What if Hull did own gas and water and ice and
traction and railway stocks? Mustn't a rich man invest his money
somehow? And how could he more creditably invest it than in
local enterprises and in enterprises that opened up the country
and gave employment to labor? What if the dividends were
improperly, even criminally, earned? Must he therefore throw the
dividends paid him into the street? As for a man of such
associations and financial interests being unfit fairly to
administer public affairs, what balderdash! Who could be more
fit than this educated, high minded man, of large private means,
willing to devote himself to the public service instead of
drinking himself to death or doing nothing at all. You would
have felt, as you looked at Davy and listened to him, that it was
little short of marvelous that a man could be so self-
sacrificing as to consent to run the gauntlet of low mudslingers
for no reward but an office with a salary of three thousand a
year. And you would have been afraid that, if something was not
done to stop these mudslingers, such men as David Hull would
abandon their patriotic efforts to save their country--and then
WHAT would become of the country?
But Victor and his associates--on the platform, in the paper, in
posters and dodgers and leaflets-- continued to press home the
ugly questions--and continued to call attention to the fact that,
while there had been ample opportunity, none of the candidates
had answered any of the questions.
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