The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-16
RIDICULOUS FEATURES OF PARTISAN ZEAL

RIDICULOUS FEATURES OF PARTISAN ZEAL.
The most jealous partisan must sometimes
have q quiet laugh to himself at the extrava-
gances of his own ardor, when the heat of the
conflict has passed away, and the contested
issues have been settled as far as a popular
vote can settle them Enthusiastic old Wings
Of the Tippecanoe Club model have often
ioked each other on the absurdities of the
campaign of 1840-the rousing songs that had
no more meaning than the rhy thmical chatter
Of a tamborine; the appeals to the clog cabin"
experiences and 'latch-string always hanging
out" hospitality of the times when
"!he hero Of Tippecanoe' was pitting
his power against the schemes of the
Indian Napoleon, Tecumseh; the ''hard cider
meetings, with large dilution Of whisky; the
canoes hauled in party paradea, with as little
significance as any party symbol ever devised
in the rage of party antagonism-for what
had canoe to do with any person or question
in the contest of 1910, except that it WAS the
last half of the name Of the battlefield on
which the candidate won his brightest laurels9
Sensible men do very silly things in the heat
of a conflict, and they must be very different
in mental constitution from most men if they
can't laugh at them heartily ''when the fight
is won"
These philosophical reflections have been
suggested to an old Wing by the casual
recall of an incident Of the campaign
of 1874 The Wings and Democrats were
holding pretty lively fight in that cam
paign. Polk wasn't much, but his par
ty were clerching their grip on every
available round of the ladder to the
presidency, and Clay, however high he had
climbed in personal distinction, was not hold
ing his party at any secure point of ascent.
Each was using the appliances Of 1910 with
equal vigor. Both had songs and ''glee
clubs, and pole aisings and no man could
say which songs were the sillest or which
poles the idlest waste Of good ash or hickory.
Take a specimen. The Democrats sang q
song with chorus like this:
''Well take up the Wings to Polk upon shore
Up Salt river, up Salt river, heigho, hegho
The Wings, on their side, paraded coons,
living and stuffed raised ash poles because
Cay's farm was called ashland on
earth the coon typiied nobody knows or ever
knew, but it was as fully the accepted symbol
of the Wings as the eagle is of the American
nation-and sang songs, of which the follow
ing is sample:
In underwood the fox is holed
The coons all laugh to hear it told.
With q ha. ha ha, what nominee
Is James X Polk, of Tennessee
The ''fox" was Van Buren,, beaten the cam
paign before, and "Lindenwold" was his home
on the Hudson. A rational man, looking
back over forty years, would say that party
which would make and sing such songs as a
campaign power hadn't sense enough to be
trusted with the responsibility of administer
ing a respectable poor house; but then the
other party was no better. Its antics were as
wild and its songs as senseless, its speeches as
frantic and its party symbols as unmeaning.
The hickory pole meant nothing for Polk,
whatever it might have done for Jackson
whose pet name was formed of that tough
and tenacious timber. The ash pole meant
nothing for Clay. The coon meant nothing
for anybody, and the rooster-rnade by the
Incorporated credit of the Chapmans of
the Sentinel, the symbol of the Democracy
meant nothing but boast There was lust
one feature of that campaign that had any
significance, party symbol that could be I'M
derstood That is, so far as the contest in In
diana was concerned.
At the State Democratic convention of the
9th of January there was a good deal of en-
thusiasm and not much regard for personal
property or State property. 1t was held in
the hall of the House of Representatives, like
all State conventions up to war times. The
enthusiastic members stood on the desks at
times, in their eagerness to see or be SEEN
and left the prints Of their heel nails in the
vanished cherry lids. The Journal, at that
time owned by the late Samuel V. B. Noel
and edite by Theodore j. Barnett, noticed
the DETACHMENT of the furniture by the sun
respective shoes of the Democracy, and
spoke slightingly of the 'Hboors' and their
"hob nails" The Sentinel saw its chance to
some back at the 'log cabin" and catch
string appeals of the Wings of 1910, and at
once event for the Wing contempt of "the
hard-fsted, hob-nailed yeomanry," the bone
and sinew Of the Nation" and all that sort of
Hummery, just what the Wings had fed the