“I’m glad you took my hint about the legislature,” said Sara sweetly, one night at dinner.
Matthew stared. When had she hinted, and what?
Sara proceeded further with her plans. She put before Mr. Graham a suggested platform which contained a good many of the Republican demands but even more of the Progressive demands. Mr. Graham immediately rejected it as she expected. He pointed out just how much more he must have and what things he could under no circumstances admit.
Sara tried the same method with Mr. Cadwalader; only in his case she submitted a platform with less of the Progressive demands and more of the Republican. She had more success with him. She could easily see that Mr. Cadwalader after all really leaned considerably toward Republican policies and was Progressive in theory and by the practical necessity of yielding something to the Labor group. But the question Sara quickly saw was, Which Labor group? There were, for instance, the aristocrats in the Labor world; the skilled trade unions connected with the American Federation of Labor; and on the other hand, there was the left wing, the Communist radicals, and there was a string of uncommitted workers between. Mr. Cadwalader consulted the conservative labor unionists and evolved a platform which was not so far from Sara’s, and indeed as she compared them, Mr. Graham and Mr. Cadwalader seemed easily reconcilable, at least in words. Sara tried again and brought another modified platform to Mr. Graham. Mr. Graham read it and smiled. So far as words went, there was really little to object to, but he laid it aside and looked Sara squarely in the eye, and Sara looked just as squarely at him. It had come to a showdown, and both knew it. Sara attempted no further fencing. She simply said:
“What is it specifically that you want Matthew to do in Congress? Write it out, and I’ll see that he signs it.”
He took a piece of paper and wrote a short statement. It had reference to specific bills to be introduced in the next Congress, on the tariff, on farm relief, on railroad consolidation, and on superpower. He even named the persons who were going to introduce the bills. Then he handed the slip to Sara. She read it over carefully, folded it up, and put it in her bag.
“You’ll receive this, signed, at or before the final conference.”
“Before will be better,” suggested Mr. Graham.
“Perhaps,” answered Sara, “but on the night of the conference it will be time enough.”
Mr. Graham looked almost genial. Sara was the kind of politician that he liked, especially as he saw at present no way to escape a colored candidate, and on the whole he preferred Matthew Towns to Sammy Scott.
“But how about the Radical wing?” he asked. “Are they going to accept this platform?”
“That is the point,” said Sara. “I am trying to make the platform broad enough to attract the bulk of the Labor group, but I have not consulted the radicals yet. If they accept what I offer, all right; but even if they do not, we have made sure of the majority of the third party’s support.”
In this way and by several consultations with Mr. Cadwalader, Mrs. Beech, and their friends, Sara evolved a statement which seemed fair, especially when most of the persons involved began to realize that Matthew Towns on this platform was pretty sure of election.
Sara then turned to the Labor group. Mr. Cadwalader had smoothed the way for her to meet the labor-union heads, and it took Sara but a short time to learn how the land lay there. Eight-hour laws, and anti-injunction legislation, of course; but above all “down with Negro scabs”! Negroes should be taught never to take white strikers’ jobs.
“Even if white unions bar them before and after the strike,” thought Sara. But she did not say so. She agreed that scabbing was reprehensible, and in turn the union leaders unctuously asserted the “principle” of no color line in the Federation of Labor. It was quite a love feast, and both Sara and Mr. Cadwalader were elated.
Then Sara finally plucked up courage and visited the headquarters of the left-wing trade unionists. She had anticipated some unpleasantness, and she was not disappointed. Her earlier contact with the group had been by letter, and she had been impressed by the shrewd leadership and evidence of wide vision. She was prepared for careful mental gymnastics and careful play of word and phrase. Instead she found a rough group of painfully frank folk. The surroundings were dirty, and the people were rude. It was much less attractive than her visits to the well-furnished headquarters of the Republicans or to the rooms of the Woman’s City Club. But if Sara was disgusted with the people and surroundings, she was even more put out with their demands. They came out flat-footed and assumed facts that were puzzling. She did not altogether understand them, chiefly because she had not taken time to study them; it was words and personalities that she had come to probe. The flat demands therefore seemed to her outrageous, revolutionary.
“Overthrow capital? What do you mean?” she said. “Do you want to stop industry entirely and go back to barbarism?”
Then all talked at once in that little crowded room, and she did not pretend to understand:
“What’s Towns going to do for municipal ownership of public services? For raising the income taxes on millionaires? For regulating and seizing the railroads? For curbing labor injunctions? For confiscating the unearned increment? For abolishing private ownership of capital?”
Sara stared; then she gathered up her papers.
“I shall have to ask Mr. Towns,” she said, crisply. “We will have another consultation next week.” And she swept out, vowing to have nothing to do with this gang
