Books: Lifted Masks
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Susan Glaspell >> Lifted Masks
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Late in the afternoon a telegram reached the executive office.
Styles was coming to town that night, and wanted to see the Governor
at the hotel. Things always cleared when Styles came to town; and
so, though still unable to foresee the outcome, he brightened at
once.
Styles was a railroad man, and rich. People to whom certain things
were a sealed book said that it was nice of Mr. Styles to take an
interest in politics when he had so many other things on his mind,
and that he must be a very public-spirited man. That he took an
interest in politics, no one familiar with the affairs of the State
would deny. The orthodox papers painted him as a public benefactor,
but the Boxers arrayed him with hoofs and horns.
The Governor and Mr. Styles were warm friends. It was said that
their friendship dated from mere boyhood, and that the way the two
men had held together through all the vicissitudes of life was
touching and beautiful--at least, so some people observed. There
were others whose eyebrows went up when the Governor and Mr. Styles
were mentioned in their Damon and Pythias capacity.
That night, in the public benefactor's room at the hotel, the
Governor and his old friend had a long talk. When twelve o'clock
came they were still talking; more than that, the Governor was
excitedly pacing the floor.
"I tell you, Styles," he expostulated, "I don't like it! It doesn't
put me in a good light. It's too apparent, and I'll suffer for it,
sure as fate. Mark my words, we'll all suffer for it!"
Mr. Styles was sitting in an easy attitude before the table. The
public benefactor never paced the floor; it did not seem necessary.
He smoked in silence for a minute; then raised himself a little in
his chair.
"Well, have you anything better to offer?"
"No, I haven't," replied the Governor, tartly; "but it seems to me
you ought to have."
Styles sank back in his chair and for several minutes more devoted
himself to the art of smoking. There were times when this
philanthropic dabbler in politics was irritating.
"I think," he began presently, "that you exaggerate the unpleasant
features of the situation. It will cause talk, of course; but isn't
it worth it? You say it's unheard of; maybe, but so is the
situation, and wasn't there something in the copy-books about
meeting new situations with new methods? If you have anything better
to offer, produce it; if not, we've got to go ahead with this. And
really, I don't see that it's so bad. You have to go South to look
after your cotton plantation; you find now that it's going to take
more time than you feel you should take from the State; you can't
afford to give it up; consequently, you withdraw in favor of the
Lieutenant-Governor. We all protest, but you say Berriman is a good
man, and the State won't suffer, and you simply can't afford to go
on. Well, we can keep the Senator's condition pretty quiet here; and
after all, he's sturdy, and may live on to the close of the year.
After due deliberation Berriman appoints you. A little talk?--Yes.
But it's worth a little talk. It seems to me the thing works out
very smoothly."
When Tom Styles leaned back in his chair and declared a thing worked
out very smoothly, that thing was quite likely to go. In three days
the Governor went South. When he returned, the newspaper men were
startled by the announcement that business considerations which he
could not afford to overlook demanded his withdrawal from office.
Previous to this time the Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Styles
had met and the result of their meeting was not made a matter
of public record.
As the Governor had anticipated, many things were said. Inquiries
were made into the venerable Senator's condition--which, the
orthodox papers declared, was but another example of the indecency
of the Boxer journals. The Governor went to his cotton plantation.
The Lieutenant-Governor went into office, and was pronounced a
worthy successor to a good executive. The venerable Senator
continued to live. As Mr. Styles had predicted, the gossip soon
quieted into a friendly hope that the Governor would realise large
sums with his cotton.
It was late in the fall when the senior Senator finally succumbed.
The day the papers printed the story of his death, they printed
speculative editorials on his probable successor. When the bereaved
family commented with bitterness on this ill-concealed haste, they
were told that it was politics--enterprise--life.
The old man's remains lay in state in the rotunda of the State
Capitol, and the building was draped in mourning. Many came and
looked upon the quiet face; but far more numerous than those who
gathered at his bier to weep were those who assembled in secluded
corners to speculate on the wearing of his toga. It was
politics--enterprise--life.
Mr. Styles told the Lieutenant-Governor to be deliberate. There was
no need of an immediate appointment, he said. And so for a time
things went on about the State-house much as usual, save that the
absorbing topic was the senatorial situation, and that every one was
watching the new chief executive. The retired Governor now spent
part of his time in the South, and part at home. The cotton
plantation was not demanding all his attention, after all.
