الفصل الفصل 14 · Chapter XIV
I
This autumn a Mr. W. G. Harding, of Marion, Ohio, was appointed
President of the United States, but Zenith was less interested in the
national campaign than in the local election. Seneca Doane, though he
was a lawyer and a graduate of the State University, was candidate for
mayor of Zenith on an alarming labor ticket. To oppose him the Democrats
and Republicans united on Lucas Prout, a mattress-manufacturer with a
perfect record for sanity. Mr. Prout was supported by the banks, the
Chamber of Commerce, all the decent newspapers, and George F. Babbitt.
Babbitt was precinct-leader on Floral Heights, but his district was safe
and he longed for stouter battling. His convention paper had given him
the beginning of a reputation for oratory, so the Republican-Democratic
Central Committee sent him to the Seventh Ward 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 Throng, and Distinguished Man of Affairs had pointed 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 caption “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 subtleties; Prout
represented honest industry, Seneca Doane represented whining 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
interfere with the reasonable profits of stockholders. Thus nobly
endowed, and keyed high by the discovery that he was a natural orator,
he was popular with audiences, and he raged through the campaign,
renowned not only in the Seventh and Eighth Wards 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, Ted, and Paul and Zilla Riesling. The
hall was over a delicatessen shop, in a street banging with trolleys and
smelling of onions and gasoline and fried fish. A new appreciation 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
whitewashed room, at the front of which was a dais with a red-plush
throne and a pine altar painted watery blue, as used nightly by the
Grand Masters and Supreme Potentates of innumerable lodges. The hall was
full. As Babbitt pushed through the fringe standing at the back, he
heard the precious tribute, “That’s him!” The chairman bustled down the
center aisle with an impressive, “The speaker? All ready, sir! Uh--let’s
see--what was the name, sir?”
Then Babbitt slid into a sea of eloquence:
“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 blessing of being a
resident of the great city of Zenith, I tell you in all candor, honesty,
and sincerity how the issues of this critical campaign appear to one
plain man of business--to one who, brought up to the blessings of
poverty and of manual labor, has, even when Fate condemned 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
mitt when the whistle blew at seven, unless the owner sneaked 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
promulgated by Seneca Doane--”
There were workmen who jeered--young cynical workmen, for the most part
foreigners, Jews, Swedes, Irishmen, Italians--but the older men, the
patient, bleached, stooped carpenters and mechanics, cheered him; and
when he worked up to his anecdote 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! Corking! 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 forth 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 gathering 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 minor
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 celebrated 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-Together 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 inebriate in the shape of cider from the farm of
Chandler Mott, president of the board and who acted as witty 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 spoke in part as follows:
“‘In rising to address you, with my impromptu 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 berth 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 foe get together and lay down the battle-ax and let the waves
of good-fellowship waft them up the flowery slopes of amity, it behooves
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 census, 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 automobile and a
nice little family in a bungalow 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, Christian, 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 mows the lawn, or sneaks
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 mite to the
prosperity of the city and to his own bank-account.
“‘In politics and religion this Sane Citizen is the canniest 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
parlor 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
bums living in attics 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 wares
has a chance to drag down his fifty thousand bucks a year, to mingle
with the biggest executives on terms of perfect equality, and to show as
big a house and as swell a car as any Captain of Industry! But, mind
you, it’s the appreciation of the Regular Guy who I have been depicting
which has made this possible, and you got to hand as much credit to him
as to the authors themselves.
“‘Finally, but most important, our Standardized Citizen, even if he is a
bachelor, is a lover of the Little Ones, a supporter of the hearthstone
which is the basic foundation of our civilization, first, last, and all
the time, and the thing that most distinguishes us from the decayed
nations of Europe.
“‘I have never yet toured Europe--and as a matter of fact, I don’t know
that I care to such an awful lot, as long as there’s our own mighty
cities and mountains to be seen--but, the way I figure it out, there
must be a good many of our own sort of folks abroad. Indeed, one of the
most enthusiastic Rotarians I ever met boosted the tenets of
one-hundred-per-cent pep in a burr that smacked o’ bonny Scutlond and
all ye bonny braes o’ Bobby Burns. But same time, one thing that
distinguishes us from our good brothers, the hustlers over there, is
that they’re willing to take a lot off the snobs and journalists and
politicians, while the modern American business man knows how to talk
right up for himself, knows how to make it good and plenty clear that he
intends to run the works. He doesn’t have to call in some highbrow
hired-man when it’s necessary for him to answer the crooked critics of
the sane and efficient life. He’s not dumb, like the old-fashioned
merchant. He’s got a vocabulary and a punch.
“‘With all modesty, I want to stand up here as a representative business
man and gently whisper, “Here’s our kind of folks! Here’s the
specifications of the Standardized American Citizen! Here’s the new
generation of Americans: fellows with hair on their chests and smiles in
their eyes and adding-machines in their offices. We’re not doing any
boasting, but we like ourselves first-rate, and if you don’t like us,
look out--better get under cover before the cyclone hits town!”
