“My friends,” repeated Standish, his powerful voice echoing from floor to roof, “Abraham Lincoln freed the black men forty odd years ago. It’s time that somebody freed the white brother. For years this State has groaned under the tribute of a relentless Machine, under the rule of a railroad that was all stomach and no conscience, all bowels and no heart, all greed and no generosity. Our party—and with shame I say it—has been turned into a vest-pocket asset of this vile corporation. For months past, and more especially to-day, you have seen what its power is, as opposed to the power of the more honest citizens of our party. It won to-day, it won yesterday, and it won the day before. It always has won. It rests with us here to-day, now and in this hour, to decide whether a new Proclamation of Emancipation is to be issued or whether the great Democratic party in the Mountain State shall continue to be the chattel, the credulous, simple, weak-kneed, backboneless, hopeless, helpless victim of the greediest, most corrupt railroad that ever trailed its steel shackles across the face of the earth. Whether or not the Boss-guided Machine shall beat us to earth and hold us there forever. We have tried reforming the party from the inside, and we have failed. Has the time come to reform it from the outside?” He paused, and the answer came. From the Conover hosts went up a shout of “No! No!” mingled with hiss and groan. But instantly, from a great scattered mass of the audience, and from the Standish delegates on the floor, there arose an outburst of cheering that drowned the barking negatives of what had been but ten short minutes before a majority of that convention. The effect of this outburst was diverse on its hearers. With Standish himself it acted as a tonic, as an electric battery which gave him added force and vigor for what he had yet to say. Karl Ansel it seemed for the moment to stupify and paralyze. Conover’s lieutenants it threw into a state of consternation, which approached frenzy, panic, demoralization. They ran aimlessly to and fro, conferring excitedly in hoarse whispers. Conover, alone, from his den at the rear of the stage, smiled to himself and gave no other sign of interest. Standish was speaking again, and now behind him stood Karl Ansel recovering from his amazement, and intent to catch his leader’s every word.