It could not be claimed that John Berriman had ever done any great
thing. He was not on record as having ever risen grandly to an
occasion; but there may have been something in the fact that an
occasion admitting of a grand rising had never presented itself.
Before he became Lieutenant-Governor, he had served inoffensively in
the State Senate for two terms. No one had ever worked very hard for
Senator Berriman's vote. He had been put in by the machine, and it
had always been assumed that he was machine property.
Berriman himself had never given the matter of his place in the
human drama much thought. He had an idea that it was proper for him
to vote with his friends, and he always did it. Had he been called a
tool, he would have been much ruffled; he merely trusted to the
infallibility of the party.
The Boxers did not approach him now concerning the appointment of
Huntington. That, of course, was a fixed matter, and they were not
young and foolish enough to attempt to change it.
One day the Governor received a telegram from Styles suggesting that
he "adjust that matter" immediately. He thought of announcing the
appointment that very night, but the newspaper men had all left the
building, and as he had promised that they should know of it as soon
as it was made, he concluded to wait until the next morning.
Governor Berriman had a brother in town that week, attending a
meeting of the State Agricultural Society. Hiram Berriman had a
large farm in the southern part of the State. He knew but little of
political methods, and had primitive ideas about honesty. There had
always been a strong tie between the brothers, despite the fact that
Hiram was fifteen years the Governor's senior. They talked of many
things that night, and the hour was growing late. They were about to
retire when the Governor remarked, a little sleepily:
"Well, to-morrow morning I announce the senatorial appointment."
"You do, eh?" returned the farmer.
"Yes, there's no need of waiting any longer, and it's getting on to
the time the State wants two senators in Washington."
"Well, I suppose, John," Hiram said, turning a serious face to his
brother, "that you've thought the matter all over, and are sure you
are right?"
The Governor threw back his head with a scoffing laugh.
"I guess it didn't require much thought on my part," he answered
carelessly.
"I don't see how you figure that out," contended Hiram warmly.
"You're Governor of the State, and your own boss, ain't you?"
It was the first time in all his life that anyone had squarely
confronted John Berriman with the question whether or not he was his
own boss, and for some reason it went deep into his soul, and
rankled there.
"Now see here, Hiram," he said at length, "there's no use of your
putting on airs and pretending you don't understand this thing. You
know well enough it was all fixed before I went in." The other man
looked at him in bewilderment, and the Governor continued brusquely:
"The party knew the Senator was going to die, and so the Governor
pulled out and I went in just so the thing could be done decently
when the time came."
The old farmer was scratching his head.
"That's it, eh? They got wind the Senator was goin' to die, and so
the Governor told that lie about having to go South just so he could
step into the dead man's shoes, eh?"
"That's the situation--if you want to put it that way."
"And now you're going to appoint the Governor?"
"Of course I am; I couldn't do anything else if I wanted to."
"Why not?"
"Why, look here, Hiram, haven't you any idea of political
obligation? It's expected of me."
"Oh, it is, eh? Did you promise to appoint the Governor?"
"Why, I don't know that I exactly made any promises, but that
doesn't make a particle of difference. The understanding was that
the Governor was to pull out and I was to go in and appoint him.
It's a matter of honour;" and Governor Berriman drew himself up with
pride.
The farmer turned a troubled face to the fire.
"I suppose, then," he said finally, "that you all think the Governor
is the best man we have for the United States Senate. I take it that
in appointing him, John, you feel sure he will guard the interests
of the people before everything else, and that the people--I mean
the working people of this State--will always be safe in his hands;
do you?"
"Oh, Lord, no, Hiram!" exclaimed the Governor irritably. "I don't
think that at all!"
Hiram Berriman's brown face warmed to a dull red.
"You don't?" he cried. "You mean to sit there, John Berriman, and
tell me that you don't think the man you're going to put in the
United States Senate will be an honest man? What do you mean by
saying you're going to put a dishonest man in there to make laws for
the people, to watch over them and protect them? If you don't think
he's a good man, if you don't think he's the best man the State
has"--the old farmer was pounding the table heavily with his huge
fist--"if you don't think that, in God's name, _why do you appoint
him_?"
