three thousand votes if he isn't lying. That doesn't make anyone anything.”

“You couldn't see if something was painted on the wall. Underlined, too.”

“Maybe.”

“All right. Then let's get down to work.”

XIII

They drafted a platform, a rough draft scribbled down in pencil, in a smoke-filled, whisky-sodden room, Altgeld, McConnell, Jones the Arkansas Senator, and Tillman of North Carolina, and Bathhouse John of Chicago, and Schilling for part of it, and Darrow called in to lend his acrimonious voice, and Boies, the Governor of Iowa, and a half dozen more, coming in and out, summoned hurriedly, in the middle of the day or the middle of the night—and always it was Altgeld's flat, probing voice that took the lead, that pulled them out of the morass of generalities back to the fact:

“I tell you, gentlemen, that you either open your eyes or go back to the tall woods. We're not living in Jefferson's day. In Jefferson's day there wasn't a factory in this land that employed more than a hundred men, and now how many are there that employ ten thousand or fifty thousand? That's the fact, the core of it. Are you for the workingman or against him?”