On a dreamful September day of the following year, Bradley was helping Milton Jennings to dig potatoes. It was nearly time for his return to school and to Judge Brown's office, and the two young men were full of plans. Milton was intending to go back for another year, and Bradley intended to keep up with his studies if possible, and retain his place with Brown also.
"Say," broke out Milton suddenly, "we ought to attend this convention."
"What convention?"
"Why, the nominating convention at Rock. Father's going this afternoon. I never've been. Let's go with him."
"That won't dig taters," smiled Bradley in his slow way.
"Darn the taters. If we're goin' into politics we want 'o know all about things."
"That's so. I would like to go if your father'll let us off on the taters."
Mr. Jennings made no objection. "It'll be a farce, though, the whole thing."
"Why so?"
"I'll tell you on the way down. Git the team ready and we'll take neighbor Councill in."
Bradley listened to Mr. Jennings' explanation with an interest born of his expanding ambition. His marvellously retentive mind absorbed every detail and the situation cleared in his mind.
For sixteen years the affairs of the country had been managed by a group of persuasive, well-dressed citizens of Rock River, who played into each other's hands and juggled with the county's money with such adroitness and address that their reign seemed hopelessly permanent to the discontented and suspicious farmers of the county. Year after year they saw these gentlemen building new houses, opening banks, and buying in farm mortgages "all out of the county," many grangers asserted.
Year after year the convention assembled, and year after year the delegates from the rural townships came down to find their duties purely perfunctory, simply to fill up the seats. They always found the slate made up and fine speakers ready to put it through with a rush of ready applause, before which the slower-spoken, disorganized farmers were well-nigh helpless. It was a case of perfect organization against disorganization and mutual distrust. Banded officialism fighting to keep its place against the demands of a disorganized righteous mob of citizens. Office is always a trained command. The intrenched minority is capable of a sort of rock-like resistance.
Rock River and its neighboring village of Cedarville, by pooling together could tie the convention, and in addition to these towns they always controlled several of the outlying townships by judicious flattery of their self-constituted managers, who were given small favors, put on the central committee, and otherwise made to feel that they were leading men in the township; and it was beginning to be stated that the county treasurer had regularly bribed other influential whippers-in, by an amiable remission of taxes.
"Why don't you fight 'em?" asked Milton, after Mr. Jennings had covered the whole ground thoroughly.
Councill laughed. "We've been a-fightin' um; suppose you try."
"Give us a chance, and we'll do our part. Won't we, Brad?"
Bradley nodded, and so committed himself to the fight. He was fated to begin his political career as an Independent Republican.
On the street they met other leading grangers of the county, and it became evident that there was a deep feeling of resentment present. They gathered in knots on the sidewalks which led up under the splendid maples that lined the sidewalks leading toward the court-house.
The court-house was of the usual pseudo-classic style of architecture, that is to say, it was a brick building with an ambitious facade of four wooden fluted columns. Its halls echoed to the voices and footsteps of the crowd that passed up its broad, worn and grimy steps into the court-room itself, which was grimier and more hopelessly filthy than the staircase with its stratified accumulations of cigar stubs and foul sawdust. Its seats were benches hacked and carved like the desks of a country schoolhouse. Nothing could be more barren, more desolate. It had nothing to relieve it save the beautiful stains of color that seemed thrown upon the windows by the crimson and orange maples which stood in the yard.
They found the room full of delegates, among whom there was going on a great deal of excited conversation. From a side room near the Judge's bench there issued, from time to time, messengers who came out among the general mob, and invited certain flattered and useful delegates to come in and meet with the central committee. There was plainly a division in the house.
"The rusty cusses are on their ears to-day," said Milton, "and there's going to be fun." His blue eyes were beaming with laughter, and his quick wit kept those who were within hearing on the broad grin.
"Goin' to down 'em t' day?" he asked of Councill.
"We're goin' t' try."
In one dishonest way or another the ring had kept its hold upon the county, notwithstanding all criticism, and now came to the struggle with smiling confidence. They secured the chairman by the ready-made quick vote, by acclamation for re-election. The president then appointed the committee upon credentials and upon nominations, and the work of the convention was opened.
The committee on nominations, in due course presented its slate as usual, but here the real battle began. Bradley suddenly found himself tense with interest. His ancestry must have been a race of orators and politicians, for the atmosphere of the convention roused him till it transformed him.
Here was the real thing. No mere debate, but a fight. There was battle in the air, now blue with smoke and rank with the reek of tobacco. There was fight in the poise of the grizzled heads and rusty, yellow shoulders of the farmers who had now fallen into perfect silence. In looking over them one might have been reminded of a field of yellow-gray boulders.
Colonel Russell moved the election of the entire slate, as presented by the nominating committee, in whom, he said, the convention had the utmost confidence. Four or five farmers sprang to their feet instantly and Osmond Deering got the floor. When he began speaking the loafers in the gallery stopped their chewing in excess of interest. He was one of the most influential men in the county.
