The Plum Tree | Page 5

made such a stir that Ben Cass, the county
prosecutor, though a Dominick man, disobeyed his master and tried and

convicted M'Coskrey. Of course, following the custom in cases of
yielding to pressure from public sentiment, he made the trial-errors
necessary to insure reversal in the higher court; and he finally gave
Dominick's judge the opportunity to quash the indictment. But the boss
was relentless,--Cass had been disobedient, and had put upon "my
friend M'Coskrey" the disgrace of making a sorry figure in court. "Ben
can look to his swell reform friends for a renomination," said he; "he'll
not get it from me."
Thus it came to pass that Dominick's lieutenant, Buck Fessenden,
appeared in my office one afternoon in July, and, after a brief parley,
asked me how I'd like to be prosecuting attorney of Jackson County.
Four thousand a year for four years, and a reëlection if I should give
satisfaction; and afterward, the bench or a seat in Congress! I could pay
off everything; I could marry!
It was my first distinct vision of the plum tree. To how many thousands
of our brightest, most promising young Americans it is shown each
year in just such circumstances!

II
AT THE COURT OF A SOVEREIGN
That evening after supper I went to see Dominick.
In the lower end of Pulaski there was a large beer-garden, known as
Dominick's headquarters. He received half the profits in return for
making it his loafing-place, the seat of the source of all political honor,
preferment and privilege in the third, sixth and seventh congressional
districts. I found him enthroned at the end of a long table in the farthest
corner of the garden. On one side of him sat James Spencer, judge of
the circuit court,--"Dominick's judge"; on the other side Henry De
Forest, principal owner of the Pulaski Gas and Street Railway
Company. There were several minor celebrities in politics, the law, and
business down either side of the table, then Fessenden, talking with

Cowley, our lieutenant governor. As soon as I appeared Fessenden
nodded to me, rose, and said to the others generally: "Come on, boys,
let's adjourn to the next table. Mr. Dominick wants to talk to this young
fellow."
I knew something of politics, but I was not prepared to see that
distinguished company rise and, with not a shadow of resentment on
any man's face, with only a respectful, envious glance at me, who was
to deprive them of sunshine for a few minutes, remove themselves and
their glasses to another table. When I knew Dominick better, and other
bosses in this republic of ours, I knew that the boss is never above the
weaknesses of the monarch class for a rigid and servile court etiquette.
My own lack of this weakness has been a mistake which might have
been serious had my political power been based upon men. It is a
blunder to treat men without self-respect as if they were your equals.
They expect to cringe; if they are not compelled to do so, they are very
likely to forget their place. At the court of a boss are seen only those
who have lost self-respect and those who never had it. The first are the
lower though they rank themselves, and are ranked, above the "just
naturally low."
But--Dominick was alone, his eternal glass of sarsaparilla before him.
He used the left corner of his mouth both for his cigar and for speech.
To bid me draw near and seat myself, he had to shift his cigar. When
the few words necessary were half-spoken, half-grunted, he rolled his
cigar back to the corner which it rarely left. He nodded
condescendingly, and, as I took the indicated chair at his right, gave me
a hand that was fat and firm, not unlike the flabby yet tenacious sucker
of a moist sea-creature.
He was a huge, tall man, enormously muscular, with a high head like a
block, straight in front, behind and on either side; keen, shifty, pig eyes,
pompous cheeks, a raw, wide mouth; slovenly dress, with a big
diamond as a collar button and another on his puffy little finger. He
was about forty years old, had graduated from blacksmith too lazy to
work into prize-fighter, thence into saloon-keeper. It was as a
saloon-keeper that he founded and built his power, made himself the

local middleman between our two great political factors, those who buy
and break laws and those who aid and abet the lawlessness by selling
themselves as voters or as office-holders.
Dominick had fixed his eyes upon his sarsaparilla. He frowned
savagely into its pale brown foam when he realized that I purposed to
force him to speak first. His voice was ominously surly as he shifted his
cigar to say: "Well, young