“I do not need to tell you that the veto of a bill by a governor means, in most cases, its death.  Gentlemen, it would be polite and kind and gracious of you to bow low here to-day and hand up the nomination to the amiable Governor Harwood.  But with the conditions as they are in this state are you going to be polite, merely, while the hearses are rumbling down your streets?  I have no way of knowing how many of you into whose eyes I am looking have seen death enter your own homes from the taps of this much-promising, little-accomplishing water syndicate.  But if you have seen death touch your loved ones, or if you go home from here and behold fever ravaging your community, it will be poor consolation to your soul to remember that at least you were polite to an amiable man who desired the honor of a renomination.”

The faces of the convention showed that this blunt yet shrewd appeal to the individual antagonism of men had produced profound effect.

“But that is only one feature of what this state demands and needs, gentlemen,” was Farr’s ringing declaration.  “This struggle for pure water has opened a broad avenue.  The towns and cities of this state must take back into their own hands the properties and franchises which have been mismanaged by the men to whose hands unwise gift by the people has intrusted the people’s own.  We need a man in the Big Chair of State who will stand with the people in this crusade!”

This amazing declaration in open convention produced as much consternation on the platform as if Farr had dropped a bomb there.

He uttered something which was worse than mere political rebellion:  he was proposing to take for the people properties which constituted the backbone of the oligarchy’s power in state affairs.

Colonel Dodd had been growling behind the chairman, angrily endeavoring to get the ear of that gentleman.  But the chairman seemed to be as wholly absorbed by this astonishing arraignment as were the delegates.

The head of the state machine, for the first time in his career, was compelled to come into the open instead of through the mouth of a lieutenant.  He could not wait to give orders.

He rose and stamped to the front of the platform.  His voice rang hoarse and loud.

“There can be no more of this unparliamentary and irregular nonsense.  What has got into this convention?  Don’t you understand that no speaker is allowed to break the rules and attack a man under guise of nominating another?  Mr. Chairman, I demand that this slanderer be removed from the hall and that we proceed to the nomination of a governor.”

There was a hush during which Farr and Colonel Dodd looked at each other, crossing their stares like long rapiers over the terraced heads.

“I fear I was wrong,” confessed Farr, gently.  “But we poor folks down in the ranks don’t know much about the rules, and when we are struggling to save the ones we love we are apt to forget and talk to the heart of things.  I am not trying to show that I am a skilful orator, gentlemen of the convention.”  He held up his arms.  “I am crying for Justice!”