The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 30, 1898, Page 17

" DISTINGUISHED "MINE", T ME 1T ME ME] ‘MINE ~ SAYS MAGUIRE = xth street, st by the corner of Sperry— h street, which is never what you might h District was out on the sidewalk. A bon- Club Hall on the The Thirti before the San Francisco Athletic f men stood in the doorway, small boys danced rowd bonfire, small girls minced around the small bc of the neighborhood had brought out rocking chi and fro on the curb in the full cheer and glory of the blaze. Now and again an anxious mother called a small brand back 1 the bu Get outer the fire! Yer know whatcher promised me, for the rest of the time they talked family matters after the n of ladies in conclave and politics, as is more of a fashion, , among ladies 4n the Thirtieth than in many more aristocratic And “Yer right the improvements he’d be making in them old schoo se i “It's falling down they are, th old school=- houses” Anrd “I'm crazed that the children will be walking home from them dead.” And so forth and so on till the band came round the corner. The re three pi and the drum in the lead. “Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that made us free.” The ladies in the rocking chairs rocked in time to the tune. The amped their feet. A thin chil 1 all the children in the block men in the doorway whistled and cble piped up on-the words yok them up and marched round the bonfire. ‘Hurrah! Hurrah! We sing the jubilee.” “Listen to my Mamie!” sald Mamie's mother. “She’s the grand Ain't she!” said the next rocker, amiably. “Ain’t it nice to 11 sald Mamie's mother. vou can!” cried a voice from behind the rockers— ;, affable voice, full of good nature and good souled genuinen and human sympathy and \d love of children and I know not what besides! until he is elected anyway. sound of his voice you were around to the front what hea al, alities a man needs in politics suspected this in the all the qu And if you on sure of it in the sight of the man as he came of the s and stood there with his stout legs spread, rubbing his hands together and smiling on Mamie’s mother and the next rocker and Mamie, who was marching by— The flag that made us free » said the genial and e does! Where'd you “Hurrah! Hurrah! 's got a fortune in her voic “She sings like a bird, Mam that, Mamie?” “That child 1 v>( g 0! hurrahs— We sing the jubilee!” “To school!” said Mamie between e derful! Wonderful! And of course you ladies will be over > us candida 2 And to hear the Mayor? right! You ladies are the life of the Demo- ; that! 1 often say that the ladies have g the right man than the men themselves! said Mamie's mother. giggled coquettishly. But the next rc Could you tell me a “And you're the right man, ain’t you? better man now Tim to vote for?” The genial man stopped rubbing his hands and stretched them out before him appealingly. “Mrs. Quinnehan!” he sald gravely. “If "Fim thinks I'd do best for the ward I hope I'll get his vote, but if there’s any other man he thinks would do better I want him to vote for that man. It's the in s of the ward I've got at heart. You tell Tim.you heard And of course whom Tim would vo passed on she looked afte he the fine man and the lov And so, indeed, he wa Mrs. ( speaker! And so nice to everybody!” nice as he could be, beaming on the block as warmly as the bonfi paying little compliments to all the rockers,.patting little boy niling on little girls, clapping gawk h on the back, throwing his arm lovingly over the shoulders of ens, clean or soiled, drunk or sober, responsive orotherwise, greet- ing the crowd in the doorway of the San Francisco Athletic Club like long-lost brothers—-old boy” and “old man ” and “old horse” and “old gocks'—and .asking them all to step up and have something. He stepped up himself through a door cut in a rough board partition across cne side of the entrance hall and the crowd after him. And as it stepped up I vow it grew. I know not how, but a mysterious gummons went out from it and attracted other men to it from the north, south, east and west of it. Men who were inside the hall came out, men who were outside the hall came in, men who were up the bloek came down, men who were down the block came up, men who were across the street came over. And they went through the door in the rough board partition after the fine man and the lovely speaker who was so nice to everybody and, I suppose, had something, for standing alone in the outer hall I heard his hearty, genial voice above the clink of glasses and the shuffling of feet, urging them to have something more. The hall was decorated bravely in thin strings of bunting, polit- fcal banners and placards offering brief imperative advice to voters— “Vote for Washington Dodge for Assessor;” “Vote for Hull Mec- Clangiry for Justice of the Peace;” “Vote for James D. Phelan for Mayer® And each placard baited slyly with a picture as if to say, “Look on this honest countenance and vote for another man if you Behind the political banners hung the gay silk, gold-fringed awarded to the club. Ropes and rings dangled from the cen- ng over