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Updated: May 10, 2025
But the name of their builder has become a blackened thing for rats like Fleckenstein to handle with dirty claws. "And now they are after me. And you, many of you, in this audience, are the sometimes innocent and sometimes paid instruments of my downfall. You accuse me of grafting, of lying and stealing. You don't understand." Jim paused and moistened his lips. The room was breathless.
The Service is merely the tool of the people on the Projects. "Oscar, it's up to you and me. In antagonizing you farmers, I've opened the way for the enemies of the Service to reach you. And you, in being reached, are endangering the Service. Is it true that you are going to help Saradokis and Fleckenstein get your honest debts repudiated?"
Secretary, but we were glad to have the farmers get the same idea." "That isn't important, Uncle Denny," said Pen. "Marshall himself wrote the petition. The farmers' wives caught the idea as eagerly as their husbands and you will find in many cases the signatures of whole families. Of course no man was going to petition for Mr. Manning, and then vote for Fleckenstein. So he was defeated.
Uncle Denny came home to the dam, tired but with the first ray of hope in his heart that he had had for a long time. The petition might not influence the authorities and yet the sentiment it raised might defeat Fleckenstein at the last. At any rate, it was something to work for these last hard days of Jim's régime.
Jim looked surprised. "I don't know what I did, except to follow your instructions, but if it worked on Ames, it ought to work on the rest. I believe that after a few more talks with Ames, he will work against Fleckenstein, Pen, and that I will accomplish it by just talking the dam to him until he understands the technical side of it and the ideal I have about it.
Then he said: "Sara spoke just once after you left. He denied any knowledge of the anonymous letter." "I'm going to put it up to Fleckenstein," said Jim. "The newspaper dope, of course, was Sara's. I can only ignore that except to answer any questions the farmers may put to me about it. How is Pen?" "She cried it out on me shoulder after you left and felt better for the tears.
And if it will influence him, why not the others?" Pen looked at him thoughtfully. "I believe you can do it, Jim. A sort of silent campaign, eh? And then what?" "Well, if I can keep Fleckenstein out of Congress by those means, I believe that this project will never repudiate its debt! I am going to get the Department of Agriculture to send a group of experts out here at once.
"More power to your elbow, old man. But nothing can beat Fleckenstein now, I'm afraid." "I'm going to mighty well try it," said Jim as he hurried out the door. His next visit was along the irrigation canal to a point where his irrigation engineer was watching the work on a small power station. "Hello, Marlow, how is Murphy doing?" Marlow laughed. "I made him timekeeper.
Jim nodded to them across the room but made no attempt to speak to them. It was nearing five o'clock when Fleckenstein closed his testimony. "The Reclamation Service," he said, "is like every other department of the government. It is a refuge for the incompetent whose one skill is in grafting. The cost of this dam has jumped over the estimates by hundreds of thousands.
"The only reason I stayed up on the Makon was because of him. What's the matter with the wooden heads in this country? I'd like to be fool killer for a year." Murphy was chewing his cigar. "You'd have to commit suicide if you was," he said. "I've tried everything against Fleckenstein except the one way to swing votes in America and that's with whiskey or dollars.
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