"I wish I could make you understand, Hiram," said the Governor in an
injured voice, "that it's not for me to say."
"Why ain't it for you to say? Why ain't it, I want to know? Who's
running you, your own conscience or some gang of men that's trying
to steal from the State? Good God, I wish I had never lived to see
the day a brother of mine put a thief in the United States Senate to
bamboozle the honest, hard-working people of this State!"
"Hold on, please--that's a little too strong!" flamed the Governor.
"It ain't too strong. If a Senator ain't an honest man, he's a
thief; and if he ain't lookin' after the welfare of the people, he's
bamboozlin' them, and that's all there is about it. I don't know
much about politics, but I ain't lived my life without learning a
little about right and wrong, and it's a sorry day we've come to,
John Berriman, if right and wrong don't enter into the makin' of a
Senator!"
The Governor could think of no fitting response, so he held his
peace. This seemed to quiet the irate farmer, and he surveyed his
brother intently, and not unkindly.
"You're in a position now, John," he said, and there was a kind of
homely eloquence in his serious voice, "to be a friend to the
people. It ain't many of us ever get the chance of doin' a great
thing. We work along, and we do the best we can with what comes our
way, but most of us don't get the chance to do a thing that's goin'
to help thousands of people, and that the whole country's goin' to
say was a move for the right. You want to think of that, and when
you're thinkin' so much about honour, you don't want to clean forget
about honesty. Don't you stick to any foolish notions about bein'
faithful to the party; it ain't the party that needs helpin'. No
matter how you got where you are, you're Governor of the State right
now, John, and your first duty is to the people of this State, not
to Tom Styles or anybody else. Just you remember that when you're
namin' your Senator in the morning."
It was long before the Governor retired. He sat there by the
fireplace until after the fire had died down, and he was too
absorbed to grow cold. He thought of many things. Like the man who
had preceded him in office, he wished that some one else was just
then encumbered with the gubernatorial shoes.
The next morning there was a heavy feeling in his head which he
thought a walk in the bracing air might dispel, so he started on
foot for the Statehouse. A light snow was on the ground, and there
was something reassuring in the crispness of the morning. It would
make a slave feel like a free man to drink in such air, he was
thinking. Snatches of his brother's outburst of the night before
kept breaking into his consciousness but curiously enough they did
not greatly disturb him. He concluded that it was wonderful what a
walk in the bracing air could do. From the foot of the hill he
looked up at the State-house, for the first time in his experience
seeing and thinking about it--not simply taking it for granted.
There seemed a nobility about it--in the building itself, and back
of that in what it stood for.
As he walked through the corridor to his office he was greeted with
cheerful, respectful salutations. His mood let him give the
greetings a value they did not have and from that rose a sense of
having the trust and goodwill of his fellows.
But upon reaching his desk he found another telegram from Styles. It
was imperatively worded and as he read it the briskness and
satisfaction went from his bearing. He walked to the window and
stood there looking down at the city, and, as it had been in looking
ahead at the State-house, he now looked out over the city really
seeing and understanding it, not merely taking it for granted. He
found himself wondering if many of the people in that city--in that
State--looked to their Governor with the old-fashioned trust his
brother had shown. His eyes dimmed; he was thinking of the
satisfaction it would afford his children, if--long after he had
gone--they could tell how a great chance had once come into their
father's life, and how he had proved himself a man.
"Will you sign these now, Governor?" asked a voice behind him.
It was his secretary, a man who knew the affairs of the State well,
and whom every one seemed to respect.
"Mr. Haines," he said abruptly, "who do you think is the best man we
have for the United States Senate?"
The secretary stepped back, dumfounded; amazed that the question
should be put to him, startled at that strange way of putting it.
Then he told himself he must be discreet. Like many of the people at
the State-house, in his heart Haines was a Boxer.
"Why, I presume," he ventured, "that the Governor is looked upon as
the logical candidate, isn't he?"
"I'm not talking about logical candidates. I want to know who you
think is the man who would most conscientiously and creditably
represent this State in the Senate of the United States."
It was so simply spoken that the secretary found himself answering
it as simply. "If you put it that way, Governor, Mr. Huntington is
the man, of course."
