The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-05-02
THE LAKE COUNTY TIMES

was wholly unlike that. It was Bur
banks ambition. interrupted at its
meal by the relentless. sure-aiming
hunter. Fate.
For Gods sake, Burbank" I ex-
claimed. "All these people are I
watching US"
"T~ hell with them!" he ground (
out Il tell you, Sayler, I will be
nominated! And elected too, by Cod /
I viii not be thrown aside like an
emptied orange-skin. viii show them !
that I am president"
Those words, said by some men, in
some tones, would have thrilled me.
Said by him and in that tone and with
that look, they made me shudder and
shrink. Neither of US spoke again.
When he dropped me at my hotel we
touched hands and smiled formally for
appearances before the gaping, peep
ing, peering crowd. And as he drove
away, how they cheered him-the
man risen high above 100000
alone on the mountain-peak, in the
glorious sunshine Of success. The
president!
The next seven months were
months of turmoil in the party and in
the country-5a turmoil of which 1 was
a silent spectator. conspicuous by my
silence. Burbank, the deepest pas
sions OF his nature rampant, had
burst through the meshes of partisan
ship and the meshes of social and per-
sonal intimacies in which he, as a
/ good party man" and as the father
/ of children with social aspirations
and as the worshiper Of wealth and
responsibility, was entangled and
i bound down; with the desperate cour-
age that comes from fear of destruc-
ton. he was trying to save himself.
But his only available instruments
were all either Goodrich men or other
kinds of machine-men; they owed
nothing to him, they had moth
ing to fear from him-a falling
king is g fallen king. Every project
he devised for striking down his
traitor friends and making himself
popular was subtly turned by his
cabinet or by the senate or by the
press or by all three into something
futile and ridiculous or contemplate.
It was a complete demonstration Of
the Stiffness of the fiction that the
president could be an autocrat If he
chose Even had Burbank seen
through the fawnings and the fat
teries of the traitors round him, and
dismissed his cabinet, whatever men
he might have put into it would not
n
cause, but would have used their posi-
lions to ingratiate themselves with
the power that had used and exhaust
ed and discarded him.
He had the wisdom, or the timidity,
to proceed always with caution and
safe legality and so to avoid impeach-
ment and degradation. His chief at
tempts were. naturally, upon monop-
oily; they were slyly baked by his sly
attorney general, and their failure was
called by the presas and was believed
by the people, the cause of the hard
times which were just beginning to
be acute. What made him such an
easy victim to his lieutenants was not
their craft, but the fact that he had
lost his sense of right and wrong
man Of affairs may not, indeed viii
not, always steer by that compass;
: but he must have 1t aboard. Without
] it he cannot know how far off the
( course he is, or how to get back to 1t
No ship ever reached any port excep
that of failure and disgrace, unleS:
: it, in spite OF all It's tackings before
the cross-winds of practical life, KEEP
in the main to the compass and to thu
| course.
His last stagger was-or seemed t
bean attempt to involve US in a wa
: with Germany. l say seemed to be-
. because hesitate to ascribe a projec
: as infamous to him, even when un
T balanced by despair. The first ugl.
= dispatch he ordered his Goodrich
! secretary of state to send, somehow
Y leaked to the newspapers before
r could be put into cipher for trans
K mission. It was not sent-for from
i the press of the entire country rose
clamor against deliberate provocs
9 ton OF a nation with which we are
/ and wish to remain, at peace" H
repudiated the dispatch and dismisse
l. the secretary of state In disgrace t
> disgrace-the one stroke in his fgh
t against Goodrich in which he got tn
o advantage. But that advantage wa
t too small, too doubtful and too late.
v His name was not presented to tn
convention.
s
L CHAPTER XxxiH.