"I remember Franklin Roosevelt being criticized during his presidential campaigns for promising more than he knew he was going to be able to deliver that he knew all along that the nation lacked the funds to pay for all the programs he said he wanted. Some people said that talk like that showed flaws in his character that he was a 'liar' who would say anything to get himself elected.
"I believe when a man runs for President he owes it to the people to let them know who he is and a man is, at least in part, known by the size and nature of his vision. People want to feel that life, under his Presidency, could be better. Feeling and believing in that gives them hope, and hope goes a long way in this country. If the American people feel like they are working to achieve something worthwhile, they're productive. Hope provides the fuel for that feeling, and it gives them strength. All they want to do is feel good about the return on their investment, and they don't demand the moon. They don't even really expect all that men like Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Truman, for that matter can dream about them having. They only want to believe that as a nation we are striving to be something we can be proud of, and that if the chips fall our way, each of us can prosper to a degree that is just and equitable -that, all things being equal, we can all 'win'."
Finished speaking, Frank Walker looked out across the room of Rotarian faces, many of which looked back with sullen expression.
"Thank you, Frank," said Rotary President Herb Leeber, approaching the lectern. "Let's all give Frank here a round of applause for a fine presentation," he said, and there followed a smattering of polite clapping. "It's an honor for us to have such a fine gentleman a fine American, for that matter -here as a regular member of our group."
Frank smiled graciously at Leeber, acknowledging the compliment, then walked down off the speaker's platform and to a table, where his now cold luncheon plate awaited his attention. There also was old Buryl Thomason, Weld County's richest man and local icon of Republican party politics, and he seemed to be waiting for Frank to walk within range so he could level him for his liberal diatribe.
"You just don't quit, do you Frank?" Buryl started in. "Let's get the government involved in everything, bring some tax dollars in here. Last year all you could talk about was how Longmont needed a municipal airport. The year before that it was a new hospital, and the year before that it was the…”
Frank cut him off. “It was the war the year before that. During that time we weren't doing anything to address needs here in Longmont."
Thornason looked disgusted. “The thing is, it's always something. There's always some reason, in your mind, that the people of Longmont or Weld County ought to be floating a bond for this thing, or that. If you hadn't a fought so hard against the Kaiser all those years back, I'd've swore that you were for stripping everybody of private property and turning it all over to the government."
"You know better'n that, Buryl," Frank
said. "I don't like paying taxes any more than the next man, but there are
certain things that need to be done to move this country ahead -and to make a
place like Longmont worth living in."
"The government is doing too God-damned much right now for 'the people,"' said
Thomason. "I think it's getting’ to where people've forgotten how to do anything
for themselves. It's always government this and government that. Come help me,
big government. Give me something."
Frank bristled. "We never build anything in this country that is for the people -the people whose taxes run the government until a depression comes along. Then we build lakes and parks, improve properties, fix streets... It's never until things get bad in this country -until it looks like we'd better give something back to the people or they'll finally lose faith in this whole thing that we finally do something right."
Thomason looked sour, wincing against Frank's contradictions. "Who built those roads, Frank? The roads your people drive around on, that get them to their work and to their schools, and to their churches? It was government money, and it's done all the time - not just when our backs are against the wall." Frank took on a dead-faced stare, looking at as if listening to him was somehow dulling to his wits. continued "Of course, you'll argue that government employment has been the thing that's safeguarded this country through depressed times. And you think that's fine. You're all for giveaways."
"You just can't stand the thought that we ought to be responsible for the citizens of this country," Frank said.
"We're not socialists, Frank," said in a huff, causing those seated around to cringe a little. "That damned Roosevelt let this country cater to the weakness in itself. He built up a whole bureaucracy to cater to it, and it's gonna take decades to set it back right.''
"What is 'right,' Buryl?" Frank asked.
"Playing to our strengths," said Thomason. "Rewarding values that will make a nation stronger -hard work, initiative, getting what you earn."
Frank shook his head, re-animating. "That would be great if everyone was starting from the same point, but you know they aren't."
Thomason did a quick rock back and then came forward in his chair. "I'm amazed at you, Frank. Hell look at you! You're a self-made man. Didn't you work like a dog to get everything you own? And aren't you a better man for having done it?"
"I had some advantages," Frank said. "My wife's family had some money, and I'm a guy with a strong survival instinct who happened to survive a trench raid. People heard about it and ever since then they've been willing to work with me."