"You think most of the people feel that way?"
"I know they do."
"You believe if it were a matter of popular vote, Huntington would
be the new Senator?"
"There can be no doubt of that, Governor. I think they all have to
admit that. Huntington is the man the people want."
"That's all, Mr. Haines. I merely wondered what you thought about
it."
Soon after that Governor Berriman rang for a messenger boy and sent
a telegram. Then he settled quietly down to routine work. It was
about eleven when one of the newspaper men came in.
"Good-morning, Governor," he said briskly "how's everything to-day?"
"All right, Mr. Markham. I have nothing to tell you to-day, except
that I've made the senatorial appointment."
"Oh," laughed the reporter excitedly, "that's all, is it?"
"Yes," replied the Governor, smiling too; "that's all!"
The reporter looked at the clock. "I'll just catch the noon
edition," he said, "if I telephone right away."
He was moving to the other room when the Governor called to him.
"See here, it seems to me you're a strange newspaper man!"
"How so?"
"Why, I tell you I've made a senatorial appointment--a matter of
some slight importance--and you rush off never asking whom I've
appointed."
The reporter gave a forced laugh. He wished the Governor would not
detain him with a joke now when every second counted.
"That's right," he said, with strained pleasantness. "Well, who's
the man?"
The Governor raised his head. "Huntington," he said quietly, and
resumed his work.
"What?" gasped the reporter. "What?"
Then he stopped in embarrassment, as if ashamed of being so easily
taken in. "Guess you're trying to jolly me a little, aren't you,
Governor?"
"Jolly you, Mr. Markham? I'm not given to 'jollying' newspaper
reporters. Here's a copy of the telegram I sent this morning, if you
are still sceptical. Really, I don't see why you think it so
impossible. Don't you consider Mr. Huntington a fit man for the
place?"
But for the minute the reporter seemed unable to speak. "May I ask,"
he fumbled at last, "why you did it?"
"I had but one motive, Mr. Markham. I thought the matter over and it
seemed to me the people should have the man they wanted. I am with
them in believing Huntington the best man for the place." He said it
simply, and went quietly back to his work.
For many a long day politicians and papers continued the search for
"the motive." Styles and his crowd saw it as a simple matter of
selling out; they knew, of course, that it could be nothing else.
After their first rage had subsided, and they saw there was nothing
they could do, they wondered, sneeringly, why he did not "fix up a
better story." That was a little _too_ simple-minded. Did he
think people were fools? And even the men who profited by the
situation puzzled their brains for weeks trying to understand it.
There was something behind it, of course.
XI
HIS AMERICA
He hated to see the reporter go. With the closing of that door it
seemed certain that there was no putting it off any longer.
But even when the man's footsteps were at last sounding on the
stairway, he still clung to him.
"Father," he asked, fretfully, "why do you always talk to those
fellows?"
Herman Beckman turned in his chair and stared at his son. Then he
laughed. "Now, that's a fine question to come from the honour man of
a law school! I hope, Fritz, that your oration to-night is going to
have a little more sense in it than that."
The calling up of his oration made him reach out another clutching
hand to the vanished reporter. "But it's farcical, father, to be
always interviewed by a paper nobody reads."
"Nobody--_reads_?"
"Why, nobody cares anything about the _Leader_. It's dead."
Herman Beckman looked at his son sharply; something about him seemed
strange. He decided that he was nervous about the commencement
programme. Fritz had the one oration.
The boy had opened the drawer of his study table and was fingering
some papers he had taken out.
"Sure you know it?" the man asked with affectionate parental
anxiety.
"Oh, I know it all right," Fred answered grimly, and again the
father decided that he was nervous about the thing. He wasn't just
like himself.
The man walked to the window and stood looking across at the
university buildings. Colleges had always meant much to Herman
Beckman. The very day Fritz was born he determined that the boy was
to go to college. It was good to witness the fulfilment of his
dreams. He turned his glance to the comfortable room.
"Pretty decent comfortable sort of place, isn't it, father?" Fred
asked, following his father's look and thought from the Morris chair
to the student's lamp, and all those other things which nowadays
seem an inevitable part of the acquirement of learning.
It made his father laugh. "Yes, my boy, I should call it decent--and
comfortable." He grew thoughtful after that.
