them to hunt him out and present
themselves to him.

Such was the campaign as the public saw it. And such was in reality
the campaign of the Leaguers. But the real campaign--the one conducted
by Kelly and House--was entirely different. They were not talking;
they were working.

They were working on a plan based somewhat after this fashion:

In former and happier days, when people left politics to politicians
and minded their own business, about ninety-five per cent. of the
voters voted their straight party tickets like good soldiers. Then
politics was a high-class business, and politicians devoted themselves
to getting out the full party vote and to buying or cajoling to one
side or the other the doubtful ten per cent that held the balance of
power. That golden age, however, had passed. People had gotten into
the habit of fancying that, because certain men had grown very, very
rich through their own genius for money-making, supplemented perhaps by
accidental favors from law and public officials, therefore politics in
some way might possibly concern the private citizen, might account for
the curious discrepancy between his labor and its reward. The
impression was growing that, while the energy of the citizen determined
the PRODUCTION of wealth, it was politics that determined the
distribution of wealth. And under the influence of this impression,
the percentage of sober, steady, reliable voters who "stood by the
grand old party" had shrunk to about seventy, while the percentage of
voters who had to be worried about had grown to about thirty.

The Kelly-House problem was, what shall we do as to that annoying
thirty per cent?

Kelly--for he was THE brain of the bi-partisan machine, proposed to
throw the election to the House-Reform "combine." His henchmen and
House's made a careful poll, and he sat up all night growing haggard
and puffy-eyed over the result. According to this poll, not only was
the League's entire ticket to be elected, but also Galland, despite his
having the Republican, the Democratic and the Reform nominations, was
to be beaten by the League's Falconer. He couldn't understand it. The
Sawyer meetings were quite up to his expectations and indicated that
the Republican rank and file was preparing to swallow the Sawyer dose
without blinking. The Alliance and the Democratic meetings were
equally satisfactory. Hull was "making a hit." Everywhere he had big
crowds and enthusiasm. The Leagu