ere were
several orange orchards and one violet farm. Many of these foreigners
were so numerous that churches had been built for their separate use,
and service was held in their native tongue. All were willing to drop
work for a few moments and talk politics with Colton, particularly if it
was to abuse lawmakers and monopolists--above all, the railroads, whose
prices were exorbitant, and whose service was inadequate. In this
department of monopoly at least they had a real grievance, and Colton
never let them forget it. He made no secret of the fact that the United
States Senate was his goal, and reiterated that there alone could he
accomplish the legislation that would free the farmer from the costly
tyranny of the corporations and give the laboring man his rightful share
of profit. Some were skeptical that any mortal could accomplish all he
promised, but the foreigners for the most part were gullible, and they
all liked the rich man's son, with his simple ways and his blatant
democracy.

Of Gwynne they took little notice, but he studied them, one and all, and
it was not long before he understood the materials with which he must
deal in the future. The State was Republican, although San Francisco
presented the remarkable spectacle of a Democratic mayor with a
Republican boss controlling the labor element, which was presumably
democratic in essence, and devoted to the figurehead. But country
politics were far less complicated, and it was possible that a strong
Democrat with a sufficiency of inherent power could weld together the
conflicting and half indifferent elements, and change the political
current. Californians had gone thunderously Republican at the last
Presidential election, because for the moment they were dazzled by the
Roosevelt star and all it seemed to portend. There could be no better
augury for a really great and sincere leader; for whether or not
Roosevelt was all they imagined, the point to consider was that they had
been carried away by their higher enthusiasms, not by those a mere
trickster like Colton was trying to stimulate. They had rushed to the
polls with all that was best in their natures in the ascendant, eager
not only for a great servant that would reform many abuses, but for one
that stood at the moment before the country as the embodiment of all
that was high-minded, uncompromisingly honest, and nobly patriotic in
American life. It was one of the greatest personal triumphs ever
accomplish