THE GREAT GAME

If Evan Blount, as the representative of the unpopular railroad, had been anticipating an unfriendly reception at the great gold-camp in the Carnadine Hills, he was agreeably disappointed.  A committee of citizens, headed by Jasper Steuchfield, the “Paramounter” chairman for Carnadine County, met him at the train, escorted him to the hotel, and, during the afternoon which was at his disposal, gave him joyously and hilariously the freedom of the camp.

The political meeting, called for an early hour in the evening, was held in the Carnadine Mining Company’s ore-shed, electric-lighted for the occasion.  When the hour came the big shed was packed with an enthusiastic audience, and there were prolonged cheers and hand-clappings when the railroad advocate took his seat on the improvised platform as the guest of the local committee.

Later, when Judge Crowley, candidate prospective on the popular ticket for the State Senate, opened the joint debate with a shrewd arraignment of the methods of the railroad company, not only in its dealings with the public as a common carrier, but also in the pertinacity with which it invaded the political field, there was tumultuous applause; but it was no heartier than that which greeted Blount when he rose to present the railroad side of the argument.

During the journey from the capital, which had consumed the night and the greater portion of the forenoon, he had prepared his speech.  His argument—­the one unanswerable argument, as it appeared to him—­was the absurdity and injustice of a law which presumed to limit the earning power of a corporation by fixing the maximum rates it might charge, without at the same time making a corresponding regulation fixing the price which the company should pay for its labor and material.

Upon this foundation he was able to build a fair structure of oratory.  The judge, his opponent, was a rather turgid man whose speech had abounded in flights of denunciation and whose appeal had been made frankly to prejudice and party rancor.  Blount took his cue shrewdly.  Touching lightly upon the public grievances, some of which he characterized as just and entirely defensible, he rang the changes calmly and logically upon the square deal, no less for the corporations than for the individual.  “Take it to yourselves, you merchants,” he urged.  “Imagine a law on the statute-books fixing the prices at which you shall sell your goods, and that same law leaving you at the mercy of those from whom you must buy!  Take it to yourselves, you miners.  Suppose the legislature had enacted a law fixing the maximum price at which you shall sell your skill and your labor, and at the same time leaving it optional with every man from whom you buy, the butcher, the baker, the grocer, to charge you what he pleases or what he can get!  That, my good friends, is the situation of the railroad company in this State to-day”—­and he went on to analyze the hard situation, filling his hour very creditably and, if the frequent bursts of applause could be taken to mean anything, to the complete satisfaction of his hearers.  Indeed, at the end of his argument he was given what the local paper of the following day was pleased to call “a spontaneous and pandemonious ovation.”