There were to be issues of the New Day; there were to be posters and dodgers, public meetings in halls, in squares, on street corners.But the main reliance now as always was this educated ``army of education''-- these six thousand missionaries, each one of them in resolute earnest and bent upon converting his neighbors on either side, and across the street as well.A large part of the time the leaders could spare from making a living was spent in working at this army, in teaching it new arguments or better ways of presenting old arguments, in giving the enthusiasm, in talking with each individual soldier of it and raising his standard of efficiency.Nor could the employers of these soldiers of Victor Dorn's complain that they shirked their work for politics.It was a fact that could not be denied that the members of the Workingmen's League were far and away the best workers in Remsen City, got the best pay, and earned it, drank less, took fewer days off on account of sickness.One of the sneers of the Kelly-House gang was that ``those Dorn cranks think they are aristocrats, a little better than us common, ordinary laboring men.'' And the sneer was not without effect.The truth was, Dorn and his associates had not picked out the best of the working class and drawn it into the League, but had made those who joined the League better workers, better family men, better citizens.
``We are saying that the working class ought to run things,''
Dorn said again and again in his talks, public and private.
``Then, we've got to show the community that we're fit to run things.That is why the League expels any man who shirks or is a drunkard or a crook or a bad husband and father.''
The great fight of the League--the fight that was keeping it from power--was with the trades unions, which were run by secret agents of the Kelly-House oligarchy.Kelly and the Republican party rather favored ``open shop'' or ``scab'' labor--the right of an American to let his labor to whom he pleased on what terms he pleased.The Kelly orators waxed almost tearful as they contemplated the outrage of any interference with the ancient liberty of the American citizen.Kelly disguised as House was a hot union man.He loathed the ``scab.'' He jeered at the idea that a laborer ought to be at the mercy of the powerful employer who could dictate his own terms, which the laborers might not refuse under stress of hunger.Thus the larger part of the ``free'' labor in Remsen City voted with Kelly--was bought by him at so much a head.The only organization it had was under the Kelly district captains.Union labor was almost solidly Democratic--except in Presidential elections, when it usually divided on the tariff question.
Although almost all the Leaguers were members of the unions, Kelly and House saw to it that they had no influence in union councils.That is, until recently Kelly-House had been able to accomplish this.But they were seeing the approaching end of their domination.The ``army of education'' was proving too powerful for them.And they felt that at the coming election the decline of their power would be apparent --unless something drastic were done.
They had attempted it in the riot.The riot had been a fizzle--thanks to the interposition of the personal ambition of the until then despised ``holy boy,'' David Hull.Kelly, the shrewd, at once saw the mark of the man of force.He resolved that Hull should be elected.He had intended simply to use him to elect Hugo Galland judge and to split up the rest of the tickets in such a way that some Leaguers and some reformers would get in, would be powerless, would bring discredit and ridicule upon their parties.But Hull was a man who could be useful; his cleverness in upsetting the plot against Dorn and turning all to his advantage demonstrated that.Therefore, Hull should be elected and passed up higher.It did not enter his calculations that Hull might prove refractory, might really be all that he professed; he had talked with Davy, and while he had underestimated his intelligence, he knew he had not misjudged his character.He knew that it was as easy to ``deal'' with the Hull stripe of honest, high minded men as it was difficult to ``deal''
with the Victor Dorn stripe.Hull he called a ``sensible fellow''; Victor Dorn he called a crank.But--he respected Dorn, while Hull he held in much such esteem as he held his cigar-holder and pocket knife, or Tony Rivers and Joe House.
When Victor Dorn had first begun to educate and organize the people of Remsen City, the boss industry was in its early form.
That is, Kelly and House were really rivals in the collecting of big campaign funds by various forms of blackmail, in struggling for offices for themselves and their followers, in levying upon vice and crime through the police.In these ways they made the money, the lion's share of which naturally fell to them as leaders, as organizers of plunder.But that stage had now passed in Remsen City as it had passed elsewhere, and the boss industry had taken a form far more difficult to combat.Kelly and House no longer especially cared whether Republican party or Democratic won.Their business--their source of revenue--had ceased to be through carrying elections, had become a matter of skill in keeping the people more or less evenly divided between the two ``regular'' parties, with an occasional fake third party to discourage and bring into contempt reform movers and to make the people say, ``Well, bad as they are, at least the regulars aren't addle-headed, damn fools doing nothing except to make business bad.'' Both Kelly and House were supported and enriched by the corporations and by big public contracting companies and by real estate deals.Kelly still appropriated a large part of the ``campaign fund.'' House, in addition, took a share of the money raised by the police from dives.But these sums were but a small part of their income, were merely pin money for their wives and children.
