"YOU see, Senator," said the Hon. Maxwell, "that the party is not agreed
on these bills you are preparing. Take for example that bill, I
understand you are the author of it, on public health. As we understand
the matter, it is going to work great hardship on the retail dealer, and
besides, pardon me, it is so full of fads and absurdities that it will
make the party the laughing stock of the state. And there is that bill
on public lands and investigating old entries. That will stir up an
unnecessary lot of trouble and help to disrupt the party. You must
remember, Senator, that while you call yourself independent in politics, you allowed your nomination to be made by the party, and you are one of us and have no right to split the party into factions. More than half these bills you are advocating in the _News_ are of questionable value and all of them, it seems to us, are calculated to make enemies in our own ranks. The thing for you to do, it seems to us, is to stand pat. Wages are good and the people are generally contented. Prosperity is beginning to come back and it is poor policy to stir up matters. I've been through a lot of campaigns and I want to say to you, Senator, that I know the people pretty well, sir, and the people are beginning to feel sore over all this reform business. They are beginning to feel that they can't turn around or do a thing without someone claiming the right to pass a law telling 'em how to do it. The effect of the reform measures you are advocating will be to disrupt the party."
The Hon. Maxwell paused and his two friends nodded assent after his
somewhat lengthy talk. Paul's first impulse was to get tremendously mad
and tell the visitors to get out, as politely as it could be done in a
hurry. Then his sense of humour and of right proportion came to save
him.
Maxwell he knew fairly well to be one of the most narrow minded type of
politicians, honest enough so far as that went, but without a shred of
real patriotism or any faintest glimmer of sense on matters of public
welfare. His little soul revolved in a jerky and contracted orbit about
the party. This orbit never took him out of sight of the "party." Under
good men and bad in office, under defeat and under victory, under the
varying vicissitudes of fortune that his meagre political life had known
for forty years, he had never gone back on the party. He had held one or
two minor offices in the course of his career and was deeply grateful to
the party for recognising his right to an office. But when the party
ignored him and put in some other creature, Maxwell never complained. To
change the figure from the satellite and the orbit to a living organism, Maxwell was like Bill Syke's dog; no matter how the party treated him, he licked its hand just the same and showed the same loyalty and affection for the party when it kicked him down stairs as when it fed him at the pie counter. In forty years Maxwell had not learned a new idea or grown an inch in political stature. He was a party man and was proud of it. His one great virtue was that he was honest. He voted regularly for all sorts of thieves and boodlers and scoundrels nominated by the party, but he had in some marvelous fashion known only to his Maker, kept himself clear of all personal bribery and political trickery.
All this Paul knew quite well, and he was not able to despise Maxwell on
account of his one redeeming factor. But the slavery that had tied
Maxwell body and soul all his life was so foreign to Paul's whole makeup
that he could not understand it and he had to repress his natural desire
to explode over Maxwell's talk. But he did manage to say quite calmly:
"Mr. Maxwell, I appreciate your plea for the party, but I don't see
things as you do. While I accepted the nomination, as you say, at the
hands of the party, I distinctly outlined my views at the time and made
no pledges that bind me either to the party or to measures, if these
measures conflict with my own sense of what is for the best interests of
the people. I think the people who elected me understand that I am free
to act in that way. And, frankly, that is the way I intend to act. There
may be some mistakes in some of these bills. It would be strange if
there wasn't. But I believe they are for the good of all the people or, of course, I would not urge them."
Maxwell shook his head doubtfully.