Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1890-09-05
POLITICAL M0ssBAOKs.

/
| The older the writer grows, the more
he is puzzled to account for the existance
of what are SO properly called "moss-
backs, especially political mossbacks.
The writer has lived long enough to wit
ness their growth from the tadpole condi-
ton, but is puzzled to know why and for
what purpose, God has afflicted the
| world with such a worthless, useless i'm
imitation of the human race? In his
younger stage Of growth, the old moss
back is one who gets his ideas and opin-
ions ready made just as he gets his mis-
fitting coat from the slop-shop, and yet
lives on, year after year, the poor fool, in
the delusion that he is thinker, when
he only thinks that he has been thinking.
This class appear on the stage whenever
questions of any kind are discussed
among men, but prominently they con-
stitute the mental surfdom of American
politics upon this race of intellectual pau
pers, reposes the confidence of demago-
CUES and the assurance Of scheming vii
lains, who seek official positions only to
| rob the people. ...
| ''Do we have these mental mendicants
| in South Dakota? Yes we have them
| here in swarms, though everybody don't
| detect them at sight We have a great
number of them growing in the vicinity
Of Canton, and the writer knows several
who have reached the condition Of full
grown mossbacks. These men started
out in life, as infants, having the average
amount of brains. but in their manhood
| this word is used in a very restricted
sense) they have depended on others, who
| had few more dollars than they, to cut
and make up their opinions until their
brains have become so flabby by disease,
that if they were boiled down in glue
factory and the scum of self-conceit skim
ed off they would not make the ordinary
mucilage of the ten cent stores %
| During the years intervening between
the polliwog state and the incrusted
mossback, these things are vigorous. voters
but dom tseem to care what they vote for
provided it is called democratic OF repub-
lican; in late years it is mostly the latter.
They differ from the parrots only in this,
if their bosses should tell them to lay
eggs on election day, they would spread
themselves and try it, but they could not
it. It's these voting bipeds that grow
and thrive on the filthy saliva and vomit
in which many of the partisan papers of
South Dakota have been sopped and mop
, ped and soaked for the last two or three
months, simply because men have as
sumed the right to begin to think their
own thoughts and vote for their own in
terest-smply because large pUmoer ot
farmers and laborers have made the dis
covery that clans would have to be sup
piled with at least little additional abil-
tiles in order to make statesmen and legis.
lators, and that because an angleworn
has just little longer tail than usual, it
is not a great sea serpent, or huge levia-
than of the political deep. E
The writer was {, soldier, and it makes
him red-hot to hear some of these olo
partisan coats justifying themselves ir
being mossbacks, because they eft rebs
and copperheads" when they were young
OF all fools, the most contemplate foo
is Il fool with gray hairs, and if anybod,
b can see wherein having eft rebs and COD
perheads' lends dignity to gray hairee
: stupidity, let him speak out.
: One of these old mossbacks lately met
f on the streets Of Canton, a young MAJ
who has thought thoughts in politica
I economy that would kill such an old fos
! sill quicker than lightning killed Kemmle
: and because that young man had not en-
} tered the school of mossback- hood as b,
has done when ''of age he delivered thu
? following characteristic mossback ora
: ton: Look at my gray hars, I'VE tucl
, in this hull subjec' fit rebs and copper
heads in the war. and fay you are onl,
5 a sucklin' and we've learned all We knows
: OF these id rebs and copperheads
J around here. and can just whip the
, hull billing of EN- 1t is useless to state
what party this old idiot is voting in, bu,
everybody may not know that all his
''fghtin' with rebs. was emptying slops,
us hospital detosl, an6 while not him.
self making similar slops, for other dead
beats to carry out, he readily sought
other scavenger duties, anything but
''fghtin rebs"
The above is an Illustrative specimen
of the mossback contingent. and he had
much better have kept his dirty mouth
off of may kid. A. FORREST, SR.