Sammy was the recognized colored state boss; three aldermen and three colored members of the legislature took his orders; the colored judge owed his place to Sammy, and, while independent, was friendly. The public service corporations were back of Sammy with money and influence. Four “assistant” corporation counsels named by Sammy were receiving five thousand dollars a year each for duties that, to say the least, were not arduous; while the Civil Service, the Post Office, and the schools had hundreds of colored employees who owed or thought they owed their chance to make a decent living to the Honorable Sammy Scott. Finally, there was Sara’s Colored Women’s Council, through which for the first time the Negro women loomed as an independent political force.
Thus Sammy was dictator and candidate, and the party machine had definitely and categorically promised. The Negro majority in the First Congressional District was undoubted.
Now, however, and suddenly, matters changed. Since Matthew’s success, Sara had definitely determined to kill off Sammy and send Matthew to Congress. Sammy sensed this, and these politicians began to stalk each other. Sara’s task was hardest, and she knew it. Sammy was Heir Apparent by all the rules of the game. But there were pitfalls, and Sara knew them. She was going to make no mistake, but she was watching.
Gradually Sammy became less communicative. He had a number of secret conferences in the early spring of 1926, to which Sara, contrary to custom, was not invited; and his accounts of these meetings were vague.
“Oh, just a get-together—talkee, talkee; nothing important.”
But Sara wasn’t fooled. She knew that Sammy was in trouble and struggling desperately. The fact was that Sammy was sorely puzzled. First and weightiest, the white party bosses wanted Doolittle for “just one more term.” Doolittle held exceedingly important committee places in Congress, and especially as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House, he was a power for tariff legislation. Millions depended on the revision which exporters, farmers, and laborers were demanding more and more loudly. Then there was legislation for the farmers and on the railroads and above all certain nationwide superpower plans at Niagara, at Muscle Shoals and Boulder Dam. It was no question of “color,” the white leaders carefully explained. It was a grave question of party interests. Two years hence, the nomination was Sammy’s with bands playing. This year, Doolittle simply must go back, and money was no object.
That was reason Number One, and as money always was an object with Sammy, it loomed large in his thought. But that wasn’t all. Sammy did not trust Sara, and Sara, by efficiently organizing the colored women, had quietly become the biggest single political force in his colored constituency. Indeed, her new Colored Women’s Council was the most perfect piece of smoothly running political machinery that Sammy knew. He couldn’t touch it, and he had tried. Now Sara had an uncomfortably popular husband. Matthew was a successful member of the legislature, young and intelligent, with some personal popularity. His very aloofness, absentmindedness, indifference to money or fame—increased his vogue. If Doolittle were forced to resign, could Sammy land the nomination without Sara’s help? And with the knifing of men like Corruthers, who was still sore with Sammy; and particularly without the party slush fund?
Sammy hesitated and all but lost. He pocketed twenty-five thousand dollars for campaign expenses within a few days and consented to Doolittle’s renomination. But he did not dare announce it. Sara scented a crisis. She looked over his papers—always kept carelessly—and ran across his bank book. She noticed that twenty-five thousand dollar cash deposit. Then she got busy on the Doolittle end. She knew a maid long connected with the congressman’s family. Soon she had inside news. It was going to be announced that Doolittle was not to resign. His health (which was to have been the excuse) had been “greatly improved by a trip to Europe,” and the honor of another and strictly final term was to be given this “friend and champion of our race”!
Sara immediately took the high hand. She walked into Sammy’s office without knocking and closed the door. She was brief, inaccessible, and coldly indignant. She reminded Sammy of his solemn promise to refuse Doolittle another term; she accused him of being bribed and announced distinctly her withdrawal from all political alliance with the Scott machine!
Sammy was aghast. It was the coldest holdup he had ever experienced. He promised her office, influence, money, and anything in reason for Matthew. She was adamant. She expressed great sorrow at this breaking of old ties.
“Oh, go to hell!” growled Sammy and slammed the door after her. He knew her game, of course. She was going to run Matthew for Congress, and, by George, she had a chance to win, unless he could kill Matthew off.
Sara immediately gave her story to the newspapers, colored and white, and called meetings of all her clubs. Bedlam broke loose about Sammy’s devoted head. He was accused of “Betraying and Selling out his Race to White Politicians!” The Negro papers, by secret information or astonishingly lucky guess, named the exact sum he received—twenty-five thousand dollars. The white papers sneered at Negro grafting politicians and praised the upright and experienced Doolittle. Sammy’s appointees and heads of his political machine sat securely on the fence and said and did nothing. They were glad that Sammy had missed the nomination. They were waiting to know just what their share of the slush fund was to be. They were afraid of the popular uproar against Sammy. Above all, they feared Sara. It looked perilously like Sammy’s finish.
Sammy was no quitter. When he was “down, he was never out.” And now he really began to fight. Sammy turned to the gang he could best trust for underground dirty work. The very respectability which Sara had forced on him in
