"A very able man; in some respects a great man," Dunkirk went on. "But, like so many of our great men of business, he can not appreciate politics,--the difficulties of the man in public life where persuasion and compromise must be used, authority almost never. And, because I have resisted some of his impossible demands, he has declared war on the party. He has raised up in it a faction headed by your old enemy, Dominick. I need not tell you what a brute, what a beast he is, the representative of all that is abhorrent in politics." "A faction headed by Dominick couldn't be very formidable," I suggested. "But Dominick isn't the nominal leader," replied Dunkirk. "Roebuck is far too shrewd for that. No, he has put forward as the decoy my colleague, Croffut,--perhaps you know him? If so, I needn't tell you what a vain, shallow, venal fellow he is, with his gift of gab that fools the people." "I know him," said I, in a tone which did not deny the accuracy of Dunkirk's description. "Their object," continued the Senator, "is to buy the control of the party machinery away from those who now manage it in the interests of conservatism and fair dealing. If they succeed, the only business interest that will be considered in this state will be the Power Trust. And we shall have Dominick, the ignorant brute, lashed on by Roebuck's appetites, until the people will rise in fury and elect the opposition,--and you know what _it_ is." "What you say is most interesting," said I, "but I confess I haven't imagination enough to conceive a condition of affairs in which anybody with 'the price' couldn't get what he wanted by paying for it. Perhaps the business interests would gain by a change,--the other crowd might be less expensive. Certainly the demands of our party's machine have become intolerable." "It astonishes me, Mr. Sayler, to hear you say that,--you, who have been in politics," he protested, taken aback by my hardly disguised attack upon him,--for he was in reality "party" and "machine." "Surely, you understand the situation. We must have money to maintain our organization, and to run our campaign. Our workers can't live on air; and, to speak of only one other factor, there are thousands and thousands of our voters, honest fellows, too, who must be paid to come to the polls. They wouldn't vote against us for any sum; but, unless we pay them for the day lost in the fields, they stay at home. Now, where does our money come from? The big corporations are the only source,--who else could or would give largely enough? And it is necessary and just that they should be repaid. But they are no longer content with moderate and prudent rewards for their patriotism. They make bigger and bigger, and more and more unreasonable, demands on us, and so undermine our popularity,--for the people can't be blinded wholly to what's going on. And thus, year by year, it takes more and more money to keep us in control."