“‘So! In my clumsy way I have tried to sketch the Real He-man, the
fellow with Zip and Bang. And it’s because Zenith has so large a
proportion of such men that it’s the most stable, the greatest of our
cities. New York also has its thousands of Real Folks, but New York is
cursed with unnumbered foreigners. So are Chicago and San Francisco. Oh,
we have a golden roster of cities--Detroit and Cleveland with their
renowned factories, Cincinnati with its great machine-tool and soap
products, Pittsburg and Birmingham with their steel, Kansas City and
Minneapolis and Omaha that open their bountiful gates on the bosom of
the ocean-like wheatlands, and countless other magnificent
sister-cities, for, by the last census, there were no less than
sixty-eight glorious American burgs with a population of over one
hundred thousand! And all these cities stand together for power and
purity, and against foreign ideas and communism--Atlanta with Hartford,
Rochester with Denver, Milwaukee with Indianapolis, Los Angeles with
Scranton, Portland, Maine, with Portland, Oregon. A good live wire from
Baltimore or Seattle or Duluth is the twin-brother of every like fellow
booster from Buffalo or Akron, Fort Worth or Oskaloosa!
“‘But it’s here in Zenith, the home for manly men and womanly women and
bright kids, that you find the largest proportion of these Regular Guys,
and that’s what sets it in a class by itself; that’s why Zenith will be
remembered in history as having set the pace for a civilization that
shall endure when the old time-killing ways are gone forever and the day
of earnest efficient endeavor shall have dawned all round the world!
“‘Some time I hope folks will quit handing all the credit to a lot of
moth-eaten, mildewed, out-of-date, old, European dumps, and give proper
credit to the famous Zenith spirit, that clean fighting determination to
win Success that has made the little old Zip City celebrated in every
land and clime, wherever condensed milk and pasteboard cartons are
known! Believe me, the world has fallen too long for these worn-out
countries that aren’t producing anything but bootblacks and scenery and
booze, that haven’t got one bathroom per hundred people, and that don’t
know a loose-leaf ledger from a slip-cover; and it’s just about time for
some Zenithite to get his back up and holler for a show-down!
“‘I tell you, Zenith and her sister-cities are producing a new type of
civilization. There are many resemblances between Zenith and these other
burgs, and I’m darn glad of it! The extraordinary, growing, and sane
standardization of stores, offices, streets, hotels, clothes, and
newspapers throughout the United States shows how strong and enduring a
type is ours.
“‘I always like to remember a piece that Chum Frink wrote for the
newspapers about his lecture-tours. It is doubtless familiar to many of
you, but if you will permit me, I’ll take a chance and read it. It’s
one of the classic poems, like “If” by Kipling, or Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s
“The Man Worth While”; and I always carry this clipping of it in my
note-book:
_When I am out upon the road, a poet with a pedler’s load, I mostly
sing a hearty song, and take a chew and hike along, a-handing out
my samples fine of Cheero Brand of sweet sun-shine, and peddling
optimistic pokes and stable lines of japes and jokes to Lyceums and
other folks, to Rotarys, Kiwanis’ Clubs, and feel I ain’t like
other dubs. And then old Major Silas Satan, a brainy cuss who’s
always waitin’, he gives his tail a lively quirk, and gets in quick
his dirty work. He fills me up with mullygrubs; my hair the
backward way he rubs; he makes me lonelier than a hound, on Sunday
when the folks ain’t round. And then b’gosh, I would prefer to
never be a lecturer, a-ridin’ round in classy cars and smoking
fifty-cent cigars, and never more I want to roam; I simply want to
be back home, a-eatin’ flap-jacks, hash, and ham, with folks who
savvy whom I am!_
_But when I get that lonely spell, I simply seek the best hotel, no
matter in what town I be--St. Paul, Toledo, or K.C., in Washington,
Schenectady, in Louisville or Albany. And at that inn it hits my
dome that I again am right at home. If I should stand a lengthy
spell in front of that first-class hotel, that to the drummers
loves to cater, across from some big film theayter; if I should
look around and buzz, and wonder in what town I was, I swear that I
could never tell! For all the crowd would be so swell, in just the
same fine sort of jeans they wear at home, and all the queens with
spiffy bonnets on their beans, and all the fellows standing round
a-talkin’ always, I’ll be bound, the same good jolly kind of guff,
’bout autos, politics and stuff and baseball players of renown that
Nice Guys talk in my home town!_
_Then when I entered that hotel, I’d look around and say, “Well,
well!” For there would be the same news-stand, same_ _magazines
and candies grand, same smokes of famous standard brand, I’d find
at home, I’ll tell! And when I saw the jolly bunch come waltzing in
for eats at lunch, and squaring up in natty duds to platters large
of French Fried spuds, why then I’d stand right up and bawl, “I’ve
never left my home at all!” And all replete I’d sit me down beside
some guy in derby brown upon a lobby chair of plush, and murmur to
him in a rush, “Hello, Bill, tell me, good old scout, how is your
stock a-holdin’ out?” Then we’d be off, two solid pals,
a-chatterin’ like giddy gals of flivvers, weather, home, and wives,
lodge-brothers then for all our lives! So when Sam Satan makes you
blue, good friend, that’s what I’d up and do, for in these States
where’er you roam, you never leave your home sweet home._
“‘Yes, sir, these other burgs are our true partners in the great game of
vital living. But let’s not have any mistake about this. I claim that
Zenith is the best partner and the fastest-growing partner of the whole
caboodle. I trust I may be pardoned if I give a few statistics to back
up my claims. If they are old stuff to any of you, yet the tidings of
prosperity, like the good news of the Bible, never become tedious to the
ears of a real hustler, no matter how oft the sweet story is told! Every
intelligent person knows that Zenith manufactures more condensed milk
and evaporated cream, more paper boxes, and more lighting-fixtures, than
any other city in the United States, if not in the world. But it is not
so universally known that we also stand second in the manufacture of
package-butter, sixth in the giant realm of motors and automobiles, and
somewhere about third in cheese, leather findings, tar roofing,
breakfast food, and overalls!
