Part 24 (2/2)

”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 authorized 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 organized 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 n.o.body could state with any exact.i.tude just who or what it was that the league was fighting. It stood for ”honesty, purity, and integrity.” That was all you could say about it.

Take, for example, the case of the press. At the inception of the league it has 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 organizations 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 subst.i.tute 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 a.s.sembled 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-fas.h.i.+oned city council are numbered. They are setting up boards everywhere.”

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