He went through the football season as he had gone through the previous season, with a record for distinguished brilliancy, acclaimed by all as the best end in years, the probable captain of the next year. He wanted the position, as he had desired it on his first arrival at Yale, and yet he surrendered it. Hunter had developed into a tackle and made the team. In the class below were two men of the defunct sophomore societies. Stover had vividly before him the record of Dana, his captain of freshman year, and the memory of the ordeal after the game, when he had stood up and acknowledged his lack of leadership.
That this still resentful society element in the eleven would follow him with distaste and reluctance, despite all traditional loyalty, he knew too well. Moreover, sure that he was destined to be passed over on Tap Day, he felt perhaps too keenly the handicap of such a rejection. Then, at the bottom, reluctantly, he knew in his heart that Regan was the born leader of men, and what once he had rebelled against he finally acknowledged.
So when at the end of a victorious season the members of the eleven gathered for the election of the next year’s captain, he stood up immediately and stated his views. It was a difficult announcement to make, both on the score of seeming sentimentality, and from the danger of seeming to refuse what might not be offered him.
But during the tests of the last year the self-consciousness which would have prevented Brockhurst’s expressing himself had completely gone. Determined on one course of action, to be his own master, to do what he wanted to do, and to say what he wanted to say, in absolute fearlessness, he spoke with a frankness that amazed his comrades, still under the fetish of upper-class supremacy.
“Before we begin,” he said, “I’ve a few words I want to say. I suppose I am a candidate here. I don’t say I shouldn’t be crazy to have the captaincy. I would—anyone would. What I say is that I have thought it over and I withdraw my name. Even if you hadn’t in Tom Regan here the best type of leader you could get, it would be very unfortunate for our chances next year if I were chosen. I’m quite aware that in a certain element of the team, due to the open stand I felt forced to take in the question of the sophomore society, there is a great deal of resentment against me. I can understand that; it is natural. But there should be no such division in a Yale team. We’ve got a tough fight next year, and we need a captain about whom are no enmities, who’ll command every bit of the loyalty of the team”—he paused a moment—“and every bit of help he can get from the college. I move that Tom Regan be unanimously elected captain.”
There was quite an outcry at the end of his declaration, especially from Regan, who was utterly surprised. But Stover held firm, and perceived, not without a little secret resentment, that the outcome came with relief not only to the team but to the coaches.
When they returned, and Regan was still protesting, Stover said frankly:
“Look here, Tom, we don’t split hairs with one another. If I had thought it was right for me to stand for it I would have. I wanted it—like hell. You remember Dana? I do. It’s an awful thing to lead a team into defeat, and say I was responsible. I don’t care to do it. Besides, you are the better man—and I’m of such a low, skulking nature I hate to admit it. So shut up and buy me a rabbit at Mory’s. I’m hungry as a pirate.”
He had said nothing of his determination to anyone. He had been tempted to talk it over with Jean Story, but he had refrained, feeling instinctively that in her ambition for him, and in her inability to judge the depth of certain antagonisms towards him, she would oppose his determination.
The four friends had gone to Lyceum together—Swazey and Pike were in the same building. There was a certain flavor of the simplicity and ruggedness of old Yale in the building that gave to the meetings in their rooms a character of old-time spontaneity.
By the opening of the winter term, Stover, the enthusiast, had begun to see the weakness of movements that must depend on organization. The debating club, which had started with a zest, soon showed its limitations. Once the edge of novelty had worn off, there were too many diverting interests to throng in and deplete the ranks.
When, following Regan’s suggestion, they had attempted a new division on the lines of the political parties, the result was decidedly disappointing. There was no natural interest to draw upon, and the political discussions, instead of fanning the club into a storm of partisanship, lapsed into the hands of perfunctory debaters.
Regan himself took his disillusionment much to heart. They discussed the reasons of the failure one stormy afternoon at one of their informal discussions, to which they had returned with longing.
“What the devil is the matter?” said the big fellow savagely. “Why, where I come from, the people I see, every mother’s son of them, feed on politics, talk nothing else—they love it! And here if you ask a man if he’s a Republican or a Democrat, he writes home and asks his father. A condition like this doesn’t exist anywhere else on the face of the globe. And this is America. Why?”
When he had propounded the question, there was a busy, unresponsive puffing of pipes, and then Pike added:
“That’s what hits me, too. Just look at the questions that are coming up; popular election of senators, income tax, direct primaries; it’s like building over the government again, and no one here cares or knows what’s doing. I say, why?”
“There may be fifty-two