“‘Our greatness, however, lies not alone in punchful prosperity but
equally in that public spirit, that forward-looking idealism and
brotherhood, which has marked Zenith ever since its foundation by the
Fathers. We have a right, indeed we have a duty toward our fair city, to
announce broadcast the facts about our high schools, characterized by
their complete plants and the finest school-ventilating systems in the
country, bar none; our magnificent new hotels and banks and the
paintings and carved marble in their lobbies; and the Second National
Tower, the second highest business building in any inland city in the
entire country. When I add that we have an unparalleled number of miles
of paved streets, bathrooms, vacuum cleaners, and all the other signs of
civilization; that our library and art museum are well supported and
housed in convenient and roomy buildings; that our park-system is more
than up to par, with its handsome driveways adorned with grass, shrubs,
and statuary, then I give but a hint of the all-round unlimited
greatness of Zenith!
“‘I believe, however, in keeping the best to the last. When I remind you
that we have one motor car for every five and seven-eighths persons in
the city, then I give a rock-ribbed practical indication of the kind of
progress and braininess which is synonymous with the name Zenith!
“‘But the way of the righteous is not all roses. Before I close I must
call your attention to a problem we have to face, this coming year. The
worst menace to sound government is not the avowed socialists but a lot
of cowards who work under cover--the long-haired gentry who call
themselves “liberals” and “radicals” and “non-partisan” and
“intelligentsia” and God only knows how many other trick names!
Irresponsible teachers and professors constitute the worst of this whole
gang, and I am ashamed to say that several of them are on the faculty of
our great State University! The U. is my own Alma Mater, and I am proud
to be known as an alumni, but there are certain instructors there who
seem to think we ought to turn the conduct of the nation over to hoboes
and roustabouts.
“‘Those profs are the snakes to be scotched--they and all their
milk-and-water ilk! The American business man is generous to a fault,
but one thing he does demand of all teachers and lecturers and
journalists: if we’re going to pay them our good money, they’ve got to
help us by selling efficiency and whooping it up for rational
prosperity! And when it comes to these blab-mouth, fault-finding,
pessimistic, cynical University teachers, let me tell you that during
this golden coming year it’s just as much our duty to bring influence to
have those cusses fired as it is to sell all the real estate and gather
in all the good shekels we can.
“‘Not till that is done will our sons and daughters see that the ideal
of American manhood and culture isn’t a lot of cranks sitting around
chewing the rag about their Rights and their Wrongs, but a God-fearing,
hustling, successful, two-fisted Regular Guy, who belongs to some church
with pep and piety to it, who belongs to the Boosters or the Rotarians
or the Kiwanis, to the Elks or Moose or Red Men or Knights of Columbus
or any one of a score of organizations of good, jolly, kidding,
laughing, sweating, upstanding, lend-a-handing Royal Good Fellows, who
plays hard and works hard, and whose answer to his critics is a
square-toed boot that’ll teach the grouches and smart alecks to respect
the He-man and get out and root for Uncle Samuel, U.S.A.!’”
IV
Babbitt promised to become a recognized orator. He entertained a Smoker
of the Men’s Club of the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church with Irish,
Jewish, and Chinese dialect stories.
But in nothing was he more clearly revealed as the Prominent Citizen
than in his lecture on “Brass Tacks Facts on Real Estate,” as delivered
before the class in Sales Methods at the Zenith Y.M.C.A.
The _Advocate-Times_ reported the lecture so fully that Vergil Gunch
said to Babbitt, “You’re getting to be one of the classiest spellbinders
in town. Seems ’s if I couldn’t pick up a paper without reading about
your well-known eloquence. All this guff ought to bring a lot of
business into your office. Good work! Keep it up!”
“Go on, quit your kidding,” said Babbitt feebly, but at this tribute
from Gunch, himself a man of no mean oratorical fame, he expanded with
delight and wondered how, before his vacation, he could have questioned
the joys of being a solid citizen.