The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-13
CHAPTER XVII.
THE INTANGIBLE FORCE.

Of a great force. intangible chiefly because
1t was not named. He kept out of politics
entirely at this time, but could not keep
out of contact with the people in the ag-
gregate any more than he could stay away
from public sale in the old days, or his
mother keep away from a quilting bee
down in the home of his boyhood before
he was born. He heartily enjoyed attend
ing and speaking at these public meetings,
and his hold on his audiences seemed
greater than ever before now that he did
not care for their franchises, the concrete
representation of their good will and adj
miration. He found it a new pleasure, and
great one, to mix with people with no ul-
terror object for his natural sociability, and
he found that he liked best to talk to we'll
informed, sensible laboring men in and out
of unions
The intangible force permeating all
around him was easily felt by Shacklett
and easily understood by him. although he
had only the casual interest in it that one
takes in a real giant If one has been in the
museum business. The component parts of
the intangible force took the same interest
in Shacklett that Wall street takes in a
great financier who has retired from the
working criminal takes in a reformed bur-
glar who is living up to his new position
superintendent of Sunday school-the
intangible force itself will prefer one SIM
ile and another more tangible force ex-
erted in another direction will prefer the
other figure. For the intangible force was
not exerting it's influence upon the mobile
body polite unopposed, though it was
nd Httl
its original direction of action.
The moment the intangible force was
named it became somewhat tangible. but it
really was not named because of a dispute
about terminology-it wanted itself called
| the organization, and the opposing force
wanted 1t called the machine Since 1t
were better so. for practical purposes, it
| was little known to the masses of voters,
whose hands it guided as ballots were
marked in the election booths The force
became tangible some years later, and at
once the organization divided, or the ma
chine burst to pieces, whichever form of
expression one prefers. To Shacklett it
was as beautiful piece of mechanism as
his watch, and he understood it much bet
ter than he did the works in the gold case
because he was not matchmaker, but was
4
He called the intangible force the organiza-
ton to other lawyers, as being the more
| polite term, and he called it the machine
to himself and wife. as being the most APP
propriate name for 1t and a more direct
expression.
The intangible force, which always had
been resistless, had the velocity and some
thing of the diffusion of electricity. At a
greater rate of speed than an order from
the brain moves the foot an order from it's
source moved whole county conventions.
two hundred miles away from Springfield.
Since Shacklett finally was mixed up in the
whirling wheels and cams and eccentrics
Of this organization, 1t may be called In
these historical pages the machine, as a
convenient term used without intention Of
being rude.
The machine was delightfully."- simple
when one understood It. There were two
| men, Black and Ramsey, in the center of
web of lines extending all over the State
These men had more or less intimate ac-
| quaintance with people in each county, and
had colonel in each congressional dis
| trict- In each county was a tried and
trusted captain who had demonstrated his
ability to get results, and in each township
| was lieutenant who able to instruct
the voters Of the party in the correct prin-
ciples of the selection of the fittest When
the properly instructed voters had selected
delegates at the primaries, and these care
fully selected delegates had met in county
convention, 1t followed logically that the
| delegates to the state convention and the
congressional and the legislative district
conventions would be excellent judges of
timber from which to hew statesmen. At
any rate, they could not go wrong, for
before the convention convened they had
been told by men close to the source of all
wisdom in Springfield which candidates for
nomination were the best men. Since NOM
ination was equivalent to election there
were opportunities for the return flow of
the intangible force moving the convention
delegates into offices and surrounding the
colcnels and captains with sinecures and
honors. thus preserving a proper conserva-
tion of energy and a correlation of force
that was perfectly natural.
Sometimes a little heat would be caused
by the operation of the opposing force.
which was called a body of reformers or
lot of soreheads. according to ones own
relation to the two forces. The opposition
was by no means as simple a thing as the
intangible force which ii opposed-opposi-
lions are always complex unless they con-
sist of one man each, and then they are
called cranks In this case the opposition
was composed OF three elements-some
good people who did not approve all the
manifestations of the intangible force
some bad people who openly admitted that
they wanted TO be able to do the same OBJ
jectionable things for their own profit and
some other bad people who secretly desired
the opportunities for plucking and eating
the apples, now forbidden fruit to them
the eating of which involved governmental
sins-but who made a great display OF
their own political piety as a sheepskin
covering for their personal wolAshness. OF
course. these three diverse elements could
not harmonize into chord, but were al
ways full OF discords, which sometimes an
noyed the ears OF the persons in power
who were the neurons OF the intangible
force. although little else was accom-.
plished.
The opposition had been In existence ever
since the organization had been percepti-
BILE in its results. Its personnel had
changed as one or another Of its componen,
parts had gone over to the successful pow.
er. or had dropped out of the unequal con.
test. full of disappointment and of bitter.
ness against politics. But its ranks were
recruited with greater or less rapidity "a ri