CHAPTER XVI—LEGREE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE

THE new government was now in full swing and a saturnalia began. Amos Hogg was Governor, Simon Legree Speaker of the House, and the Hon. Tim Shelby leader of the majority on the floor of the House.

Raleigh, the quaint little City of Oaks, never saw such an assemblage of law-makers gather in the grey stone Capitol.

Ezra Perkins, who was a member of the Senate, was frugal in his habits and found lodgings at an unpretentious boarding house near the Capitol square.

The room was furnished with six iron cots on which were placed straw mattresses and six honourable members of the new Legislature occupied these. They were close enough together to allow a bottle of whiskey to be freely passed from member to member at any hour of the night. They thought the beds were arranged with this in view and were much pleased.

Ezra was the only man of the crowd who arrived in Raleigh with a valise or trunk. He had a carpet bag. The others simply had one shirt and a few odds and ends tied in red bandana handkerchiefs.

Three of them had walked all the way to Raleigh and kept in the woods from habit as deserters. The other two rode on the train and handed their tickets to the first stranger they saw on the platform of the car they boarded.

“What’s this for!” said the stranger.

“Them’s our tickets. Ain’t you the door keeper?”

“No, but there ought to be one to every circus. You’ll have one when you get to Raleigh.”

The landlady, Mrs. Duke, apologised for the poor beds, when she showed them to their room. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I can’t give you softer beds.”

“That’s all right M’am! them’s fine. Us fellows been sleeping in the woods and in straw stacks so long dodgin’ ole Vance’s officers, them white sheets is the finest thing we’ve seed in four years, er more.”

They were humble and made no complaints. But at the end of the week they gathered around the Rev. Ezra Perkins for a grave consultation.

“When are we goin’ ter draw?” said one.

“Air we ever goin’ ter draw?” asked another with sorrow and doubt.

“What are we here fer ef we cain’t draw?” pleaded another looking sadly at Ezra.

“Gentlemen,” answered Ezra, “it will be all right in a little while. The Treasurer is just cranky. We can draw our mileage Monday anyhow.”

At daylight they took their places on the bank’s steps, and at ten o’clock when the bank opened, the doors were besieged by a mob of members painfully anxious to draw before it might be too late.

Next morning there was a disturbance at the breakfast table. The morning paper had in blazing head lines an account of one James “Mileage,” who was a member of the Legislature from an adjoining county thirty-seven miles distant. He had sworn to a mileage record of one hundred and seven dollars.

“That’s an unfortunate mistake, sir,” said Perkins.

“Ten’ ter yer own business?” answered James.

“I call it er purty sharp trick,” grinned his partner.

“I call it stealin’,” sneered an honourable member, evidently envious.

And James “Mileage” was his name for all time, but “Mileage” shot a malicious look at the member who had called him a thief.

The next morning the paper of the Opposition had another biographical sketch on the front page.

“I see your name in the paper this morning, Mr. Scoggins?” remarked Mrs. Duke, looking pleasantly at the member who had spoken so rudely to James “Mileage” the day before.

“Well I reckon I’ll make my mark down here before it’s over,” chuckled Scoggins with pride. “What do they say about me, M’am?”

“They say you stole a lot of hogs!” tittered the landlady.

Mr. Scoggins turned red.

“Oho, is there another thief in this hon’able body?” sneered James “Mileage.”

“That’s all a lie, M’am, ’bout them hogs. I didn’ steal ’em. I just pressed ’em from a Secessiner.”

“Jes so,” said James ‘Mileage’, “but they say you were a deserter at the time, and not exactly in the service of your country.”

“Ye can’t pay no ’tention ter rebel lies ergin union men!” explained Scoggins, eating faster.

“Yes, that’s so,” said James ‘Mileage’, “but there’s another funny thing in the paper about you.”

“What’s that?” cried Scoggins with new alarm.

“That Mr. Scoggins met Sherman’s army with loud talk about lovin’ the union, but that a mean Yankee officer gave him a cussin’ fur not fightin’ on one side or the other, took all that bacon he had stolen, hung him up by the heels, gave him thirty lashes and left him hanging in the air.”

