nd unselfish devotion to the
party were believed in, and his significance as a "statesman." I let
this deadlock continue--forty-one for Dunkirk, forty-one for
Schoolcraft--until I felt that the party throughout the state was
heartily sick of the struggle. Then Woodruff bought, at twelve thousand
dollars apiece, two Dunkirk men to vote to transfer the contest to the
floor of a joint session of the two houses.

After four days of balloting there, seven Dominick-Croffut men voted for
me--my first appearance as a candidate. On the seventy-seventh ballot
Schoolcraft withdrew, and all the Dominick-Croffut men voted for me. On
the seventy-ninth ballot I got, in addition, two opposition votes
Woodruff had bought for me at eight hundred dollars apiece. The ballot
was: Dunkirk, forty-one; Grassmere, (who was receiving the opposition's
complimentary vote) thirty-six; Sayler, forty-three. I was a Senator of
the United States.

There was a wild scene. Threats, insults, blows even, were exchanged.
And down at the Capital City Hotel Dunkirk crawled upon a table and
denounced me as an infamous ingrate, a traitor, a serpent he had warmed
in his bosom. But the people of the state accepted it as natural and
satisfactory that "the vigorous and fearless young chairman of the
party's state committee" should be agreed on as a compromise. An hour
after that last ballot, he hadn't a friend left except some galling
sympathizers from whom he hid himself. Those who had been his firmest
supporters were paying court to the new custodian of the plum tree.

The governor was mine, and the legislature. Mine was the Federal
patronage, also--all of it, if I chose, for Croffut was my dependent,
though he did not realize it; mine also were the indefinitely vast
resources of the members of my combine. Without my consent no man could
get office anywhere in my state, from governorship and judgeship down as
far as I cared to reach. Subject only to the check of public
sentiment,--so easily defeated if it be not defied,--I was master of the
making and execution of laws. Why? Not because I was leader of the
dominant party. Not because I was a Senator of the United States. Solely
because I controlled the sources of the money that maintained the
political machinery of both parties. The hand that holds the purse
strings is the hand that rules,--if it knows how to rule; for rule is
power _plus_ ability.

I was not master because I had the plum tree. I had the plum