The Plum Tree. David Graham Phillips
Cass, the county prosecutor, though a Dominick man, disobeyed his master and tried and convicted M'Coskrey. Of course, following the custom in cases of yielding to pressure from public sentiment, he made the trial-errors necessary to insure reversal in the higher court; and he finally gave Dominick's judge the opportunity to quash the indictment. But the boss was relentless—Cass had been disobedient, and had put upon "my friend M'Coskrey" the disgrace of making a sorry figure in court. "Ben can look to his swell reform friends for a renomination," said he; "he'll not get it from me."
Thus it came to pass that Dominick's lieutenant, Buck Fessenden, appeared in my office one afternoon in July, and, after a brief parley, asked me how I'd like to be prosecuting attorney of Jackson County. Four thousand a year for four years, and a reëlection if I should give satisfaction; and afterward, the bench or a seat in Congress! I could pay off everything; I could marry!
It was my first distinct vision of the plum tree. To how many thousands of our brightest, most promising young Americans it is shown each year in just such circumstances!
II
AT THE COURT OF A SOVEREIGN
That evening after supper I went to see Dominick.
In the lower end of Pulaski there was a large beer-garden, known as Dominick's headquarters. He received half the profits in return for making it his loafing-place, the seat of the source of all political honor, preferment and privilege in the third, sixth and seventh congressional districts. I found him enthroned at the end of a long table in the farthest corner of the garden. On one side of him sat James Spencer, judge of the circuit court—"Dominick's judge"; on the other side Henry De Forest, principal owner of the Pulaski Gas and Street Railway Company. There were several minor celebrities in politics, the law, and business down either side of the table, then Fessenden, talking with Cowley, our lieutenant governor. As soon as I appeared Fessenden nodded to me, rose, and said to the others generally: "Come on, boys, let's adjourn to the next table. Mr. Dominick wants to talk to this young fellow."
I knew something of politics, but I was not prepared to see that distinguished company rise and, with not a shadow of resentment on any man's face, with only a respectful, envious glance at me, who was to deprive them of sunshine for a few minutes, remove themselves and their glasses to another table. When I knew Dominick better, and other bosses in this republic of ours, I knew that the boss is never above the weaknesses of the monarch class for a rigid and servile court etiquette. My own lack of this weakness has been a mistake which might have been serious had my political power been based upon men. It is a blunder to treat men without self-respect as if they were your equals. They expect to cringe; if they are not compelled to do so, they are very likely to forget their place. At the court of a boss are seen only those who have lost self-respect and those who never had it. The first are the lower though they rank themselves, and are ranked, above the "just naturally low."
But—Dominick was alone, his eternal glass of sarsaparilla before him. He used the left corner of his mouth both for his cigar and for speech. To bid me draw near and seat myself, he had to shift his cigar. When the few words necessary were half-spoken, half-grunted, he rolled his cigar back to the corner which it rarely left. He nodded condescendingly, and, as I took the indicated chair at his right, gave me a hand that was fat and firm, not unlike the flabby yet tenacious sucker of a moist sea-creature.
He was a huge, tall man, enormously muscular, with a high head like a block, straight in front, behind and on either side; keen, shifty, pig eyes, pompous cheeks, a raw, wide mouth; slovenly dress, with a big diamond as a collar button and another on his puffy little finger. He was about forty years old, had graduated from blacksmith too lazy to work into prize-fighter, thence into saloon-keeper. It was as a saloon-keeper that he founded and built his power, made himself the local middleman between our two great political factors, those who buy and break laws and those who aid and abet the lawlessness by selling themselves as voters or as office-holders.
Dominick had fixed his eyes upon his sarsaparilla. He frowned savagely into its pale brown foam when he realized that I purposed to force him to speak first. His voice was ominously surly as he shifted his cigar to say: "Well, young fellow, what can I do for you?"
"Mr. Fessenden told me you wanted to see me," said I.
"He didn't say nothing of the sort," growled Dominick. "I've knowed Buck seventeen years, and he ain't no liar."
I flushed and glanced at the distinguished company silently waiting to return to the royal presence. Surely, if these eminent fellow citizens of mine endured this insulting monarch, I could—I, the youthful, the obscure, the despondent. Said I: "Perhaps I did not express myself quite accurately. Fessenden told me you were considering making me your candidate for county prosecutor, and suggested that I call and see you."
Dominick gave a gleam and a grunt like a hog that has been flattered with a rough scratching of its hide. But he answered: "I don't give no nominations. That's the province of the party, young man."
"But you are the party," was my reply. At the time I was not conscious that I had thus easily dropped down among the hide-scratchers. I assured myself that I was simply stating the truth, and ignored the fact that telling the truth can be the most degrading sycophancy, and the subtlest and for that reason the most shameless, lying.
"Well, I guess I've got a little something to say about the party," he conceded. "Us young fellows that are active in politics like to see young fellows pushed to the front. A good many of the boys ain't stuck on Ben Cass—he's too stuck on himself. He's getting out of touch with the common people, and is boot-licking in with the swells up town. So, when I heard you wanted the nomination for prosecutor, I told Buck to trot you round and let us look you over. Good party man?"
"Yes—and my father and grandfather before me."
"No reform germs in your system?"
I laughed—I was really amused, such a relief was it to see a gleam of pleasantry in that menacing mass. "I'm no better than my party," said I, "and I don't desert it just because it doesn't happen to do everything according to my notions."
"That's right," approved Dominick, falling naturally into the role of political schoolmaster. "There ain't no government without responsibility, and there ain't no responsibility without organization, and there ain't no organization without men willing to sink their differences." He paused.
I looked my admiration—I was most grateful to him for this chance to think him an intellect. Who likes to admit that he bows before a mere brute? The compulsory courtiers of a despot may possibly and in part tell the truth about him, after they are safe; but was there ever a voluntary courtier whose opinion of his monarch could be believed? The more distinguished the courtier the greater his necessity to exaggerate his royal master—or mistress—to others and to himself.
Dominick forged on: "Somebody's got to lead, and the leader's got to be obeyed. Otherwise what becomes of the party? Why, it goes to hell, and we've got anarchy."
This was terse, pointed, plausible—the stereotyped "machine" argument. I nodded emphatically.
"Ben Cass," he proceeded, "believes in discipline and organization and leadership only when they're to elect him to a fat job. He wants to use the party, but when the party wants service in return, up goes Mr. Cass' snout and tail, and off he lopes. He's what I call a cast iron—" I shall omit the vigorous phrase wherein he summarized Cass. His vocabulary was not large; he therefore frequently resorted to the garbage barrel and