that space devoted to contests in the manly art and now set thick with chairs. A fallen punch-bag lay in a corner beside a pile of carpet, and a gay lithograph of the victorious Fitz, caught tn the brief costume of the ring, was half eclipsed by a portrait of James G. Maguire done on cotton in his campaign coat, The band came In and sat on the punch-bag and the pile of car- i ‘ pets and tooted three toots of the “Wabash.” The crowd came back throuch the door in the rough board partition and filed slowly into The little boys and the Lall. A few more came in from the street. the little girls among them and a man with a young baby in his arms. He was a tired looking man, pale, soft-eyed, delicately bearded like the gentie Nazarene, and he held the baby with a practiced hand that told its motherless story well. The better sort of men passed, bv a taecit understanding, to the chairs in the middle of the hall; the others climbed the tlers of rough benches, like circus seats, which 1 the side walls to the roof, and the worst, as often happens, d t to the top. Tha baby cried out sharply in its sleep upon its father's breast. He soothed it tenderly and a woman straggling by looked down at it and at him. She was a dissipated looking woman with a rough face and red eyes, but s miled a sudden sweet, womanly smile and said: Ain't it cunnir Father smiled back at her and she passed on to the circus seats and scrambled up them, shrieking and catching at the shoulders of hed the top. A man who looked like a bunco-steerer y the arm when she got there. " he said thickly. “Lay down!” the middle chairs were interesting—like with the grim, strong-featured, lined, worn, with serfous here to help make the ci laws, to elect the city’s i see that they took such matters seriously The pity of it was they were in the minority. were la k: One not intelligently. of master of ceremon t of the passageway. nt to sit front?"” 5 * I said, rescuing the elbow. There'll be a crowd here by the door,”- he argued, reaching out ., “and you can't see the Mayor if you sit here.” Than! I said I've seen him.” A wom who had not snatched at my wasted opportunity. I saw vield a willing elbow and go hustling through the chairs to the very first row. She sat there with her eyes glued to the curtain at the left of the stage and started nervously every time it was lifted to let a candidate through: by the other door—democratically, you know, right through the crowd, so that he was recognized and cheered from the start. But this was later. All the other candidates came first—the would-be Supervisors and Assessors and School Directors and City and County Clerks and Attorneys and Justices of the Peace. And what they all, with an exception or two, wanted to put themselves in this embarrassing position for I could not say—nor perhaps at that moment could they. Their political aspirations seemed to weigh on them like a load of shame. They apologized for taking up the time of the audience with their poor remarks and volunteered to make these as short as possible—which they certainly did not— dwelt on the superior merits of other candidates (for other offices, of expatlated on their own unworthiness and had, usually, to The A stood by the door and shoved people He caught me under the elbow. course), be helped oft by the chairman. One pitied them out of a full heart 10 see them so shamed and shy and wondered, as I have said before, on earth they had rushed into politics at all if they felt this way about it, since it is so easy to hide one’s unfitness for public office by remaining in private life. They were all floridly introduced by the chairman, adorned with characters they could not hope to sustain, painted in colors that were sure to fade, and then turned over o the Thirtieth. “This is Mr. Bartlett! One of that famous family of Bartletts have figured in the political history of the State. Mr. Bartlett is fitted by heredity as well as natural ability for public office. I illiant young friend to speak for himself.” wh ve m Bartlett smiled palely on the Thirtieth and began with a necdote about a man named Pat who had a bucket of rock dropped on him. ‘“Are you dead, Pat?” said the man who dropped the bucket. “Naw! O'im not dead,” said Pat, “but O'Im knocked spacheless.” The Thirtieth received this in stony gloom. It was evid that Mr. Bartlett had dropped a bucket of rock. He paused hopefully and c a deprecating eye over the house. The bunco- at him from under the roof. vn!” he shouted. “Lay down!” The chairman rapped for silence and Mr. Bartlett finished his speech. He made a point of having been born in the neighborhood. “I have lived,” he said, “almost within sound of my own voice “You must have a strong constitution,” observed a man at the back of the hall. The Thirtieth laughed brutally and Mr. Bartlett hurried away from his childhood’s home to other matters of interest and sat down in the midst of r ling and shuffling that must have told him he was not good for one word more. Not so Mr. Twigg, who might have talked for ever to the Thirtieth if he could but have found the words. But words