g itself by dodging from one of these divided authorities to
another, eluding capture, wearing out the not too strong perseverance
of popular pursuit.

But, thanks to Victor Dorn, the local graft was about to be taken away
from the politicians and the plutocracy. How put off that unpleasant
event? Obviously, in the only way left unclosed. The election must be
stolen.

It is a very human state of mind to feel that what one wants somehow
has already become in a sense one's property. It is even more
profoundly human to feel that what one has had, however wrongfully,
cannot justly be taken away. So Mr. Kelly did not regard himself as a
thief, taking what did not belong to him; no, he was holding on to and
defending his own.

Victor Dorn had not been in politics since early boyhood without
learning how the political game is conducted in all its branches.

Because there had never been the remotest chance of victory, Victor had
never made preelection polls of his party. So the first hint that he
got of there being a real foundation for the belief of some of his
associates in an impending victory was when he found out that Kelly and
House were "colonizing" voters, and were selecting election officers
with an eye to "dirty work." These preparations, he knew, could not be
making for the same reason as in the years before the "gentlemen's
agreement" between the Republican and the Democratic machines. Kelly,
he knew, wanted House and the Alliance to win. Therefore, the
colonizations in the slums and the appointing of notorious buckos to
positions where they would control the ballot boxes could be directed
only against the Workingmen's League. Kelly must have accurate
information that the League was likely, or at least not unlikely, to
win.

Victor had thought he had so schooled himself that victory and defeat
were mere words to him. He soon realized how he had overestimated the
power of philosophy over human nature. During that campaign he had
been imagining that he was putting all his ability, all his energy, all
his resourcefulness into the fight. He now discovered his mistake.
Hope--definite hope--of victory had hardly entered his mind before he
was organizing and leading on such a campaign as Remsen City had never
known in all its history--and Remsen City was in a state where politics
is the chief distraction of the people. Sleep left him; he had no need
of sleep. Day and night his brain worked, pouring out a