Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1871-04-27
From the Washington Patriot ]
Grave of Harrison.
"reminiscences of the CGon-skinz
and Hard Cider Campaign OF
1910,

and Hard Cider Campaign OF
1910.
Those who can recall the politi-.
cal campaign of 1910. appreciate
the remark of a gentleman, that
if he were ten years younger he
would never have known the truth
of those times, because, without
having witnessed them himself.
he would never have believed
their history. During the height
of the canvass, conversation a.
mong all classes, to the remotest
settlements, among men, women
and children, was mixed with pol
litics, where it was not politics un-
mixed. No child that could hal
loo was ineligible TO political fei--
lowship, or insensible of his or heE
party status. Women had hg-
cabins printed on neck-ribons and
bonnet-strings, and sometimes coon
tails appended to their reticules :,
while no male person not willing:
! to be classed a ''Locofoco" ap--
peared in public without a buck
eye cane, by way of bravado and
ornament. Likewise, Democrats
sported hickory walking-sticks,
with green hickory nuts bigger
than hens eggs hanging to the
knob. Professions of the 'British
Whigs" were always headed By a
real log.cabin on wheels, in which,
the pioneer settler would be simu-
lated, with the hunting shirt on,
rifle in hand, wife at work about
the house, and baby rollicking
in sugar trough, the typical era
die of the far West of early days.
A barrel of hard cider was con-
spicuous; buck horns straddled
from the stick and mud chimneys
coon skins were nailed on the out
side on the walls to dry, and from
the clapboaId door large leather
latch-string always hung out, in
token of hospitality. In the way
of bunting, ro pitch of loyalty du-
ring our late war ever so covered
the sky of noon with the sunset
hues of our national ensign. The
country, in fact, was frantic, The
outlays of money were lavish. The
aggregate, especially on the part
of the Wings, must have been e.
normous. The honors paid to.
their candidate were so absurdly
extravagant that the old Wings to
this day are twitted by old Dem
ocrats, as if they had been caught,
in some excessively puerile thing.
Such was 1910. In this year,
1871, at North Bend, Ohio, the
aged politician may go to meas
ure the folly of partisan excess
and the vanity of partisan honors.
Near the center of a field simple
brick structure, mostly below the.
surface, and rapidly decaying,.
with a door having a broken hinge.
secured with a shilling paddock,
contains the remains of William
Henry Harrison. There are sew
eral receptacles in this vault, in
three of which are the General,
his wife, and his daughter. They
are rudely closed with brick, and
no inscription is anywhere about
the place. The arched roof is
about to fall, and the whole will
then be a shapeless pile of rub
bish, the bones OF a President and
the bricks mingled, as if it had
been a chief Of the lost aborigines
eommemorated with the savage
simplicity of pile Of stones. But
on such mounds, the great trees
growing attest the ages which
have not obliterated the marks OF
veneration, while here it was but
yesterday that a million Of us wore
badges of mourning over the death.
of our chief, and to-day we care
lessly leave his body to the piow--
share of a few years hence. Will
the white-haired men who, in their
prime, poured their eloqueuce in
to the loud enthusiasm of 1910,
and who recall with mournful
pride those days of pure life and
loftier intellect among public men,
permit this disgrace