Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich (25 page)

“Well then, Mr. Chairman,” began Mr. Dick Overend.

“One minute, Mr. Overend,” said Mr. Fyshe. “I want everyone to understand that he may speak as –”

“May I say then –” began Mr. Newberry.

“Pardon me, Mr. Newberry,” said Mr. Fyshe, “I was wishing first to explain that not only may
all
participate but that we
invite
–”

“In that case –” began Mr. Newberry.

“Before you speak,” interrupted Mr. Fyshe, “let me add one word. We must make our discussion as brief and to the point as possible. I have a great number of things which I wish to say to the meeting and it might be well if all of you would speak as briefly and as little as possible. Has anybody anything to say?”

“Well,” said Mr. Newberry, “what about organisation and officers?”

“We have thought of it,” said Mr. Fyshe. “We were anxious above all things to avoid the objectionable and corrupt methods of a ‘slate’ and a prepared list of officers which have disgraced every part of our city politics until the present time. Mr. Boulder, Mr. Furlong and Mr. Skinyer and myself have therefore prepared a short list of offices and officers which we
wish to submit to your fullest, freest consideration. It runs thus: Hon. President Mr. L. Fyshe, Hon. Vice-president, Mr. A. Boulder, Hon. Secretary Mr. Furlong, Hon. Treasurer Mr. O. Skinyer, et cetera, et cetera, – I needn’t read it all. You’ll see it posted in the hall later. Is that carried? Carried! Very good,” said Mr. Fyshe.

There was a moment’s pause while Mr. Furlong and Mr. Skinyer moved into seats beside Mr. Fyshe and while Mr. Furlong drew from his pocket and arranged the bundle of minutes of the meeting which he had brought with him. As he himself said he was too neat and methodical a writer to trust to jotting them down on the spot.

“Don’t you think,” said Mr. Newberry, “I speak as a practical man, that we ought to do something to get the newspapers with us?”

“Most important,” assented several members.

“What do
you
think, Dr. Boomer?” asked Mr. Fyshe of the university president, “will the newspapers be with us?”

Dr. Boomer shook his head doubtfully. “It’s an important matter,” he said. “There is no doubt that we need, more than anything, the support of a clean, wholesome unbiased press that can’t be bribed and is not subject to money influence. I think on the whole our best plan would be to buy up one of the city newspapers.”

“Might it not be better simply to buy up the editorial staff?” said Mr. Dick Overend.

“We might do that,” admitted Dr. Boomer. “There is no doubt that the corruption of the press is one of the worst factors that we have to oppose. But whether we can best fight it by buying the paper itself or buying the staff is hard to say.”

“Suppose we leave it to a committee with full power to act,” said Mr. Fyshe. “Let us direct them to take whatever
steps may in their opinion be best calculated to elevate the tone of the press, the treasurer being authorised to second them in every way. I for one am heartily sick of old underhand connection between city politics and the city papers. If we can do anything to alter and elevate it, it will be a fine work, gentlemen, well worth whatever it costs us.”

Thus after an hour or two of such discussion the Clean Government League found itself organised and equipped with a treasury and a programme and a platform. The latter was very simple. As Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Boulder said there was no need to drag in specific questions or try to define the action to be taken towards this or that particular detail, such as the hundred and fifty year franchise, beforehand. The platform was simply expressed as Honesty, Purity, Integrity. This, as Mr. Fyshe said, made a straight, flat, clean issue between the league and all who opposed it.

This first meeting was of course confidential. But all that it did was presently done over again, with wonderful freshness and spontaneity at a large public meeting open to all citizens. There was a splendid impromptu air about everything. For instance when somebody away back in the hall said, “I move that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe be president of the league,” Mr. Fyshe lifted his hand in unavailing protest as if this were the newest idea he had ever heard in his life.

After all of which the Clean Government League set itself to fight the cohorts of darkness. It was not just known where these were. But it was understood that they were there all right, somewhere. In the platform speeches of the epoch they figured as working underground, working in the dark, working behind the scenes, and so forth. But the strange thing was that nobody could state with any exactitude just who or what it was that the league was fighting. It stood for
“honesty, purity, and integrity.” This was all you could say about it.

