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10. The Beast and the Ballot (Continued)
- University Press of Colorado
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c 117 d A NEW England philosopher has said that the great virtue of a college education is to teach a man how unavailing it is. I have never been taught that. I have always had an envy of those men who have been able to live four years of their youth among the ideals of a university, protected from the disillusionments of the world, novitiates of culture and the liberal mind, happy among the boyish comradeships of the lecture room and campus. It had always seemed to me that my life had been spiritually orphaned by this loss of an alma mater. And when—just after my re-election in the spring of 1904—the Denver University, through its chancellor , the Reverend Henry Augustus Buchtel, offered to confer an honorary degree upon me, I felt as humbly flattered as if I were a quondam street waif whom some almost noble family now wished to adopt. (Intellectual snobbery? No doubt of it!) On the night that my degree was to be conferred upon me I went THE BEAST AND THE BALLOT (CONTINUED) C H A P T E R X T h e Be a s t c 118 d proudly to the Commencement exercises in the Trinity Methodist Church. Mr. W. G. Evans, president of the tramway company, had been showing a new interest in the Juvenile Court and had sent me word, through a friend, that he thought my work for the children ought to be publicly recognized by the university. I knew that the university had been founded by Mr. Evans’s father, and that Mr. Evans himself had assisted it with large and frequent contributions. I knew that Dean Shattuck of the university had been a household friend of Mr. Evans and his family, that he had been elected a member of the charter convention that betrayed the city to the corporations, and that he had not opposed the betrayal. But all this meant nothing to me. The college had remained in my thought something as unworldly as a convent. The Honourable Henry M. Teller was to receive an honorary degree with me; and there was nothing but pride in my heart as I walked up the aisle of Trinity Church, with Senator Teller and Chancellor Buchtel, to the raised platform on which I was to receive my patent of intellectual nobility. The church, of course, was crowded—crowded with the young men and women of the college and their fond parents. I looked at them from the platform and saw their happiness, and knew—better than they did—their good fortune, and thought of the little waifs of our Juvenile Court, and was glad that here, at least, youth was what it ought to be. They looked up at me, and I was proud to be there, honoured among them and raised in their innocent estimation by an academic distinction. The chancellor, in his address, was eloquent in his praise of our court; he made me blush till I could scarcely see. “If Christ came to Denver,” he said, “He would go straight to your court; for there you are doing the Master’s work.” He put my precious diploma in my hand, and I sat down with tears in my eyes, amid the generous applause of all those enviable young people. I felt that I had never been happier, never been more fortunate, never been more honoured —and never could be. While I was still blinking, in a flattered daze, a message was brought to me from Milton Smith written on a calling card; he wished [174.129.59.198] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:08 GMT) T H E BE A S T A N D T H E BA L L OT (C ON T I N U E D) c 119 d to see me after the meeting, on a matter of great importance; and I came back to earth and politics with a chill shock. He was the chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee. It was he, you remember, who carried the case of Cronin, the dive keeper, to the Supreme Court in Washington. He was attorney for the telephone company and its associated corporations. I wished him at the ends of the earth. I suspected what he wished to see me about. The Democrats, with the assistance of Wm. G. Evans, the Republican Boss, had elected Democratic Boss Speer and his ticket; but the election frauds had...