A
session of the legislature had intervened, and the opposition press had
hammered Bassett hard. The Democratic minority under Bassett's
leadership had wielded power hardly second to that of the majority.
Bassett had introduced into state politics the bi-partisan alliance, a
device by virtue of which members of the assembly representing favored
interests cooperated, to the end that no legislation viciously directed
against railways, manufacturers, brewers and distillers should succeed
through the deplorable violence of reformers and radicals. Apparently
without realizing it, and clearly without caring greatly, Bassett was
thus doing much to destroy the party alignments that had in earlier
times nowhere else been so definitely marked as in Indiana. Partisan
editors of both camps were glad when the sessions closed, for it had
been no easy matter to defend or applaud the acts of either majority or
minority, so easily did Republicans and Democrats plot together at
neutral campfires. It had not been so in those early post-bellum years,
when Oliver Morton of the iron mace still hobbled on crutches. Harrison
and Hendricks had fought no straw men when they went forth to battle.
Harwood began to be conscious of these changes, which were wholly
irreconcilable with the political ideals he had imbibed from Sumner at
Yale. He had witnessed several political conventions of both parties
from the press table, and it was gradually dawning upon him that
politics is not readily expressed in academic terminology.
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