ney, a man rose from the center of the stage semicircle
and lumbered heavily forward to the footlights. Loring's first emotion was
of surprise, tempered with pity. The crisis-born leader, heralded by such
a flourish of rhetorical trumpets, was a giant in size; but with his huge
figure, unshapely and ill-clad, all promise of greatness seemed to pause.

His face, broad-featured, colorless, and beardless as a boy's, was either
a blank or an impenetrable mask. There was no convincement in the
lack-luster gaze of the small, porcine eyes; no eloquence in the harsh,
nasal tones of the untrained voice, or in the ponderous and awkward
wavings of the beam-like arms. None the less, before he had uttered a
dozen halting sentences he was carrying the audience with him step by
step; moving the great concourse of listeners with his commonplace periods
as a mellifluous Hawk could never hope to move it.

Loring saw the miracle in the throes of its outworking; saw and felt it in
his own proper person, and sought in vain to account for it. Was there
some subtile magnetism in this great hulk of a man that made itself felt
in spite of its hamperings? Or was it merely that the people, weary of
empty rhetoric and unkept promises, were ripe to welcome and to follow any
man whose apparent earnestness and sincerity atoned for all his lacks?

Explain it as he might, Loring soon assured himself that the Honorable
Jasper G. Bucks was laying hold of the sentiment of the audience as though
it were a thing tangible to be grasped by the huge hands. Unlike Hawk,
whose speech flamed easily into denunciation when it touched on the alien
corporations, he counseled moderation and lawful reprisals. Land
syndicates, railroads, foreign capital in whatever employment, were prime
necessities in any new and growing commonwealth. The province of the
people was not to wreck the ship, but to guide it. And the remedy for all
ills lay in controlling legislation, faithfully and rigidly enforced.

"My friends: I'm only a plain, hard-handed farmer, as those of you who are
my fellow townsmen can testify. But I've seen what you've seen, and I've
suffered what you've suffered. Year after year we send our representatives
to the legislature, and what comes of it? Why, these corporations, looking
only to their own interests, as they're in duty bound to do, buys 'em if
they can. You can't blame 'em for that; it's business--their business. But
it is our business, as citizens of