Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1883-06-27
Wednesday, JWe q, 1888.
Conkling,s Farewell.

To the grand old Republican party
ia, ia. Scenes of my youth, farewell
IT'S the sunset of life gives me mys,
teal lore, and coming events whack
away at the door. / allude to the
rock-ribbed, copper-distilled, sour.
mash Democratic party. The great
unhung, unhonored, and unsoaped.
That, you know, is what was in the
habit of calling it when | was young,
when | was fresh, and before the cock
crew thrice-once in the Chicago con-
vention, once in the Senate chamber,
and once, the third time, at Albany,
after which | went out and wept Bit
terly. But now the Democratic is the
grand party of the future, the party
which is kicking in the White House
door.
My friends-if I've got any
stand before you something like cross
between the Apollo Belvidere and
man thrown out of n barber shop for
insinuating that his turn was next.
But for me there doesn't appear to be
any rose-colored next-any fowery,
sunlit future, no, not even a chrome.
The wild, ambitious hopes of my vio-
let-tinted, circumambient youth APP
pear to have soured on me, and the
political sands of the evergreen shore
are slipping beneath my feet of feet.
There was once, alas, a time when the
sOnorous echoes of my voice, raised
in eloquent cadences within the Senate
chamber at p. NJ, were waited to
San Francisco by tea time. There
was period when l could say to a
President, do this, and he did it; to a
cabinet officer, come, and he came a
running with his tongue out; to the
chief of the customhouse, bounce that
man, and he fired him down the broad
stone steps and out into the cold, cold
world too quick; when | laid my
hand on the Speakers name and put
a ring in his nose when / drew my
battle AK on the Plumed Knight and
slashed his political jugular; when
my ipSe dirt was the law of New
York, and when the gaugers of high
wines and the cleaners of capitol GUS
pidores quailed at my awful frown.
But, alas Those prime old days
have stolen like spectres down the
long, dim vistas of the melancholy |
past, and now lie buried in the grave
among the has-beens. You all mark
cd my semi-triumphal return from
Chicago with bad eye and one ear
in sling. You took official cogniz-
ance of my little mill with Garfield,
and observed that my partician nose
was slightly disjointed, so to speak,
and a handful of ribs loosened from
my vetebrH. You paused in your
mad career at Albany and saw me,
and Me Too, jumped out of our boots
and unceremoniously hustled into the
horrible dungeon of public seclusion.
And now, what shall | say of the
future? And how shall | paint the
majesty of the coming political squall {?
The Republican party is as dead as Il
bottle of picked shrimp. Rome from
he: seven hig .rulc,; the world, and
fell, anu So q.the grand old party
take n tumble, and her puny leaders
bite the dust. The days of the Stall
wart are few, and those of the Half |
breed full of trouble and nania a
potu The plot thickens and the
honest Democrat pursues her. There
is bound to be music in the air, and
don't you forget it. The Republican
party is approaching dissolution, and,
like Senator Tabor, it had better wrap
the drapery of its nickle-plated night
gown three times around its body and
lie down to pleasant dreams.
Mr.. Chairman, and gentlemen of
the Saturday Club, if there is at pres
ent small vacant knot-hole in the
Democratic party, | should like to
crawl into it.