A HAT IN THE RADIO RING By Garret Smith “The radio’s playin’ hell with politics!” With this sententious remark, a long speech for Boss Quaid, the big fellow, who had just taken the end seat at the speakers’ table, glared at the microphone opposite the toastmaster’s seat halfway down the long alley of snowy linen. His pale little eyes betrayed secret anxiety through their slits of fat. “How so?” asked the lean, dapper gentleman at Quaid’s right. “Why, it’s this way, Mr. Forsythe,” broke in the rat-faced little man at the boss’s left. “Take this dinner tonight, for instance. In the old days when we pulled a keynote dinner like this, that was to set the pace for the campaign, we could pretty much keep it bottled up. We had the newspaper boys fixed, and if anybody made the wrong turn, or started puttin’ tacks on the pike, maybe we could keep it out of the papers. “Anyhow, we could get it toned down, or if worse came to worse, have a statement of our own printed along with it. Now everybody has a radio and gets the gas right hot from the cylinder. He should worry about what the papers say next morning.” “Barney’s right. They don’t even go to meetings any more,” mourned the boss. “Unless they’re hand-picked, like this one,” Barney chuckled. “Barney’s right,” the boss echoed the chuckle. Barney Fogarty, the big fellow’s secretary, was as loquacious by nature and profession as his chief was silent. But his speech was the thought of Quaid, O. K.’d by the big fellow’s guttural “Barney’s right.” “I take it I better be careful what I say tonight,” the elegant Forsythe murmured with mock anxiety, as if his utterances were to be his own spontaneous outbursts. “If you want the boss to get you nominated for Governor, you had,” Barney laughed. “As long as you’re cagy about the State power proposition, it doesn’t matter a whoop what else you say. It’s some dark horse popping up here tonight that we’re afraid of. Every yahoo in the State will know it as soon as we do.” “Barney’s right,” Boss Quaid sighed again. “People hear too damn much these days.” Boss Quaid’s domain had for twenty years been practically a one-party State, dominated by the machine which Quaid till lately held tight in his fat hand. But lately he had felt his power slipping a little with this ominous growth of modern publicity. Walls had developed too many ears. Now on the eve of the county conventions he was not quite sure he would get enough hand-picked delegates to dominate the coming State convention which would nominate a Governor this year. The question of State control of water power on which the boss saw fit to hedge was threatening internal disruption. To-morrow was county convention day. He was hoping that Forsythe’s speech at this dinner tonight would swing sentiment in enough doubtful counties to give him a majority of pledged delegates when the State convention opened.