“Parties are necessary to democratic government.  I don’t believe merely in my own party; I want the opposition to be strong enough to make a fight.  The people are better satisfied if there’s a contest for the offices.  I’m not sorry when we lose occasionally; defeat disciplines and strengthens a party.  I have made a point in our little local affairs of not fighting independents when they break with us for any reason.  Believing as I do that parties are essential, and that schismatic movements are futile, I make a point of not attacking them.  Their failures strengthen the party—­and incidentally kill the men who have kicked out of the traces.  You never have to bother with them a second time.”

“But they help clear the air—­they serve a purpose?” suggested Harwood.  He had acquired a taste for the “Nation” and the New York “Evening Post” at college, and Bassett’s frank statement of his political opinions struck Dan as mediaeval.  He was, however, instinctively a reporter, and he refrained from interposing himself further than was necessary to stimulate the talk of the man before him.

“You are quite right, Mr. Harwood.  They serve an excellent purpose.  They provide an outlet; they serve as a safety valve.  Now and then they will win a fight, and that’s a good thing too, for they will prove, on experiment, that they are just as human and weak in practical application of their ideas as the rest of us.  I’d even go as far as to say that in certain circumstances I’d let them win.  They help drive home my idea that the old parties, like old, established business houses, have got to maintain a standard or they will lose the business to which they are rightfully entitled.  When you see your customers passing your front door to try a new shop farther up the street, you want to sit down and consider what’s the matter, and devise means of regaining your lost ground.  It doesn’t pay merely to ridicule the new man or cry that his goods are inferior.  Yours have got to be superior—­or”—­and the gray eyes twinkled for the first time—­“they must be dressed up to look better in your show window.”

Bassett rose and walked the length of the room, with his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, and before he sat down he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher and drank it slowly, with an air of preoccupation.  He moved easily, with a quicker step than might have been expected in one of his figure.  The strength of his hand was also in the firm line of his vigorous, well-knit frame.  And his rather large head, Dan observed, rested solidly on broad shoulders.

Harwood’s thoughts were, however, given another turn at once.  Morton Bassett had said all he cared to say about politics and he now asked Dan whether he was a college man, to which prompting the reporter recited succinctly the annals of his life.

“You’re a Harrison County boy, are you?  So you didn’t like the farm, and found a way out?  That’s good.  You may be interested in some of my books.”