"Pretty different from the place you had, father?"
"Oh--me? My place to study was any place I could find. Sometimes on
top of a load of hay, lots of times by the light of the logs. I've
studied in some funny places, Fritz."
"Well, you _got_ there, father!" the boy burst out with
feeling. "By Jove, there aren't many of them _know_ the things
you know!"
"I know enough to know what I don't know," said the old man, a
little sadly. "I know enough to know what I missed. I wanted to go
to college. No one will ever know how I wanted to! I began to think
I'd never feel right about it. But I have a notion that when I sit
there to-night listening to you, Fritz, knowing that you're speaking
for two hundred boys, half of whose fathers did go to college, I
think I'm going to feel better about it then."
The boy turned away. Something in the kindly words seemed as the cut
of a whip across his face.
"Well, Fritz," his father continued, getting into his coat, "I'll be
going downtown. Leave you to put on an extra flourish or two." He
laughed in proud parental fashion. "Anyway, I have some things to
see about."
The boy stood up. "Father, I have something to tell you." He said it
shortly and sharply.
The father stood there, puzzled.
"You won't like my oration to-night, father."
And still the man did not speak. The words would not have bothered
him much--it was the boy's manner.
"In fact, father, you're going to be desperately disappointed in
it."
The dull red was creeping into the man's cheeks. He was one to have
little patience with that thing of not doing one's work. "Why am I
going to be disappointed? This is no time to shirk! You should--"
"Oh, you'll not complain of the time and thought I've put on it,"
the boy broke in with a short, hard laugh. "But, you see,
father--you see"--his armour had slipped from him--"it doesn't
express--your views."
"Did I ever say I wanted you to express 'my views'? Did I bring you
up to be a mouthpiece of mine? Haven't I told you to _think_?"
But with a long, sharp glance at his boy anger gave way. "Come,
boy"--going over and patting him on the back--"brace up now. You're
acting like a seven-year-old girl afraid to speak her first piece,"
and his big laugh rang out, eager to reassure.
"You won't see it! You won't believe it! I don't suppose you'll
believe it when you hear it!" He turned away, overwhelmed by a
sudden realisation of just how difficult was the thing that lay
before him.
The man started toward his son, but instead he walked over and sat
down at the opposite side of the table, waiting. He was beginning to
see that there was something in this which he did not understand.
At last the boy turned to him, fighting back some things, taking on
other things. He gazed at the care-worn, rugged face--face of a
worker and a dreamer, reading in those lines the story of that life,
seeing more clearly than he had ever seen before the beauty and
futility of it. Here was the idealist, the man who would give his
whole lifetime to a dream he had dreamed. He loved his father very
tenderly as he looked at him, read him, then.
"Father," he asked quietly, "are you satisfied with your life?"
The man simply stared--waiting, seeking his bearings.
"You came to this country when you were nineteen years old--didn't
you, father?" The man nodded. "And now you're--it's sixty-one, isn't
it?"
Again he nodded.
"You've been in America, then, forty-two years. Father, do you think
as much of it now as you did forty-two years ago?"
"I don't know what you mean," the man said, searching his son's
quiet, passionate face. "I can't make you out, Fritz."
"My favourite story as a kid," the boy went on, "was to hear you
tell of how you felt when your boat came sailing into New York
Harbour, and you saw the first outlines of a country you had dreamed
about all through your boyhood, which you had saved pennies for,
worked nights for, ever since you were old enough to know the
meaning of America. I mean," he corrected, significantly, "the
meaning of what you thought was America.
"It's a bully story, father," he continued, with a smile at once
tender and hard; "the simple German boy, born a dreamer, standing
there looking out at the dim shores of that land he had idealised.
If ever a man came to America bringing it rich gifts, that man was
you!"
"Fritz," his father's voice was rendered harsh by mystification and
foreboding, "tell me what you're talking about. Come to the point.
Clear this up."
"I'm talking about American politics--your party--having ruined your
life! I'm talking about working like a slave all your days and
having nothing but a mortgaged farm at sixty-one! I'm talking about
playing a losing game! I'm saying, _What's the use?_ Father,
I'm telling you that _I'm_ going to join the other party and
make some money!"
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