“It’s a lie! It’s a lie!” bellowed Scoggins.

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! we must not have such behaviour at my table!” exclaimed Mrs. Duke.

And “Hog” Scoggins was his name from that day.

By the end of the week another painful story was printed about one of this group of statesmen. The newspaper brutally declared that he had been convicted of stealing a rawhide from a neighbour’s tanyard. It could not be denied. And then a sad thing happened. The moral sentiment of the little community could not endure the strain. It suddenly collapsed. They laughed at these incidents of the sad past and agreed that they were jokes. They began to call each other James “Mileage,” “Hog” Scoggins, and “Rawhide” in the friendliest way, and dared a scornful world to make them feel ashamed of anything!

But the Rev. Ezra Perkins was pained by this breakdown. He felt that being safely removed two thousand miles from his own past, he might hope for a future.

“Mrs. Duke,” he complained to his landlady, “I will have to ask you to give me a room to myself. I’ll pay double. I want quiet where I can read my Bible and meditate occasionally.”

“Certainly Mr. Perkins, if you are willing to pay for it.”

It was so arranged. But this assumption of moral superiority by Perkins grieved “Mileage,” “Hog” and “Rawhide,” and a coolness sprang up between them, until they found Ezra one night in his place of meditation dead drunk and his room on fire. He had gone to sleep in his chair with his empty bottle by his side, and knocked the candle over on the bed. Then they agreed that forever after they would all stand together, shoulder to shoulder, until they brought the haughty low and exalted the lowly and the “loyal.”

Tim Shelby early distinguished himself in this august assemblage. His wit and eloquence from the first commanded the admiration of his party.

When he had fairly established himself as leader, he rose in his seat one day with unusual gravity. His scalp was working his ears with great rapidity showing his excitement.

He had in his hands a bill on which he had spent months in secret study. He had not even hinted its contents to any of his associates. Under the call for bills his voice rang with deep emphasis, “Mr. Speaker!”

Legree gave him instant recognition.

“I desire to introduce the following: ‘A Bill to be Entitled An Act to Relieve Married Women from the Bonds of Matrimony when United to Felons, and to Define Felony’.”

A page hurried to the Reading Clerk with his bill.

The hum of voices ceased. The five or six representatives of the white race left their desks and walked quickly toward the Speaker. The Clerk read in a loud clear voice.

“The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:

“I That all citizens of the State who took part in the Rebellion and fought against the union, or held office in the so called Confederate States of America, shall be held guilty of felony, and shall be forever debarred from voting or holding office.”

“II That the married relations of all such felons are hereby dissolved and their wives absolutely divorced, and said felons shall be forever barred from contracting marriage or living under the same roof with their former wives.”

Instantly four Carpet-bagger members of some education rushed for Tim’s seat. “Withdraw that bill, man, quick! My God, are you mad!” they all cried in a breath.

Tim was dazed by this unexpected turn, and grinned in an obstinate way.

“I can’t see it gentlemen. That bill will kill out the breed of rebels and fix the status of every Southern state for five hundred years. It’s just what we need to make this state loyal.”

“You pass that bill and hell will break loose!”

“How so, brother? Ain’t we on top and the rebels on the bottom? Ain’t the army here to protect us?” persisted Tim.

There was a brief consultation among the little group in opposition and the leader said, “Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be at once printed and laid on the desk of the members for consideration.”

Tim was astonished at this move of his enemy. Le-gree looked at him and waited his pleasure.

“Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that bill for the present,” he said at length.

That night the wires were hot between Washington and Raleigh, and the entire power of Congress was hurled upon the unhappy Tim. His bill was not only suppressed but the news agencies were threatened and subsidised to prevent accounts of its introduction being circulated throughout the country.

Tim decided to lay this measure over until Congress was off his hands, and the state’s autonomy fully recognised. Then he would dare interference. In the meantime he turned his great mind to financial matters. His success here was overwhelming.

His first measure was to increase the per diem of the members from three to seven dollars a day. It passed with a whoop.

