They discoursed eloquently about popular rights and wrongs. They
denounced corruption; they stood strongly for the right and
renounced and denounced the devil and all his works. They
promised to do far more for the people than did the Leaguers; for
Victor Dorn had trained his men to tell the exact truth --the
difficulty of doing anything for the people at any near time or
in any brief period because at a single election but a small part
of the effective offices could be changed, and sweeping changes
must be made before there could be sweeping benefits. ``We'll do
all we can,'' was their promise. ``Their county government and
their state government and their courts won't let us do much.
But a beginning has to be made. Let's make it!''
David Hull's public appearance was especially good. Not so
effective as it has now become, because he was only a novice at
campaigning in that year. But he looked, well--handsome, yet not
too handsome, upper class, but not arrogant, serious, frank and
kindly. And he talked in a plain, honest way--you felt that no
interest, however greedy, desperate and powerful, would dare
approach that man with an improper proposal-- and you quite
forgot in real affairs the crude improper proposal is never the
method of approach. When Davy, with grave emotion, referred to
the ``pitiful efforts to smirch the personal character of
candidates,'' you could not but burn with scorn of the Victor
Dorn tactics.
Pages:
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319