The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-08-02
"MightY Amusin'."
How Warlike the Democrats are in these
"Piping Times Of Peace.''
from the Kennebec Journal

From the Kennebec Journall
General Roberts should be restrained by his
friends. His military genius is running away
with him. He seems to be trying to make up
in f1ourishes and fandangoes in time of Peace
that two years and half of active war in
which he declined to fight at the crisis of the
nations fate. He can't open his mouth or
seize his pen but he discourses or writes of 'or-
ders'' and "minute men, and "signal guns
and swatch fires," and 'Routs," and "Regi-
ments," and ''Brigades," and "army corps"
He cannot even allude to the supporters of
Gen. Conner by their baptismal name of Re-
publicans, but he describes them as the ''ene-
my's forces" Really nothing quite so funny
has occurred since my Uncle Toby was
compelled to leave the army in Flanders,
and insisted while living on half pay in
England on fighting all the battles of the
great Dukes army and conducting the siege of
Dendermond in his back yard, with Corporal
Trim for consulting engineer and military ad-
wiser. But my uncle Toby left the army be.
cause of of a disabling wound-therein differ
ing from Gen. Roberts-and his wise and witty
companion had some points about him that we
do not recognize in Corporal Emery.
Hear Gen. Roberts in his letter of acceptance!
How he raves and rants! his great military
soul humping out against the restraints of the
civilians waistcoat which he was so anxious to
put on before the war was half over. Hear him:
"The decentralization of our opponents in the
coming election is certain; their rout not i'm.
possible. ~,
fires speedily kindled upon the hill tops. and
every true patriot, and sincere lover of Indi-
vidual Liberty, be up and doing, prepared at
the first signal gun to promptly respond to the
summons"
And then he and his Corporal Emery have
undertaken to organize the Democracy of Maine
after the most approved pattern of the Revised
Army Regulations. They are publishing Sc
RES OF "ORDEfas. I" They issue f1iena jointly
and call them "OUR ORDERS" and Roberts
signs them as GENERAL" but Emery, we
think, omits the Corporal and signs as plain
Marcellus. Listen to one of these Orders We
quote it literally. 1t is number two:
"If our orders are faithfully and promptly
executed, the Middle Of August will find every
democrat in the State enrolled in Companies,
Regiments, Brigades, Divisions and Corps, in
the school districts, towns. Representative
classes, Counties and Congressional Districts.
That date will also find our whole army, for the
hrst time in twenty years, in battle array, from
borders, and from the Canadi IN frontiers to the
Ocean, We shall also know the exact strength
and disposition Of the enemy's forces"
This order is signed by Roberts as "Generar!
Can anything in Tristram Shandy equal that
for side-splitting fun?
Observe, too. that this military zeal is conta-
gious. 1t is inoculating the entire democracy
of Maine, that great party that is for war in
me of peace and for peace in time of war! The
war fit is on them very heavily just now. Even
the committee to advise Gen. Roberts of his
nomination could not discharge their pacific
and harmless task without going off sky rock
citing. Roberts, they assure him to his face, is
to lead the van" and bear aloft the standard
twonder if they meant Pillsoury's Standard,)
while the rest of them are going to follow in
''serried columns" This is the way our dis
tinguished fellow citizen, Colonel George Wash
ington Stanley, talks. Think of our venerable
friend with his portly frame and handsome
face "serrying" along in column sustained on
either side by Lorenzo De Medci Sweat and
james Chrysostom Madigan. Why the name
of the one and the unctuoas face of the other
would start the Precipitation in much cooler
weather than we now enjoy. But Roberts
leauins Ino Fan, anu Enery dloug issuing
our ORDERS" with Stanley and Sweat and
Madigan "serrying" in columns and the whole
democracy of Maine forming in the rear (they
are used to the rear both in peace, and in war;
in Companies and Regiments and Brigades
and Divisions and Army Corps, and all getting
into "Buttle Array"-Great Jemima! What
a sight! Falstaffs' ragged Regiment wasn't a
touch to 1t! What "amusin' cusses' these
Maine democrats are!