By a
caustic speech in the Senate Stringer drew public attention to the
skilfully concealed iniquities of the proposed franchise, and public
attention thus aroused began to bristle. Newspapers here and there
throughout the state put forth edicts that this Legislature had been
chosen to protect popular principles, and that here was an opportunity
for the Democratic party to fulfil its pledges and serve the people.
Stringer and his associates were uttering in the Senate burning words
against the audacious menace of what they termed the franchise octopus.
Did the people realize that this bill to combine gas companies, which
looked so innocent on its face, was a gigantic scheme to wheedle them
out of a valuable franchise for nothing? Did they understand that they
were deliberately putting their necks in the grip of a monster whose
tentacles would squeeze and suck their life-blood for its own
enrichment? Stringer hammered away with fierce and reiterated invective.
He had no hope of defeating the bill, but he confidently believed that
he was putting his adversary, the Governor, in a hole. It had been
noised about the lobbies by the friends of the measure earlier in the
session that the Governor was all right and could be counted on.
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