Part 11 (1/2)
”And so the shadows fall apart, And so the sunbeams play; And all the s of my heart I open to the day”
CHAPTER XVI
ON THE POLITICAL STUMP
I had always been so President of the Republican Club in our town, and that autun for the position of Representative in Congress; this I accoe Thayer, the chairman of the State Coainst General Butler and in favor of the Hon
George D Robinson as candidate for Governor This ca the most fiercely contested of any in the political history of Massachusetts, and many incidents in my career as a public speaker are much pleasanter in the reminiscence than in the endurance One will suffice by way of illustration
Free speech was not tolerated by our frantic greenback opponents, and stale eggs with decayed cabbages hurled at the heads of Republican orators were the strongest arguments used by the General's admirers to combat our appeals for protective tariff and sound e Thayer announced that General Hall of Maine, one of our most brilliant speakers, could not reach Rockport, where he was billed to hold forth, before ten o'clock that evening, and called for volunteers to hold the audience for two hours
Rockport was almost solid for Butler, and his friends had declared that no Republican should speak there, consequently no one volunteered At last, the Judge, in despair, said:
”Foss, will you go?”
”I shall obey orders,” was my reply, amid cheers of the much-relieved shi+rkers, and I bolted for the train
On arriving atmob, and the Republican town co: ”General Hall, General Hall!” ”Here,” said I, and only by the vigorous aid of the clubs of the police was I hustled through the embattled hosts to a hack, which took me to the hall where I walked on the shoulders of a friendly uniformed club to the platform, which I finally reached with torn apparel and in a condition of almost physical and mental collapse
The ”hail to the chief,” by the band was drowned by the cat-calls: ”Put him out!”--”Duck him!”--”Ride him on a rail!” etc, etc, Yells of the Butlerites who had packed the hall At last I got orously, and sreat unwashed,” and a big Irish:
”Shut up, shut up, byes! Let's hear what the cuss has to say; he's a cool un”
There was silence Taking outat?” howled the mob
”This reminds me,” said I, very slowly, ”of a little story”
”Out with it,” was the response
”When I was a teacher in Marblehead,” drawled I, ”I had occasion to wallop a boy with a cowhide I ers and laid on the braid where it would do the hed I laid on Macduff with a 'dah,' deter at?' cried I 'Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're licking the wrong boy,' giggled the unspeakable sca the wrong boy; I am not General Hall, at all, I am Lieutenant-General Ulysses S Grant” The crowd roared: ”He's a good un, let's hear hiood un,”
and for two hours I had as good-natured an audience as you ever saw
”You say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound money Well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, ed the judge to have mercy upon a poor orphan You have killed the tariff twice, and nearly everyfrom door to door or live on dry crackers and shi+n-bones Do you want that kind of provender again? Butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and everybody will be rich' You tried that once and you carried your ht back the dinner you bought with it in a gill dipper Do you want anyIrish friend, ”that's so: I riht, he is”
”Yes,” I yelled, ”Butler says he'll leave the Republican party out in the cold It reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his bed-shi+rt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog as disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife came down to hunt him up 'What on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold 'I've gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and I'll hold him here till he freezes to death'
”You'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? Well, who'll freeze to death first if you stop the factories? The owners who have plenty of ive you for every cent you get? General Butler who lives in a palace, and drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the world, and then the rest of the people will all starve It reeous looking scarecrow in his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had stolen in the previous ten years Are we craven crows to be scared by such windy effigies?”