Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/35

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over. Since these were not enough to go around again, they wrangled till somebody, to save the combine, suggested giving them all to Mark. They “kind o’ liked” Mark, so this bit of patronage went to him with a whoop.

Mark was not reelected freeholder. He says that his inability to do things for the ward did not hurt him with his people; more of them voted for him than ever before. But the state and city rings had had a gerrymander about that time, and they so arranged the lines of Mark’s ward that he was beaten. He served his neighbours privately till the next year the Republicans nominated him for the state senate. Hopeless, anyway, the candidacy fell upon a presidential year, Bryan’s first, and the Democratic County of Hudson was wild with party enthusiasm. But the moment Mark was nominated he left the convention and, fifty feet from the door, began his campaign; he met two m$n; he told them he had just been nominated, that if he was elected he would serve them “honestly and faithfully,” and they promised to vote for him. In this fashion, man to man, he canvassed his county and, though it went against him, he ran way ahead of his ticket. And he carried the city.

A Republican who can carry a Democratic city is the “logical” candidate of his party for