The Honorable Archer Converse sat very straight in his chair and listened to those men.  He continued to sit straight and listened to others.  The men dealt in no diatribe.  There was no raving, there was no anarchistic sentiments.  They arose, uttered their grievances gloomily but without passion, and sat down.

One elderly man stood up and raised both hands.

“I came across the sea to this country, sir.  I came because I could have my little share in the government where I paid taxes and labored—­I could vote here.  It’s the only public privilege I have.  But, O God, give us some one to vote for!”

“I sympathize with your feelings,” replied Mr. Converse.  “But you are talking to the wrong man.  I’m not in politics.”

“By the gods, you will be if my nerve only holds out,” Farr told himself.

Another man sprang to his feet.  He spoke quietly, but his very repression made him more effective.

“What’s the good of voting till men like you do get into politics, Mr. Converse, and give us leaders who will use their power to help the people who voted for them?  I’m sick of voting.  I’m teamed up to the polls by ward workers—­and I know just why those men are in the game and who they’re working for.  What do you suppose Colonel Dodd cares which side carries this city, or which side carries the state?  He and his crowd stand to win, whatever party gets in.  You can’t beat ’em.  Business is business, no matter what politics may be!  The city money is wasted just the same, the policy game is let run for the benefit of the rich men who back it, all the grafts go right on.  You can’t fool me any longer.  They stir us poor chaps up at election-time, we rush to the polls and vote, and sometimes think we are accomplishing something.  But what we’re doing is simply boosting out some fellow who has made his pile and putting in another who wants office so that he can fill his own pockets by selling our common rights out to the same men.  I say, you can’t beat it!”

The Honorable Archer Converse seemed to find his position on the platform uncomfortable.  He rose suddenly and stepped down on the floor.  He went among the men.  He grasped the hands that were outstretched to him.  He realized that he had scant encouragement for these men.  The meeting had given him new light.  He knew considerable about the old days, and in the old days of politics men flocked to rallies.  They harkened humbly to speeches from their leaders, and swallowed the sugar-coated facts, and listened to bands, and joined the torch-light parades, and voted according to party lines, and thought they had done well; the surface of things was nicely slicked over.

He understood that out of the ease with which the mob could be herded, with others doing their thinking for them, had grown politics as a business—­with the big interests dominating both parties—­and no one realized how it had all come about better than Converse.  This new spirit, however, rather surprised him, for he had been keeping aloof from politics.  These men who crowded about him were not mere dumb, driven voters in the mass—­they were individuals who were thinking, who were demanding, who were seeking a leader that would consider them as citizens to be served, not chattels to be sold to the highest bidder.  His keen lawyer’s insight understood all this!