"Yes, Judge," replied Swanson, "I've practically decided to veto it. I
can see no practical reason for supporting it. As I look at it now,
it's specious and special, not particularly called for or necessary at
this time."

The governor talked with a slight Swedish accent, intellectual,
individual.

A long, placid, philosophic discussion of all the pros and cons of the
situation followed. The governor was tired, distrait, but ready to
listen in a tolerant way to more argument along a line with which he
was already fully familiar. He knew, of course, that Dickensheets was
counsel for the North Chicago Street Railway Company.

"I'm very glad to have heard what you have to say, Judge," finally
commented the governor. I don't want you to think I haven't given this
matter serious thought--I have. I know most of the things that have
been done down at Springfield. Mr. Cowperwood is an able man; I don't
charge any more against him than I do against twenty other agencies
that are operating down there at this very moment. I know what his
difficulties are. I can hardly be accused of sympathizing with his
enemies, for they certainly do not sympathize with me. I am not even
listening to the newspapers. This is a matter of faith in democracy--a
difference in ideals between myself and many other men. I haven't
vetoed the bill yet. I don't say that something may not arise to make
me sign it. My present intention, unless I hear something much more
favorable in its behalf than I have already heard, is to veto it.

"Governor," said Dickensheets, rising, "let me thank you for your
courtesy. I would be the last person in the world to wish to influence
you outside the line of your private convictions and your personal
sense of fair play. At the same time I have tried to make plain to you
how essential it is, how only fair and right, that this local
street-railway-franchise business should be removed out of the realm of
sentiment, emotion, public passion, envy, buncombe, and all the other
influences that are at work to frustrate and make difficult the work of
Mr. Cowperwood. All envy, I tell you. His enemies are willing to
sacrifice every principle of justice and fair play to see him
eliminated. That sums it up.

"That may all be true," replied Swanson. "Just the same, there is
another principle involved here which you do not seem to see or do not
care to consider--the right of the people under the state constitution