Take for example the case of the press. At the inception of the league it had been supposed that such was the venality and corruption of the city newspapers that it would be necessary to buy one of them. But the word “clean government” had been no sooner uttered than it turned out that every one of the papers in the city was in favour of it: in fact had been working for it for years.

They vied with one another now in giving publicity to the idea. The
Plutorian Times
printed a dotted coupon on the corner of its front sheet with the words, “
Are you in favour of Clean Government?
If so, send us ten cents with this coupon and your name and address.” The
Plutorian Citizen
and
Home Advocate
went even further. It printed a coupon which said, “
Are you out for a clean city? If so send us twenty-five cents to this office. We pledge ourselves to use it
.”

The newspapers did more than this. They printed from day to day such pictures as the portrait of Mr. Fyshe with the legend below, “
Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, who says that government ought to be by the people, from the people, for the people and to the people
;” and the next day another labelled, “
Mr. P. Spillikins, who says that all men are born free and equal
,” and the next day a picture with the words, “
Tract of ground offered for cemetery by Mr. Furlong, showing rear of tanneries, with head of Mr. Furlong inserted
.”

It was of course plain enough that certain of the aldermen of the old council were to be reckoned as part of the cohort of darkness. That at least was clear. “We want no more men in control of the stamp of Alderman Gorfinkel and Alderman Schwefeldampf,” so said practically every paper in the city. “The public sense revolts at these men. They are
vultures who have feasted too long on the prostrate corpses of our citizens.” And so on. The only trouble was to discover who or what had ever supported Alderman Gorfinkel and Alderman Schwefeldampf. The very organisations that might have seemed to be behind them were evidently more eager for clean government than the league itself.

“
The Thomas Jefferson Club Out for Clean Government
,” so ran the newspaper headings of one day; and of the next, “
Will help to clean up City Government. Eureka Club (Coloured) endorses the League; Is done with Darkness
,” and the day after that, “
Sons of Hungary Share in Good Work: Kossuth Club will vote with the League
.”

So strong, indeed, was the feeling against the iniquitous aldermen that the public demand arose to be done with a council of aldermen altogether and to substitute government by a Board. The newspapers contained editorials on the topic each day and it was understood that one of the first efforts of the league would be directed towards getting the necessary sanction of the legislature in this direction. To help to enlighten the public on what such government meant Professor Proaser of the university (he was one of the three already referred to) gave a public lecture on the growth of Council Government. He traced it from the Amphictionic Council of Greece as far down as the Oligarchical Council of Venice; it was thought that had the evening been longer he would have traced it clean down to modern times.

But most amazing of all was the announcement that was presently made, and endorsed by Mr. Lucullus Fyshe in an interview, that Mayor McGrath himself would favour clean government, and would become the official nominee of the league itself. This certainly was strange. But it would perhaps have been less mystifying to the public at large, had they been
able to listen to certain of the intimate conversations of Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Boulder.

“You say then,” said Mr. Boulder, “to let McGrath’s name stand.”

“We can’t do without him,” said Mr. Fyshe, “he has seven of the wards in the hollow of his hand. If we take his offer he absolutely pledges us every one of them.”

“Can you rely on his word?” said Mr. Boulder.

“I think he means to play fair with us,” answered Mr. Fyshe. “I put it to him as a matter of honour, between man and man, a week ago. Since then I have had him carefully dictaphoned and I’m convinced he’s playing straight.”

“How far will he go with us?” said Mr. Boulder.

“He is willing to throw overboard Gorfinkel, Schwefeldampf and Undercutt. He says he must find a place for O’Hooligan. The Irish, he says, don’t care for clean government; they want Irish Government.”

“I see,” said Mr. Boulder very thoughtfully, “and in regard to the renewal of the franchise and the expropriation, tell me just exactly what his conditions are.”

But Mr. Fyshe’s answer to this was said so discreetly and in such a low voice, that not even the birds listening in the elm trees outside the Mausoleum Club could hear it.

No wonder then that if even the birds failed to know everything about the Clean Government League, there were many things which such good people as Mr. Newberry and Mr. Peter Spillikins never heard at all and never guessed.

