Daily Kennebec journal., 1902-11-22
THE NIGHT OF ELECTION.
Pen Sketches of the Wild Scenes in the
Wiqwam.

The rejuVenatiOn of Tammany at the
November election of 1902 was not such
a picturesque sight to the casual OBJ
server in the F'ourteenth-st street COM
mittee-room while the returns We're
coming in. The life elixir of 122,O05
votes was injected into the veins of u
crowd of gray-haired, stout men, with
black felt hats over their Occiputs and
cold snipes between their molars, herd
ed around a long table covered with
black oilcloth, with disappointing
shows of emotion. But it was different
with the gang that shouted attendance
IN them and appeared and disappeared
through the nimbus of tobacco smoke,
musk ard carbonic acid gas, as the
rotrse voice at the table stirred it,
shouting: Three hundred and 'steen
districts out of 'steen hundred and
'stccr, give COler," etc. No news could
have had any effect on the veins of
that gang surercharged as it already
was with alcohol.
Up to nine O'Clock, when the fight
was "all over" past nine, when the
serious youth at the table telephone
0beyed the shout from the rear to "call
up state headquarters and roast them"
for that growing Odell farmer vote; at
ten, while the big-paunched men with
gray whiskers silently and seriously
figured on slips of yellow paper at the
long black table and the announcer
banged his leaden paperweights and
beloved, their brothers in blood and
brain shouted into the chok ing at
mospherc the same in;lni;ies through
victory, uncertainty and defeat. 1t
was a great Tammany exhibition.
Don't YOU know Coler's eleoted?"
voice would hiccough from somewhere
along the wainscOting of the historic
chamber Then why don't you so
give it Out?" and a rOtund figure, with
head like an enormous humpty
dumpty egg, would kick up its feet and
vanish in the smoke under the rooms
mural masterpieces of Washington,
Jefferson and a nun giving drink to
dying soldier, frescoed on the terra
Gotta squares and scrolls Of the archi-
tecturaI period in which the hall was
built.
"A good many fellows II fall asleep
in the Hoffman House tonight" /" observed
gTay-haired old fellow mt the
table, when he had figured out the pith
of the latest return and he pulled his
nat farther over his eyes. and each of
the forty cigars in the forty silent faces
about him got another bite for victory.
The telegraph operator in their mldst
pounded out the figures from the re-
sorator on his typewriter and passed
up the next yellow slip to the annOun-
GER Nervous reporters craned their
necks to get a glimpse of it as it fiut-
tered in the air, before he with the
crimson tie flashed out into the smoke
with the rays from his diamond stud
thar THE vote in the fifteenth district
shows" etc.
We want the vote for Supreme
Court Justice. and if you can't give it to
us. we'll get someone that WILL" echoed
the egg-faced man.
six hundred and sixty districts out
of 902 in Manhattan Pnd the Bronx give
OdeIl," etc. from the crimson tie.
Who the devil are you?" and da
capo. from under the dying soldier.
And at the long table. the calm braves
figured on the tense reporters figured:
the serious youth at the telephone
oased his mouth in the transmitter. not
ceasing to stroke his chin. Someone
iammed up the old blue window shade
for one last breath from the open. and
the blare of horns and glow of red fire
from Fourteenth street entered and
shook the splendor from the sickish
Welsbach chandelier.
Leader Murphy was there by this
time. not sitting at the table. as was
Croker's wont. but in the front row of
empty seats. Judge Giegerich, on one
side. Lewis Nixon on the other. each
sitting sideways and cross-legged in
his chair whispered things to stolid
/, Murphy. Murphy did not seem to care
about hearing anything. He stared
straight before him. his head thrown
back. his eyes quiet. and those rough
features of his, which seem like the
upnar and neither parts of two faces
pieeed together. fixed carelessly. Some
persons have it that there is more to
Murphy than has been laughed at. II
looked that way that night.
The time had come. along about $50.
when the reporters were shaking their
heads and whispering, "Odelfs got a
show. after ALL" The men at the black
table heard them, but they did not be-
tray it. They saw the reason for that
forecast. too. Vernon Nj. Davis. who
had been sauntering about through the
gang. trying not to let his face show