Others demanded
diplomacy. Jobs, fat contracts, business favours, influence were
all flung out freely--bribes as absolute as though stamped with the
dollar mark. Newspapers all over the State were pressed into
service. These, bought up by Heinzman and his prospective partners
in a lucrative business, spoke virtuously of private piracy of what
are now called public utilities, the exploiting of the people's
natural wealths, and all the rest of a specious reasoning the more
convincing in that it was in many other cases only too true. The
independent journals, uninformed of the rights of the case, either
remained silent on the matter, or groped in a puzzled and undecided
manner on both sides.
Against this secret but effective organisation Newmark most
unexpectedly found himself pitted. He had anticipated being absent
but a week; he became involved in an affair of months.
With decision he applied himself to the problem. He took rooms at
the hotel, sent for Orde, and began at once to set in motion the
machinery of opposition. The refreshed resources of the company
were strained to the breaking point in order to raise money for this
new campaign opening before it. Orde, returning to Lansing after a
trip devoted to the carrying out of Newmark's directions as to
finances, was dismayed at the tangle of strategy and cross-strategy,
innuendo, vague and formless cobweb forces by which he was
surrounded.
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