Babbitt was precinct-leader on Floral Heights, but his district was safe and he longed for stouter7 battling. His convention paper had given him the beginning of a reputation for oratory9, so the Republican-Democratic Central Committee sent him to the Seventh Ward11 and South Zenith, to address small audiences of workmen and clerks, and wives uneasy with their new votes. He acquired a fame enduring for weeks. Now and then a reporter was present at one of his meetings, and the headlines (though they were not very large) indicated that George F. Babbitt had addressed Cheering Throng12, and Distinguished13 Man of Affairs had pointed1 out the Fallacies of Doane. Once, in the rotogravure section of the Sunday Advocate-Times, there was a photograph of Babbitt and a dozen other business men, with the caption14 “Leaders of Zenith Finance and Commerce Who Back Prout.”
He deserved his glory. He was an excellent campaigner. He had faith; he was certain that if Lincoln were alive, he would be electioneering for Mr. W. G. Harding—unless he came to Zenith and electioneered for Lucas Prout. He did not confuse audiences by silly subtleties15; Prout represented honest industry, Seneca Doane represented whining16 laziness, and you could take your choice. With his broad shoulders and vigorous voice, he was obviously a Good Fellow; and, rarest of all, he really liked people. He almost liked common workmen. He wanted them to be well paid, and able to afford high rents—though, naturally, they must not interfere17 with the reasonable profits of stockholders. Thus nobly endowed, and keyed high by the discovery that he was a natural orator8, he was popular with audiences, and he raged through the campaign, renowned18 not only in the Seventh and Eighth Wards20 but even in parts of the Sixteenth.
II
Crowded in his car, they came driving up to Turnverein Hall, South Zenith—Babbitt, his wife, Verona, Ted2, and Paul and Zilla Riesling. The hall was over a delicatessen shop, in a street banging with trolleys22 and smelling of onions and gasoline and fried fish. A new appreciation23 of Babbitt filled all of them, including Babbitt.
“Don't know how you keep it up, talking to three bunches in one evening. Wish I had your strength,” said Paul; and Ted exclaimed to Verona, “The old man certainly does know how to kid these roughnecks along!”
Men in black sateen shirts, their faces new-washed but with a hint of grime under their eyes, were loitering on the broad stairs up to the hall. Babbitt's party politely edged through them and into the whitewashed24 room, at the front of which was a dais with a red-plush throne and a pine altar painted watery26 blue, as used nightly by the Grand Masters and Supreme27 Potentates28 of innumerable lodges29. The hall was full. As Babbitt pushed through the fringe standing30 at the back, he heard the precious tribute, “That's him!” The chairman bustled31 down the center aisle32 with an impressive, “The speaker? All ready, sir! Uh—let's see—what was the name, sir?”
Then Babbitt slid into a sea of eloquence33:
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Sixteenth Ward, there is one who cannot be with us here to-night, a man than whom there is no more stalwart Trojan in all the political arena—I refer to our leader, the Honorable Lucas Prout, standard-bearer of the city and county of Zenith. Since he is not here, I trust that you will bear with me if, as a friend and neighbor, as one who is proud to share with you the common blessing34 of being a resident of the great city of Zenith, I tell you in all candor35, honesty, and sincerity36 how the issues of this critical campaign appear to one plain man of business—to one who, brought up to the blessings37 of poverty and of manual labor, has, even when Fate condemned38 him to sit at a desk, yet never forgotten how it feels, by heck, to be up at five-thirty and at the factory with the ole dinner-pail in his hardened mitt10 when the whistle blew at seven, unless the owner sneaked39 in ten minutes on us and blew it early! (Laughter.) To come down to the basic and fundamental issues of this campaign, the great error, insincerely promulgated40 by Seneca Doane—”
There were workmen who jeered—young cynical41 workmen, for the most part foreigners, Jews, Swedes, Irishmen, Italians—but the older men, the patient, bleached42, stooped carpenters and mechanics, cheered him; and when he worked up to his anecdote43 of Lincoln their eyes were wet.
Modestly, busily, he hurried out of the hall on delicious applause, and sped off to his third audience of the evening. “Ted, you better drive,” he said. “Kind of all in after that spiel. Well, Paul, how'd it go? Did I get 'em?”
“Bully! Corking44! You had a lot of pep.”
Mrs. Babbitt worshiped, “Oh, it was fine! So clear and interesting, and such nice ideas. When I hear you orating I realize I don't appreciate how profoundly you think and what a splendid brain and vocabulary you have. Just—splendid.” But Verona was irritating. “Dad,” she worried, “how do you know that public ownership of utilities and so on and so forth45 will always be a failure?”
Mrs. Babbitt reproved, “Rone, I should think you could see and realize that when your father's all worn out with orating, it's no time to expect him to explain these complicated subjects. I'm sure when he's rested he'll be glad to explain it to you. Now let's all be quiet and give Papa a chance to get ready for his next speech. Just think! Right now they're gathering46 in Maccabee Temple, and WAITING for us!”
