Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-06-28
" CAN FIND SOMETHING INTERESTING HERE
"THE CRACK IN THE BELL"
A STORY OF POLITICS IN PHIL LADELPHIA
'"N BY Peter Clark Macfarlane
copyright. 1918, bv Public Ledger Co.
CHAPTER XXXIX Continued

TN THE meantime, Jerry. pale and per
i turbed, watched every detail Of the
fight. His lieutenants, his mail. his tele.
| phones kept him constantly advised oi
the maneuvers of the enemy. He was
not up at first to attempting to make
speeches himself, but acquired the habit
of blurting out a short terse daily state
ment to the reporters, which the news
| papers soon began to bracket and carry
in every issue to the far corners of the
city
"There's too much talk OF person
sIities. Ia this campaign" Jerry
| protested In one OF these. There IN
TOO much Archer talk in II. This Is
not a campaign Of persons, n Is a cam
paign of issues. It's not, Are you for
Archer or against him? It IL. Are you
for better government In Phiiadelphia?
DO you want officers clubbing citizens
at the polls? DO you want sunmen
assaulting them In alleys? DO you
want policemen invading your homes
and Frightening your wives into
Mysteries because husbands dare ex-
press the right OF free-born citizens"
DO you want police magistrates taking
orders from n ward heeler instead OF
from the law' DO you want con
tractors deciding what streets will be
repaired or paved. and writing their
own specifications, and naming their
own prices, and appointing their own
tnspeCtOrRy ThtnRs ike tn1s are the
issues In this campaign
Nevertheless. these very things in
volved an issue of persons. II was hard,
however, for Jerry to learn to swallow
his modesty and stand up and say, =
l., /, l. will do this or do that ;,
his final defiance with:
IF you want these things vote for Jim
Farrell, II you don't, vote for me-"
After n few more days, too, the young
tn kapn off
stump. and he appeared every noontime
to talk to the crowds on the street cor
ners from the back of an AUTOMOBILES,
and again at night, speaking usually
his speeches were never long, sometimes
only a paragraph or two, and always
with that note of ringing challenge in
them that marked the man of bold fight
ing blood. Always. too, he dinned into
the ears of his auditors that his was a
Republican organization. =.
"Tfere are 10000 Democratic votes In
Philadelphia; there are nearly 100000
Republican ones" he would remind
them. Good government in Philadel-
phia is something for which the Repub-
lican party alone Is responsible. This is
"a Republican hght. II I'm not nominated
at the primaries. you'll find me voting ON
election day for Jim Farrell. And that's
n thing I'd hate to do, because vote for
Farrell is a vote for Vare."
The boldness of this, the squareness
and the novelty of 1t, carried far and
wide. People stopped to consider. The
level-eyed courage of Jerry amazed and
provoked thought.
1t was one night in Kensington
toward the end of the campaign. that
Jerry was for the first time temDted
into making anything like an extended
speech. His wrath hard been aroused by
report that the mill owners almost to
man were against him, and that they
were pursuing their old tactics of ad-
vising their workmen to vote for the
machine candidates as matter of self
interest. The automobile which served
him as a platform was standing at an
intersection of streets where the mills
of the greatest textile manufacturing
center-in the world loomed all around
him.
Don't let your employer tell you to
vote against the Real Republican ticket.
because 1t is a fight against the tariff" !"
he shouted. THAT is false. If your
employer favors the bosses.
do you think 1t is? / do not know, but
voters of kensington, l have. my sus-
pcions.
1--WE have heard, for instance" and
there was n peculiarly sarcastic drawl
on the utterance of these sentences,
| "that there are manufacturers using ten
times the supply Of water they are pay
ing for. We have heard Of manufac-
turers operating in buildings that are
fre-traps. We have heard of others
who. contrary to law, are operating ma
| chinery and processes that are danger
Gus to life and limb OF employees.
"NOw IL may be that the bosses are
voting for this adpin1stration because It
| let's them steal water. because il let's
them eyade the law as to fire-trap build
ings, because its influence makes State
Inspectors careless about safety devices.
But IL that Is a reason why the employer
should vote for the machine. 1t is "A
pretty good reason why you should vote
against II. Somebody has to pay for the
| uEatA n. snn a,bA AI.x.
taxpayer and the rentpayer do. Now.
are you going to vote to pay for your
boss's water? Are you going to vote for
the privilege Of risking your life in the
boss's cheap old fre-trap? Are you GO
ing to vote for the chance to have your
sons arm cut OF your daughters
fingers mangled, just to make some
more dividends for mill owners:
| Maybe they think you are, but l don't
think you are. OF course these sus-
picions of mine may be groundless. but
I'll tell you this, no mill owner in Phila-
delphia who isn't looking for the best
| ing for the Ware machine unless he
thinks I'm liar and hypocrite ~
The close attention with which this
was followed led Jerry to pause and
IA couple of years ago." he said,
| there was a Hindu poet over here
Rabindsanath Tagore. and in the course
of expounding his philosophy of govern
u
agree, he offered rather remarkable
analogy.
Referring to the British Government
in India, not to attack II but by means
of illustration, he said We have .
brand OF canned goods advertised over
there as Not touched with human
hands" and added, That can almost be
said of our government. mot touched
! with human hands - The arraignment
can be broadened. 1t can almost be
said of all government.
"NOw l want to say tlrat my ideal for
government for Philadelphia, fOI
Pennsylvania. for the nation, is a gov
ernment that Is at every point charac-
terized by the human touch"
Amid wild cheers Jerry rolled out OF
Kensington that night with the mass OF
! voters bound TO him more solidly than
| in any other part of the city. Never
theless, the campaign as whole did not
| seem to be going WE'LL There was too
much lukewarmness, too much stolidity