Each week and every day brought fresh triumphs to the onward march of the movement.

“Yes, gentlemen,” said Mr. Fyshe to the assembled committee of the Clean Government League a few days later, “I am glad to be able to report our first victory. Mr. Boulder and
I have visited the state capital and we are able to tell you definitely that the legislature will consent to change our form of government so as to replace our council by a Board.”

“Hear, hear!” cried all the committee men together.

“We saw the governor,” said Mr. Fyshe. “Indeed he was good enough to lunch with us at the Pocahontas Club. He tells us that what we are doing is being done in every city and town of the state. He says that the days of the old-fashioned city council are numbered. They are setting up boards everywhere.”

“Excellent!” said Mr. Newberry.

“The governor assures us that what we want will be done. The chairman of the Democratic State Committee (he was good enough to dine with us at the Buchanan Club) has given us the same assurance. So also does the chairman of the Republican State Committee, who was kind enough to be our guest in a box at the Lincoln Theatre. It is most gratifying,” concluded Mr. Fyshe, “to feel that the legislature will give us such a hearty, such a thoroughly American support.”

“You are sure of this, are you?” questioned Mr. Newberry. “You have actually seen the members of the legislature?”

“It was not necessary,” said Mr. Fyshe. “The governor and the different chairmen have them so well fixed, – that is to say, they have such confidence in the governor and their political organisers that they will all be prepared to give us what I have described as a thoroughly American support.”

“You are quite sure,” persisted Mr. Newberry, “about the governor and the others you mentioned?”

Mr. Fyshe paused a moment and then he said very quietly, “We are quite sure,” and he exchanged a look with Mr. Boulder that meant volumes to those who would read it.
“I hope you didn’t mind my questioning you in that fashion,” said Mr. Newberry, as he and Mr. Fyshe strolled home from the club. “The truth is I didn’t feel sure in my own mind just what was meant by a ‘Board,’ and ‘getting them to give us government by a Board.’ I know I’m speaking like an ignoramus. I’ve really not paid as much attention in the past to civic politics as I ought to have. But what is the difference between a council and board?”

“The difference between a council and a board?” repeated Mr. Fyshe.

“Yes,” said Mr. Newberry, “the difference between a council and a board.”

“Or call it,” said Mr. Fyshe reflectively, “the difference between a board and a council.”

“Precisely,” said Mr. Newberry.

“It’s not altogether easy to explain,” said Mr. Fyshe. “One chief difference is that in the case of a board, sometimes called a Commission, the
salary
is higher. You see the salary of an alderman or councillor in most cities is generally not more than fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars. The salary of a member of a board or commission is at least ten thousand. That gives you at once a very different class of men. As long as you only pay fifteen hundred you get your council filled up with men who will do any kind of crooked work for fifteen hundred dollars; as soon as you pay ten thousand you get men with larger ideas.”

“I see,” said Mr. Newberry.

“If you have a fifteen hundred dollar man,” Mr. Fyshe went on, “you can bribe him at any time with a fifty dollar bill. On the other hand your ten thousand dollar man has a wider outlook. If you offer him fifty dollars for his vote on the board, he’d probably laugh at you.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Newberry, “I see the idea. A fifteen hundred dollar salary is so low that it will tempt a lot of men into office merely for what they can get out of it.”

“That’s it exactly,” answered Mr. Fyshe.

From all sides support came to the new league. The women of the city, – there were fifty thousand of them on the municipal voters list, – were not behind the men. Though not officials of the league they rallied to its cause.

“Mr. Fyshe,” said Mrs. Buncomhearst, who called at the office of the president of the league with offers of support, “tell me what we can do. I represent fifty thousand women voters of this city, –”

(This was a favourite phrase of Mrs. Buncomhearst’s, though it had never been made quite clear how or why she represented them.)

“We want to help, we women. You know we’ve any amount of initiative, if you’ll only tell us what to do. You know, Mr. Fyshe, we’ve just as good executive ability as you men, if you’ll just tell us what to do. Couldn’t we hold a meeting of our own, all our own, to help the league along?”