He feels
that the opposition is directed personally against him, not against
the policy that separates them."
Johnson's opponents are the elements of reaction, the malefactors
of great wealth, the supporters of that social inequality which the
crowd resents. They stood in his path in California. They made
impossible his nomination at Chicago. When the bitter enders,
during the treaty fight, planned to send him on a tour of the
country, these monied men closed their pocketbooks, exclaiming to
Senator Knox, "What do you mean to do? Advertise this man Johnson
and make him the Republican candidate for President? Not with our
money."
Only the raising of a fund by Senator McCormick and some of the old
Progressives, gave him his chance to speak. He hates them and when
he attacks them it is with all the force and sincerity of his soul.
It is no mere question of hatred, such as Roosevelt would employ to
dramatize and make personal the issues he was representing to the
people; it is bitter, revengeful detestation. It makes Johnson the
most sincere man before the country to-day. And that pessimistic
strain in his nature causes the darkness of his diatribe to seem
all the more true.
But he swallows for expediency as other men swallow their
convictions for it, and wrath is the bitterer dose. During the 1920
campaign he trafficked with Senator Penrose, the representative of
hated wealth, for support at Chicago, offering, it has not been
disclosed what considerations, for his aid.
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