Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/333

 from an expert his first lesson in law-building. The next thing was to pass it. U'Ren asked why they didn't get the platform committee of the Republican Convention to endorse the bill. Bingham laughed, and so did a senator who was present, but the dreamer "rushed in where angels feared to tread." You will hear to-day in Oregon that U'Ren is "the smoothest lobbyist" in the state, and he is. He is calm, conciliating, persistent; and he fits his argument to his man. He talked politics to that platform committee; he gave, not his reasons for wanting the Australian ballot, but arguments which appealed to these party politicians. And they listened. Then Bingham appeared. Unlike U'Ren, Bingham was aggressive. He came into the committee room with fire in his eye, bulldozing, begging, reasoning, and threatening. They could put off U'Ren; Bingham hung on like a bulldog, and in the end, they got his bill endorsed by the Republicans. Then they went to the Democratic Convention and there also they won. And the Legislature, thus pledged, adopted Bingham's Australian ballot.

Started thus first in the public service, U'Ren had still to make his living. About that time he fell in with an interesting group of people, the Luellings of Milwaukee (Oregon), orchardists