Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/265



the eyes of a little boy he mentions, who, sitting silent one day watching the Judge deal out justice, suddenly rushed up and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you!” the child said.

The test came at the elections of 1904. The Judge had to run then, and he sought the office. “I had to,” he says apologetically; “my work was only just begun.” His enemies meant to defeat him. Who were his enemies ? There was Frank Adams and his Police Board, whose co-partnership with vice and crime he had exposed and disturbed; they were still in office and powerful in his party. Then there were the County Commissioners whom he had driven to trial for grafting; they controlled the County Board, and the party machinery. These two groups with all their followers hated the just Judge, of course, and they proposed to beat him openly for the nomination. But wiser counsels prevailed. Other, cooler enemies, passed the word to beat him quietly. Lindsey was “popu- lar” with the women and children, the leaders said, and — women vote in Colorado. The bio- leaders advised caution, and the scheme was to make him decline the nomination himself. They proposed to nominate as his associate on the County Bench a man who was “going to knock out all this kid business.” They expected the