"So you're saying we aren't all war heroes with inheritances," said Thomason. "Well, maybe not, but we are each of us -people with certain talents and abilities that we can use to achieve as we can. We're not all going to do equally well. Some are going to have more…”
"It's not those with more or less that I'm worried about," Frank said. "It's the twenty, twenty-five percent on the very bottom, who have nothing. They're generationally poor, uneducated, maybe facing racism…”
"Oh for Christ's sake!" Thomason's face grew red. "That's the rabble who have become permanent members of Roosevelt's club! We'll be stooping as a nation to pick them up the rest of our days. Hell -we'll become as back-bent as Europe!"
Frank Leeber and, for that matter, everybody else in the meeting room -overheard Frank and Thomason's animated discussion. It wasn't the first time he had heard Frank Walker carry on about civic responsibility and government policy, and he was certain it wasn't going to be the last. He had given up trying to understand what made Frank tick, oddly positioned as he was between his own personal conservatism and his firebrand democratic ideals. Everything about Frank said that he should be a pro-business, anti-tax Republican, yet there he sat, going jaw-to-jaw with the staunchest Republican in the county, arguing against him as if he was arguing with Beelzebub himself, or his first cousin, which was the way he tended to see the "Wilkie-Dewey crowd." They were all the same to Frank, minions to greed and self-interest, unable to respond to any possible higher calling. It still made Herb Leeber shake his head in wonder, for it seemed that Frank, with all his worldly wealth, should by rights have been one of them.
As the Pastor from the First Presbyterian Church got up to say the benediction, bringing this day's Rotary meeting to a close, Leeber leaned over Frank Walker's shoulder and whispered something in his ear. He wanted Frank to come to his office for a short meeting that is, once he was through debating with Buryl Thomason.
* * * * *
"Frank, I got something back on this guy
Jake Jobbs, and you'll want to know about it," Leeber said, now seated behind
his huge oak desk, surrounded by books on law and maps of property holdings in
Weld County.
"That was fast," Frank said.
Leeber nodded that he was right. "I put in
a call to a friend of mine who works in Denver with the FBI. It turns out he had
a file on Jake Jobbs - and you won't believe what fell out when he opened it."
Frank looked interested. you got, Herb?"
"Well, it looks like your doubts about this guy might be justified," Leeber said. "It seems that Jobbs is under suspicion in a grand theft case that took place in Kansas several months back. My buddy put me in touch with a Sheriff in Hutchinson who told me that Jake was working for a rancher there when several of the area's most well-to-do people were robbed. They believe a ring of some kind worked all those different places, and they took everything -trucks, tractors, livestock ... A dozen places were hit on one night, and they still don't know who was behind it."
"How does Jobbs fit in to this?" Frank asked.
"Well, like I say, he was working at one of the places that got robbed," Leeber said. "His name came up when the investigators started looking into the backgrounds of guys who these ranchers had employed as seasonal workers. It turns out this guy Jobbs had hired on as an equipment operator just a couple months before the robberies took place. He was expected to work just for a few months, which he did, and then he moved on. Presumably he then came to Colorado and went to work for you."
"So they believe Jobbs was involved?"
"Jobbs had an alibi for that night. A number of people saw him in Hutchinson, where he spent the entire night drinking at a local tavern. The thing is, when the investigators looked at this guy's record they discovered that he was dishonorably discharged from the Army. He spent almost four years in military prison at Fort Riley, Kansas for conspiring to steal from the United States government. Turns out he was a truck driver in the motor corps, who sometimes redirected Army supplies to illegal re-sellers. He did his time, but they never were able to uncover his whole network of contacts."
"Well I'll be a son-of-a-bitch," Frank said. "I knew there was something fishy about that son-of-a-bitch. I told you that I suspected someone was taking money from my office desk?"
"Isn't that why you fired him, because you caught him doing just that?"
"I caught him in that desk drawer, but he wasn't taking cash - he was taking a check with his name on it," Frank said. "I only suspicion he was responsible for the missing cash."
"It seems pretty indicting, his knowing where you were keeping money," Leeber said.
"There's something else, too. The thefts stopped taking place as soon as Jake Jobbs was no longer on the ranch."
"Well, you've got yourself tangled up with a bad apple here in this Jobbs character," Leeber said. "I don't think there's any doubt about it. The question now is, what are you going to do with the information?”
Frank got up out of his chair and wandered around office, taking unconscious notice of the framed degrees and licenses hanging on the walls. "I don't know, Herb. I can tell you one thing, I won't be able to rest easy until he's no longer around."
END OF CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Copyright © Rick Alan Rice (RAR), 1992-2010 Cowboy Town is the sole property of its author, Rick Alan Rice (RAR). This work may not be reproduced or re-distributed in any way without the expressed written permission of the author.