III
Mr. Lucas Prout and Sound Business defeated Mr. Seneca Doane and Class Rule, and Zenith was again saved. Babbitt was offered several minor47 appointments to distribute among poor relations, but he preferred advance information about the extension of paved highways, and this a grateful administration gave to him. Also, he was one of only nineteen speakers at the dinner with which the Chamber of Commerce celebrated49 the victory of righteousness.
His reputation for oratory established, at the dinner of the Zenith Real Estate Board he made the Annual Address. The Advocate-Times reported this speech with unusual fullness:
“One of the livest banquets that has recently been pulled off occurred last night in the annual Get-Together50 Fest of the Zenith Real Estate Board, held in the Venetian Ball Room of the O'Hearn House. Mine host Gil O'Hearn had as usual done himself proud and those assembled feasted on such an assemblage of plates as could be rivaled nowhere west of New York, if there, and washed down the plenteous feed with the cup which inspired but did not inebriate51 in the shape of cider from the farm of Chandler Mott, president of the board and who acted as witty52 and efficient chairman.
“As Mr. Mott was suffering from slight infection and sore throat, G. F. Babbitt made the principal talk. Besides outlining the progress of Torrensing real estate titles, Mr. Babbitt spoke53 in part as follows:
“'In rising to address you, with my impromptu54 speech carefully tucked into my vest pocket, I am reminded of the story of the two Irishmen, Mike and Pat, who were riding on the Pullman. Both of them, I forgot to say, were sailors in the Navy. It seems Mike had the lower berth56 and by and by he heard a terrible racket from the upper, and when he yelled up to find out what the trouble was, Pat answered, “Shure an' bedad an' how can I ever get a night's sleep at all, at all? I been trying to get into this darned little hammock ever since eight bells!”
“'Now, gentlemen, standing up here before you, I feel a good deal like Pat, and maybe after I've spieled along for a while, I may feel so darn small that I'll be able to crawl into a Pullman hammock with no trouble at all, at all!
“'Gentlemen, it strikes me that each year at this annual occasion when friend and foe57 get together and lay down the battle-ax and let the waves of good-fellowship waft58 them up the flowery slopes of amity59, it behooves60 us, standing together eye to eye and shoulder to shoulder as fellow-citizens of the best city in the world, to consider where we are both as regards ourselves and the common weal.
“'It is true that even with our 361,000, or practically 362,000, population, there are, by the last census61, almost a score of larger cities in the United States. But, gentlemen, if by the next census we do not stand at least tenth, then I'll be the first to request any knocker to remove my shirt and to eat the same, with the compliments of G. F. Babbitt, Esquire! It may be true that New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia will continue to keep ahead of us in size. But aside from these three cities, which are notoriously so overgrown that no decent white man, nobody who loves his wife and kiddies and God's good out-o'doors and likes to shake the hand of his neighbor in greeting, would want to live in them—and let me tell you right here and now, I wouldn't trade a high-class Zenith acreage development for the whole length and breadth of Broadway or State Street!—aside from these three, it's evident to any one with a head for facts that Zenith is the finest example of American life and prosperity to be found anywhere.
“'I don't mean to say we're perfect. We've got a lot to do in the way of extending the paving of motor boulevards, for, believe me, it's the fellow with four to ten thousand a year, say, and an automobile62 and a nice little family in a bungalow63 on the edge of town, that makes the wheels of progress go round!
“'That's the type of fellow that's ruling America to-day; in fact, it's the ideal type to which the entire world must tend, if there's to be a decent, well-balanced, Christian64, go-ahead future for this little old planet! Once in a while I just naturally sit back and size up this Solid American Citizen, with a whale of a lot of satisfaction.
“'Our Ideal Citizen—I picture him first and foremost as being busier than a bird-dog, not wasting a lot of good time in day-dreaming or going to sassiety teas or kicking about things that are none of his business, but putting the zip into some store or profession or art. At night he lights up a good cigar, and climbs into the little old 'bus, and maybe cusses the carburetor, and shoots out home. He mows65 the lawn, or sneaks66 in some practice putting, and then he's ready for dinner. After dinner he tells the kiddies a story, or takes the family to the movies, or plays a few fists of bridge, or reads the evening paper, and a chapter or two of some good lively Western novel if he has a taste for literature, and maybe the folks next-door drop in and they sit and visit about their friends and the topics of the day. Then he goes happily to bed, his conscience clear, having contributed his mite67 to the prosperity of the city and to his own bank-account.
“'In politics and religion this Sane68 Citizen is the canniest69 man on earth; and in the arts he invariably has a natural taste which makes him pick out the best, every time. In no country in the world will you find so many reproductions of the Old Masters and of well-known paintings on parlor70 walls as in these United States. No country has anything like our number of phonographs, with not only dance records and comic but also the best operas, such as Verdi, rendered by the world's highest-paid singers.
“'In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums71 living in attics72 and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent business man; and I, for one, am only too glad that the man who has the rare skill to season his message with interesting reading matter and who shows both purpose and pep in handling his literary wares73 has a chance to drag down his fifty thousand bucks74 a year, to mingle
Join or Log In!
You need to log in to continue reading
