that night.

Press and people, without regard to party lines, were loud in their
execrations of the "abandoned and shameless wretches" who had "betrayed
the state and had covered themselves with eternal infamy." I quote from
an editorial in the newspaper that was regarded as my personal organ.
But there was only praise for Burbank; his enemies, and those who had
doubted his independence and had suspected him of willingness to do
anything to further his personal ambitions, admitted that he had shown
"fearless courage, inflexible honesty, and the highest ideals of private
sacrifice to public duty." And they eagerly exaggerated him, to make his
white contrast more vividly with the black of the "satanic spawn" in the
legislature. His fame spread, carried far and wide by the sentimentality
in that supposed struggle between heart and conscience, between love for
the wife of his bosom and duty to the people.

Carlotta, who like most women took no interest in politics because it
lacks "heart-interest," came to me with eyes swimming and cheeks aglow.
She had just been reading about Burbank's heroism.

"Isn't he splendid!" she cried. "I always told you he'd be President.
And you didn't believe me."

"Be patient with me, my dear," said I. "I am not a woman with
seven-league boots of intuition. I'm only a heavy-footed man."

XIII

ROEBUCK & CO. PASS UNDER THE YOKE

And now the stage had been reached at which my ten mutinous clients
could be, and must be, disciplined.

As a first step, I resigned the chairmanship of the state committee and
ordered the election of Woodruff to the vacancy. I should soon have
substituted Woodruff for myself, in any event. I had never wanted the
place, and had taken it only because to refuse it would have been to
throw away the golden opportunity Dunkirk so unexpectedly thrust at me.
Holding that position, or any other officially connecting me with my
party's machine, made me a target; and I wished to be completely hidden,
for I wished the people of my state to think me merely one of the party
servants, in sympathy with the rank and file rather than with the
machine. Yet, in the chairmanship, in the targetship, I must have a man
whom I could trust through and through; and, save Woodruff, who was
there for the place?

When my resignation was announced, the independent and the opposition
press congratulated me on my high principle in refusing to have any
official connection with the ma