Newcomb went everywhere; the Poles hurrahed for him, the Germans, the Irish, the Huns and the Italians. And he made no promises which he did not honestly intend to fulfil. To him the fight meant everything; it meant fame and honor, a comfortable addition to his income, and Washington as a finality. He would purify the Democrats while he annihilated the pretensions of the Republicans. He was what historians call an active dreamer, a man who dreams and then goes forth to accomplish things. His personality was engaging.
Besides all this (for the secret must be told) Newcomb was in love and wished to have all these things to lay at the feet of his beloved, even if she returned them. You will regularly find it to be true that the single man is far more ambitious than his married brother. The latter invariably turns over the contract to his wife.
Williard was deeply in love, too, with Senator Gordon's lovely daughter, and Senator Gordon was that mysterious power which directed the Republican forces in his section of the state. So you may readily believe that Newcomb was forced to put up a better fight than Williard, who stood high in Senator Gordon's favor. The girl and the two young men had been friends since childhood, and nobody knew whether she cared for either of them in the way they desired. Everybody in town, who was anybody, understood the situation; and everybody felt confident that Williard was most likely to win. The girl never said anything, even to her intimate friends; but when the subject was brought up, she smiled in a way that dismissed it.
Such was the political situation at the beginning of the municipal campaign. There have been like situations in any number of cities which boast of one hundred thousand inhabitants or more; perhaps in your town, and yours, and yours. That bugaboo of the politician, reform, brings around this phenomenon about once in every eight years. For a while the wicked ones promise to be good, and you will admit that that helps.
It was amusing to follow the newspapers. They vilified each other, ripped to shreds the character of each candidate, recalled boyhood escapades and magnified them into frightful crimes, and declared in turn that the opposition boss should land in the penitentiary if it took all the type in the composing-rooms to do it. What always strikes me as odd is that, laughter-loving people that we are, nobody laughs during these foolish periods. Instead, everybody goes about, straining his conscience and warping his common-sense into believing these flimsy campaign lies, these outrageous political roorbacks.