Part 48 (1/2)

But there were potted palms in the lobbies, decorations in the rotunda, and ma.s.ses of flowers in the House chamber which was given over to the hearing. And sweet music softened legislative asperities. The women asked, smiling. The men refused, smiling.

The federated women's clubs of the State had the suffrage matter in their keeping. The delegates were not hard-faced women clutching umbrellas. They were the strictly modern suffragists--radiant matrons, fresh-complexioned girls, women who led in culture and fas.h.i.+on in their respective communities.

At the previous session the Legislative Committee had asked that the delegation of women be restricted to the usual number of persons that appeared at legislative hearings. When a dozen came with their pet.i.tions and arguments the Committee blandly stated that there seemed to be no general demand in the State for woman's suffrage--witness the attendance of women interested!

This year the women proposed to disprove that a.s.sumption. Every woman's literary, social, art, and economic club in the State sent two delegates. The State was raked for women, even the schools were ransacked. At ten o'clock in the forenoon the State House was packed and women were still crowding in. The galleries, aisles, and standing-room of House and Senate were choked with silks, furs, and feathers which decorated the beauty and brains of the State.

The routine was hurried through. Callous man, gasping for breath, wanted to escape.

The few in the lobby who dared to smoke soon hid their cigars under their coat-tails and departed to the hotels. The cuspidors were hidden.

Gay frocks swept cigar stubs out of sight.

When the members of the Judiciary Committee attempted to enter the House chamber to conduct the hearing on suffrage, it required full ten minutes of persuasive eloquence and courteous pus.h.i.+ng on the part of the messengers to break the jam of women that filled the door and packed the lobby floor adjacent. The fair lobbyists did not want to give up even that vantage-point in order to admit the men who were to listen. And after the committee had managed to wriggle its way in single file to the platform they had not the heart to expel the women who were occupying their chairs. They gallantly stood in a row against the rear wall of the Speaker's alcove and listened to the pet.i.tioners--each woman allowed two minutes! Not one member of the legislature, outside the committee, heard. It would have been an ungallant man, indeed, who did not surrender his place in the chamber to a woman who had come to present her cause. So the women amiably listened to themselves, and the committee listened to them in all politeness, and both sides understood that it was only a genial social diversion out of which nothing would come. In that gathering a suffragette would have been squelched by her own s.e.x.

Harlan Thornton came to the State House early.

Morning had brought him wiser counsel. He felt no impulse to rush to the Presson house. He wondered now what he would have said if he had gained access to Madeleine Presson the night before. The astounding insult by Herbert Linton troubled him less. It had been a jealous outburst--Linton's confession of his love for the girl had revealed his animus. Probably Linton regretted it--in Harlan's calmer mood he trusted that such was the case. Conscious of his innocence, it did not seem to Harlan that any man would dare to deal further in such outrageous slander after what had been said in their interview.

Harlan was one of the first to escape from the House through the press of women. There were too many of them. Officious gentlemen had begun to introduce him to wives and daughters and friends. He was not shy, but the presence of so many women--chattering, vivacious, exchanging repartee, challenging retort from him, was disquieting. He made his way to his committee-room. It was in a far corner of the building and was quiet. He had not been able to inspect the bill that Governor Waymouth had placed in his hands. He determined to put behind himself for a time the presence of women and the thoughts of women--even those thoughts which had so occupied him the night before.

There was no one in the committee-room. The State House holiday had attracted his a.s.sociates. He examined the measure that he was expected to sponsor.

It provided for a commission of three men to be appointed by the Governor and to remain under his direct control--a bipartisan board.

These men were to appoint special deputies to any number desired. To any county, city, or town these deputies were to be dispatched when it became apparent that police or sheriffs were lax or dishonest in enforcing the prohibitory law. No limits were placed on the number of these men empowered to kill saloons and put liquor-peddlers out of business. No special amount of money was to be asked of the legislature--the bill provided that the State treasury should stand behind the movement.

The young man was quick to understand the tremendous power granted to the Governor by that bill. Under it no party management, no group of politicians, could club or coax the liquor interests into line at the polls by manipulation of the traffic. No sheriff could enrich himself by selling privileges. No city could govern itself in that respect--declaring that public opinion favored the saloons and making local law superior to the const.i.tutional law of the State. The bill provided that a judge must impose both fines and imprisonment when convictions were secured, and, therefore, no judge could carry on any longer a practical system of low license by imposing fines alone.

It was the principle of _enforced_ prohibition put on trial.

In the past the Luke Pressons of the State had laughed at interference by a Governor. Local politics, easily handled, had controlled the actions of cities, and police had kept their hands off the traffic for years.

Authority in liquor matters had been vested in the county high sheriffs, and these men were controlled from State headquarters wholly in the interests of politics.

Harlan was sufficiently familiar with the old plan to know how this new system would upset the entire political machine of his State. That folio of doc.u.ment was a bombsh.e.l.l.

He was holding it outspread in his hands when the door opened so suddenly that it startled him. Thelismer Thornton came in, shaking his shoulders disgustedly.

”Feathers and cackle!” he muttered. ”This State House turned into a poultry yard! And half of 'em braced back trying to crow! When a hen crows and a woman votes--well, it's all the same thing!”

He relighted the cigar that he had brought through the press hidden in his big palm. He eyed his grandson keenly and with some disfavor as he puffed the cigar alight.

”Look here, bub,” he burst out, ”there are enough women around here to-day to remind me that I want to have a word with you on the woman question. You intend to marry Madeleine Presson, don't you?”

”_Intend_ to marry her!” blazed his grandson. ”You talk as though it was the fas.h.i.+on to grab a girl and carry her off as they did in the Stone Age.”

”You know what I mean very well, sir. I take it you are still decent, and if you're decent you'll marry the girl you've beaued around for six months--providing she'll have you. That was the style in my day--and decency doesn't change much--at least, it ought not to.”

Had it been the day before, Harlan Thornton would have declared to his grandfather what his intentions were toward Madeleine Presson. The thoughts of the past night's vigil came upon him now--he hesitated. He was angry with himself--angry with this blunt and persistent old man. He did not know whether resentment held him back from acknowledging that he had been a suitor for the hand of Luke Presson's daughter or whether it was the strange, new feeling toward Clare Kavanagh since he had learned that her good name was in such piteous need of his protection and defence.

”Have you asked her to marry you?” demanded the Duke.