The Washington herald., 1913-02-09

long unwashed that they looked like
ground glass. From the chandeliers,
black and sticky with dead flies, shreds
of tissue paper huttered, relics OF some
boisterous fete an Italian society had
given there long ago. The floor was
damp in arabesque wrought by a
sprinkling can, for the janitor had
sprayed water there to lay the dust he
was too Indifferent 10 remove. Fer
haps a hundred chairs were set IN am
phitheatrical order. and before them
stood a kitchen table, on which was
white water pitcher, hanked by a glass,
thickened by various sedimentary de-
posts within.
In the saloon below, at 9 O'Clock,
scores of delegates were already shut
fling in the sawdust that covered the
floor, holding huge schooners OF beer
in their hairy fists, gorging grossly at
the free lunch table, with bologna, rank
onions, and rye bread. The foam OF
the beer clung to their mustaches,
which, after each sip, they sucked be-
tween their lips. Most of them man.
aged, at the same time they were eat
ing and drinking. by a dexterous
sleight of hand, to smoke cheap do
mestic cigars, and a cloud OF white
smoke rolled along the low ceiling.
Each new arrival was greeted with
some obscene but endearing epithet,
and the room rang with laughter and
profanity. A keg of beer had been
provided by one of Conway's managers,
and the bartender, wiping his hands on
a dirty towel, was rid, so long as the
keg lasted, of the responsibility oi
keeping account of drinks, and of ring
ing up the change on the cash register.
At II o'clock the keg was empty, the
free lunch table abandoned to the flies,
and the delegates Scutfied up the dlngy
stairs to the hall. Half an hour later
the chairman of the Senatorial district
committee pounded the kitchen table
with a leg of a broken chav- and
shouted:
The convention will be m order.
This declaration made no impress
sion upon the babel of voices, the
laughter, the profanity, the noise OF
shuffling feet and scraping chairs. The
delegates were scrambling to their
places, seating themselves by wards.
Reporters flung themselves into seats
at a second table and gazed about the
room. noting who were there. The
political men of the morning papers
did not trouble themselves to take
seats. They loafed among the poll
ticians in way superior to the re-
porters for the afternoon papers, as ii
they were politicians themselves, max
ing history instead OF recording IT.
.I. lI- =
and the committeeman was growing
red in the face. The morning was
warm. and the room, already cloudy
with tobacco smoke, was filling with
a noisome human odor. The atmoS-
phere was feculent Delegates removed
their coats, hanging them over the
backs of their chairs. Finally the
chairman OF the committee. growing
impatient, split the table with his club
and yelled: -.
Damn it all. boys. come TO order.'
And then. eager to resign such 4
difficult command, he FASTENED to an
nounce:
The committee has named Hon.
John P. Muldoon TO act as temp'ry
chairman"
He handed the chair leg to John P.
Muldoon. who, stroking back his curly
hair from his brow, began to beat the
table impartially.
All this while Underwood stood
against the wall, looking on. The
question that had been agitating him
for weeks was about TO be decided,
but now that the ordeal was actually
upon him. the consciousness beat
numbly against his brain, so that the
whole scene lacked reality, almost in
terest. He was dazed. He was about
to take his baptism of political fire,
and he trcmbled like white novitlate.
Underwood belonged to one OF the
oldest families Of Chicago-the name
had been known there before the fire.
His father. who had lately taken him
into his law firm. continued to cling
in his conservatism TO an old stone
house in Michigan Avenue long after
his neighbors had abandoned their
mansions to uncertain bOarders. and
either retreatcd farther South or ad-
vanced to the North Side. John I'm
derwood had come out of Harvard
with a young lawyers ambition in pol
itics, an ambition that had the United
States Senate merely as a beginning
OF its home stretch, and when the year
rolled around in which State Senators
were to be elected in the odd number
ed districts. he decided that it was
time TO begin.
The newspapers had scented the SEN
sation that lurkcd in the candidature
of a young man like Underwood in
the district like the First, and be-
cause he went into what is called So
cictv, promptly dubbed him reform
er. and thus weighted he had set out
upon his race for the nomination. He
liked to see his name in the newspa-
pers, liked to think of himself as a
rcformer. though he was embarrassed
in this attitude by the fascinating fg-
ure of the political boss he had hoped
to become-a wcll-dressed. gentleman
" boss. of course, who, while at home
in those saloons where he permitted
the convivial familiarity of the boys,
nevertheless took his luncheons at his
club. He fell into a way of speaking
of the First as my district" spoke of
il, in fact, as if he, instead of Nal
achi Nolan and ''Cinch" Conway owned
II, and when certain ward politicians
in the first DAYS of the campaign called
upon him. Underwood was pleased to
lend them money, Just as he was
pleased to comply with the requests of
certain others who organized the John
w. Underwood First Ward Campaign
Club, and sent a committee to inform
- IL IL.