Kabanata Kabanata 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.