"Mr. President," he began in his mild way, "I don't want to seem captious about this matter, but I want to remind this convention that this is the eighth year that almost the same identical slate has been presented to the farmers of Rock County and passed against our wishes. It isn't right that it should pass again. It sha'n't pass without my protest." Applause. "This convention has been robbed of its right to nominate every year, and every year we've gone home feeling we've been made cat's paws of, for the benefit of a few citizens of Rock River. I protest against the slate. I claim the right to nominate my man. I don't intend to have a committee empowered to take away my rights to" —
The opposition raised a clamor, "Question! Question!" attempting to force a vote, but the old man, carried out of himself by his excitement, shook his broad flat hand in the air, and cried: "I have the floor, gentlemen, and I propose to keep it." The farmers applauded. "I say to this convention, vote down this motion and set down on the old-fashioned slate-making committee business. It aint just, it aint right, and I protest against it."
He sat down to wild excitement, his supporters trying to speak, the opposition crying, "Question, Question." Several fiery speeches were made by leading grangers, but they were met by a cool, smooth persuasive speech from the chairman of the nominating committee, who argued that it was not to be supposed that this committee chosen by this convention would bring in a slate which would not be a credit and honor to the country. True, they were mainly from Rock River and Cedarville; but it must be remembered that the population of the county was mainly in these towns, and that no ticket could succeed which did not give a proper proportion of representation to these towns. These men could not be surpassed in business ability. They were old in their office, it was true, but the affairs of the county were passing through a critical period in their history, and it was an old and well-tried saying: "Never swap horses in the midst of a stream," anyhow, he was content to leave the matter to the vote of this convention.
The vote carried the slate through by a small majority, leaving the farmers again stunned and helpless, and the further business of the convention was to restore peace and good-will, as far as possible among the members. It was amazing to Bradley to find how easily he could be swayed by the plausible speeches of the gentlemanly chairman of the nominating committee. It was a great lesson to him in the power of oratory. The slate was put through simply by the address of the chairman of the committee.
On the way out they met Councill and Jennings walking out with Chairman Russell, who had his hand on a shoulder of each, and was saying, with beautiful candor and joviality: "Well, we beat you again. It's all fair in politics, you know."
"Yes, but it's the last time," said Jennings, who refused to smile. "We can't give this the go-by."
"Oh, well, now, neighbor Jennings, you mustn't take it too hard; you know these men are good capable men."
"They are capable enough," put in Deering, "but we want a change."
"Then make it," laughed Russell, good-naturedly defiant.
"We will make it, bet y'r boots," said Amos Ridings.
"Let's see yeh," was Russell's parting word, delivered with a jaunty wave of his hand.
The farmers rode home full of smoldering wrath. They were in fighting humor, and only needed an organizer to become a dangerous force.
The following Saturday Bradley, who was still at work with Milton, saw Amos Ridings gallop up and dismount at the gate, and call Jennings out, and during the next two hours, every time he looked up he saw them in deep discussion out by the pig pen. Part of the time Jennings faced Amos, who leaned against the fence and whittled a stick, and part of the time he talked to Jennings who leaned back against the fence on his elbows, and studied Amos whittling the rail. Mrs. Jennings at last called them all to dinner, and still the question remained apparently unsolved, though they changed the conversation to crops and the price of wheat.
"Brad, set down here and make a lot o' copies of this call. Milt, you help him."
The call read:
"A mass convention of the citizens of Rock County will be held at Rock Creek Grove on September 28th, for the purpose of nominating a people's ticket. All who favor reform in politics and rebel against the ring-rule of our county officers are invited to be present.
"Per order,"Amos Ridings,John Jennings,William Councill,"People's Committee."
"What's all this?" asked Milton of his father.
"We're going to have a convention of our own."
"We're on the war path," said Amos grimly. "We'll make them fellers think hell's t' pay and no pitch hot."
After dinner Amos took a roll of the copies of the call and rode away to the north, and Jennings hitched up his team and drove away to the south. Milton and Bradley went back to their corn-husking, feeling that they were "small petaters."
"They don't intend to let us into it, that's dead sure," said Milton. "All the same, I know the scheme. They're going to bolt the convention, and there'll be fun in the air."
The county woke up the next morning to find its schoolhouse doors proclaiming a revolt of the farmers, and the new deal was the talk of the county. It was the grange that had made this revolt possible. This general intelligence and self-cognizance was the direct result of the work of the grange. It had brought the farmers together, and had made them acquainted with their own men, their own leaders, and when they came together a few days later, under the open sky, like the Saxon thanes of old, there was a spirit of rebellion in the air that made every man look his neighbor in the face with exultation.
It was a perfectly Democratic meeting. They came together that beautiful September day, under the great oaks, a witenagemote of serious, liberty-loving men, ready to follow wherever their leaders pointed.
Amos Ridings was the chairman, tall, grim-lipped and earnest-eyed. His curt speech carried the convention with him. His platform was a wagon box, and he stood there with his hat off, the sun falling upon his shock of close-clipped stiff hair, making a powerful and resolute figure with a touch of poetry in his face.
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