Uncle Pete Sawyer a coal-black fatherly looking old darkey from an Eastern county made himself immortal in that debate.

“Mistah Speakah!” he bawled drawing himself up with great dignity, and holding a pen in his left hand as though he had been writing. “What do dese white gem’men mean by ezposen dis bill? Ef we doan pay de members enuf, dey des be erbleeged ter steal. Hit aint right, sah, ter fo’ce de members er dis hon’able body ter prowl atter dark when day otter be here ’tendin’ ter de business o’ de country. En I moves you, sah. Mistah Speakah, dat dese rema’ks er mine be filed in de arkibes er grabity!”

They were filed and embalmed in the archives of gravity where they will remain a monument to their author and his times.

As Tim’s great financial measures made progress, the members began to wear better clothes, assumed white linen shirts, had their shoes blacked, and put on the airs of overworked statesmen.

When they had used up all the funds of the state in mileage and per diem, they sold and divided the school fund, railroad bonds worth a half million, for a hundred thousand ready cash. It was soon found that Simon Legree, the Speaker of the House, was the master of financial measures and Tim Shelby was his mouthpiece.

Legree organised three groups of thieves composed of the officials needed to perfect the thefts in every branch of the government while he retained the leadership of the federated groups. The Treasurer, who was an honest man, was stripped of power by a special act.

The Capitol Ring merely picked up the odds and ends about the Capitol building. They refurnished the Legislative Halls. They spent over two hundred thousand dollars for furniture, and when it was appraised, its value was found to be seventeen thousand dollars at the prices they actually paid for it. The Ring stole one hundred and seventy thousand dollars on this item alone.

An appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars was made for “supplies, sundries and incidentals.” With this they built a booth around the statue of Washington at the end of the Capitol and established a bar with fine liquors and cigars for the free use of the members and their friends. They kept it open every day and night during their reign, and in a suite of rooms in the Capitol they established a brothel. From the galleries a swarm of courtesans daily smiled on their favourites on the floor.

The printing had never cost the state more than eight thousand dollars in any one year. This year it cost four hundred and eighty thousand. Legree drew thousands of warrants on the state for imaginary persons. There were eight pages in the House. He drew pay for one hundred and fifty-six pages. In this way he raised an enormous corruption fund for immediate use in bribing the lawmakers to carry through his schemes.

The Railroad Ring was his most effective group of brigands.

They passed bills authorising the issue of twenty-five millions of dollars in bonds, and actually issued and stole fourteen millions, and never built one foot of railroad.

When Legree’s movement was at its high tide, Ezra Perkins sought Uncle Pete Sawyer one night in behalf of a pet measure of his pending in the House.

Peter was seated by his table counting by the light of a candle three big piles of gold.

His face was wreathed in smiles.

“Peter, you seem well pleased with the world tonight?” said Ezra gleefully.

“Well, brudder, you see dem piles er yaller money?”

“Yes, it is a fine sight.”

Uncle Pete smacked his lips and grinned from ear to ear.

“Well, brudder, I tells you. I ben sol’ seben times in my life, but ’fore Gawd dat’s de fust time I ebber got de money!”

Uncle Pete dreamed that night that Congress passed a law extending the blessings of a “republican form of government” to North Carolina for forty years and that the Legislature never adjourned.

But the Legislature finally closed, and in a drunken revel which lasted all night. They had bankrupted the state, destroyed its school funds, and increased its debt from sixteen to forty-two millions of dollars, without adding one cent to its wealth or power.

Legree then organised a Municipal and County Ring to exploit the towns, cities, and counties, having passed a bill vacating all county and city offices.

This Ring secured the control of Hambright and levied a tax of twenty-five per cent for municipal purposes! Tom Camp’s little home was assessed for eighty-five dollars in taxes. Mrs. Gaston’s home was assessed for one hundred and sixty dollars. They could have raised a million as easily as the sum of these assessments.

It cost the United States government two hundred millions of dollars that year to pay the army required to guard the Legrees and their “loyal” men while they were thus establishing and maintaining “a republican form of government” in the South.