Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/271

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let go the judgeship, and the Children s Court. Mr. Shattock will be nominated by the Repub- lican convention; Mr. Johnson will be nominated by the Democratic convention. That s certain. And I want to give you one bit of advice. Don’t you run independent. I know what I m talking about. You can’t be elected.”

So that was the situation; that was the System. The Judge rose:

“I’m going to fight,” he said, “and I’m going to fight till I’m licked good and hard.”

He went back and he told his young men. There was no time to appeal to the voters, but it wasn’t necessary. Those young men scoured the town; they filled the streets and the conven- tion hall. The excitement was intense. Speer, the Democrat, wired to Evans, the Republican, that the Republicans were pulling away, and that if they did, the Democrats would have to quit, too. Evans wired his orders back, but Lindsey was nominated by the Republicans, and the Democrats had to nominate him. They had to nominate and run their whole County ticket over again, and (this is the funniest thing that I know in politics) the Democratic gang that had hatched this scheme to “lose Lindsey somehow in the mix-up” —these grafters, elected in the spring and settled at their graft, were