were not ex- actly in Mr. Twigg’s line. He had a few, of which he made repeated use, but even a good thing cannot last forever. Mr. Twigg wanted to go to the Senate from the Thirtieth. He put it very unostenta- tiously. He said he wasn’t no self-flatterer, that is to say, he wasn't no hand to flatter himself, but he thought he could flatter himself to the extent that he had always been honest and he thought a man wasn’t flattering himself any too much who could say that, but stiil he flattered himself it wasn’'t every man who could flatter himself so much. Then he said he thought honesty was a good thing. The Thirtieth cheered this sentiment wildly. Mr. Twigg was so pleased that he said it again. Then he said that if he got elected to the Senate he meant to be an honest Senator if he wasn't nothing else. And the Thirtieth cheered him off almost as wildly as they cheered Mr. Hanrahan on. I forget now what it is Mr. Hanrahan wants. I know if the Thirtieth has any influence he is likely to get it, whatever it is. After the Mayor, Mr. Hanrahan was the man of the night. He was modest and T think sincere, and certainly brief. “You know me,” he said. “I was born in the Thirtieth. I went to school in the Thirtieth. T've worked in the Thirtieth. If you don’t all know me it's because I've worked hard ever since I left school and I haven't got round much among you. But I guess you all know me.” And that was about all there was to Mr. Hanrahan’s speech. But what need, may I ask, has man to say more when a little will snccerd so well? Mr. Pope, aspirant for the honors of School Director, talked for twice the time and talked exceeding well without producing half the effect. His was the instructive style, full of suppositious cases, mathematical calculations and quota- tions from the great. His dignity was invincible. The bunco- steerer told him twice to “Lay down!” without disturbing the even tenor of his grave discourse and the Thirtieth was cowed to silence by his superior English. Still it was not enthusiastic over him as it was over Mr. Hull McClaughry, a keen-faced, clear-eyed young N whe wants to be Justice of the Peace. and said quite candidly thet he thought he would make a pretty good one—and, indeed, he looked as if he might—and that he would try anyhow for all there and he hoped his fellow citizens in the Thirtieth would felt the same way, and anyhow he hoped, when their minds about bigger candidates for bigger places that they would remember him and those little two hundred and pinety-nine dollar jobs out at the City Hall. Then he ducked a briof little bow and said he was very much obliged to them for listening to him and got himself into his hat and coat and out of the hajl in a great hurry, with everybody stamping and clapping and howling, “Good boy!” after him. The noise was so great that the baby woke up and turned a fat little red face inquiringly from its father’s vest and woke up its father, whose gentle weary head was nodding over it. The chairman rose to ask the audience to be patient as the Mayor was expected to arrive now at any moment. Meantime Mr. Cannon, candidate for School Director, would make a few remarks. Mr. Cannon apologized for Bl pem o nee to Dr. Dodge, Which he said he could not help, and made several deadly little puns for which he offered no apology at all, and whatever else he might have sald or done was forgotten In the excitement of picking up @ gentlemen who had fallen off the top tier o 8. DTncn ifigf,}': s:::-m, hoarse, bald man of Shakespearian address took the stage and was greeted with cries of “Hello, Frank! Give it to us straight! You're the boy to talk! Go ahead, old socks! You're talking to your friends!” After which the chairman introduced him to porsible strangers as Mr, Franklin K. Lane, candldate for City and County Attorney. “T am. surpriged,” said Mr. Lane, indicative of Shakespearian astonishment, was in him, vote for him if they they were making up with a large, stuffed gesture, *to see this gathering here! And after all the Mayorigame * s 4TAKING AD- VANTA . OF A “'POLITICAL BONFIRE > I have heard it said on Market street that James D. Phelan is not popular in the Thirtieth District.” “Yesh, she is!” interrupted a gentleman at the back of the hall “Mosh pop’lar man shouth Market street. Three sheers f'rm shouth Market f'r James D. Phelan!” “Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!’ howled the Thirtieth, and th band played “Rum-tiddy-um-tum Rum-tum-tum!” Then the chairman rapped fo order and Mr. Franklin K. Lan. went on with his remarks. He said he did not wish to take up the time of this fine audience. "LAY Down “ LAY DOWN HAT JIMMIE BOWED To HIY AUDIENCE: to settle it. A man with S. F. F. D. on his cap struck his hand on his lez and shouted, ‘“The whool foire department is behoind Phalin, and that settles Patton!” Lay down!” said the bunko steerer, sleepily: down! Meantime the Mayor extended a pacific hand and smiled a smile of peace. He said Patton was all right because nobody knew any- thing about him. “IWait,” he said dramatically. “Wait until he has had two years in the City Hall and then we can tell what's the matter with him!"” Then he told his little hard-luck story about the jeers of the Repnbilcan press and his persecution at the hands of false-hearted lamp-lighters and made a few little boasts and threats about the gas and water companies and what he had done and what he meant to do to them. And then he bowed his little bow and went his little ways with the cheers of the Thirtieth and three more ‘Wagnerian trumps of the trombone to speed him—as pleased a little politician as ever worked hard for popularity “shouth Market” and got it, such as it is, and for whatever it is worth. And with him went all the glory of the meeting in the Thirtieth District. The candidates who concluded it spoke to emptying benches “D'ye hear? Lay “Stop right there,” said a voice from the fine audience. right there, Frank! You can have all the time you want. friends and we've got time to burn.” “Yes, thanks,” replied Mr. Lane, blandly, “but I've got to speak Resides the Mayor will be here pre- sently (wild cheers) and I want to get in a few remarks about him before he comes and about some of the other candidates, including at two other meetings myself. myself.” “What's the matter with Franklin K. Lane?” shouted the Thir- tieth. *‘He's all right!” Mr, Lane bowed appreciatively and went on with his few re- marks. He made all the old points over again, but he made them well. He appealed tactfully to the workingman to support the mer of his own class, mwentioning adroitly that he had worked himselt with “these two good hands,” also that he had gone hungry on the streets of San Francisco while looking for work to do with.them. And then what did he do? Did he go to the mansions of Nob Hill and ask the bloated bondholders for their gold? No! He went to the honest workingman—his friend and equal—and borrowed a dollar from him and paid it back, too, as soon as he could! And that was what the workingmen wanted to do. They wanted to hold together, to keep to their own, to stick to their friends! To such men as James D. Phelan and James G. Maguire, who belonged to the work- ing class themselves—just as he, Frank Lane, did—and he was proud of it! And in the midst of his enthusiasm Mr. Frank Lane neglected to mention why he himself had stopped working with his two_good hands to study law with his one good head—any more than James G. Maguire ever explained why he left that anvil of which he is sb monstrous proud during campaigns and keeps so carefully in the backzrcund at other seasons of the year. The Mayor came in to three Wagnerian trumps on the trombone. The Thirtieth cheered him to a man. Its representatives crowded so close to him that he had to pick up the skirts of his campaign coat— that sober black diagonal of priestly cut which belongs in common to politician and undertaker—and pull it along after him. ”‘I‘Where do they get their clothes?” I whispered to the man with me. “Goldstein & Cohen's,” he whispered back. ““Good political make- up, isn't 1t? Walit till you see Maguire's!” “But Maguire is not coming over here to-night.” “We'll go over to him. We'll go with the Mayor. “What's the matter with Patton?" The cry came from the back of the hall and the Thirtieth rose Listen!"” “Stop We're your and to idle ears, steerer went home, and the woman with the red fa v 7 a ace with him, and nne: them the tired father and the baby asleep again on his breast. i t the Metropolitan Temple, where the Mayor went, and 1 close ter him, were none of these interesting things—no babies, no bunco- The band stole quietly away. Even the bunco- steerers, no bonfires, no atmosphere, no excitement, no inter- ruptions to speak of. There was not even very much Ma'yor. He got fikmusmg' cheering reception and the three Wagnerian trumps—so e those of the Thirtieth District that I suspected him of carrying %?St?_;xcrtomzéignér:mbnr;fztungehr his coattails. But as the Thirtieth vas all for 3 e A‘a,'i' alt Yor Maghive, elan, so the Metropolitan Temple meet- nd so was Maguire. That campaign modesty which inspires candidates to dilate on the merits ofponge another {mth no pla(?e in the ‘Maguire philosophy. The gubernatorial candidate of the Demo- ;rnt‘{c‘party talks about himself. He speaks in sneering contrast of .lls distinguished opponent” and speaks of him thus too often—some slx or seven times in the same sentence—so that in listening I was somewhat minded of the oratory of Mr. Twige. But fondly as the Maguire fancy clings to the word “distinguished,” used in a satiric sense, it is yet more firmly set on the little words “I” and ‘“me.” These drep from his tongue as honey droppeth from the comb and linger sweetly on his lipe and leave them only to return. His speech was a little autoblography, bound in the beauty of self-esteem, his manner a vast compliment to himself, his acknowledgment of ap- plause in the nature of approval, his egotism of that smug and smiling sort that maddens whom it hears. And although I am as good a Democrat as ever wrote for a Republican newspaper I longed to hear the buncq-gteerer say to James G, Maguire: “Tav down!” . ALICE RIX,