The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1892-09-15

when the office sought the man, that
the people or parties picked out their
candidates from the best and pureSt
men they had, men whose qualifications
especially fitted them for the duties of
the office to which they were called.
That time has passed away, and to-day
instead of being rule it is an eXcep-
ton. This canvass then begins before
the caucus is held. The candidate who
wants the nomination goes over his dis
trict or county or manages in some way
to communicate to the various commit
tees, whose business it is to call the peO-
pie together in caucus or convention,
and gives them to understand he is
candidate for the office to which some
one must be elected. Right here begins
the trouble. The caucuses are called
and attended by few politicians and
wire pullerS, as they are called; most of
the people who should have an equal
interest, take no interest, pay no atten-
ton to the call for the caucus and hard
ly know when it is held-tOO careless
or lazy to attend and trouble themselves
with its duties. But rest assured some
one will attend whom the candidate
wants. and has arranged that they shall
attend, and who, as it generally hap
pens, are the men who should not at
tend unless as minority. These get
together in the caucus and name the
delegates to the county convention who
90 there pledged to our candidate, who,
we can suppose, is candidate for the
Legislature, though this way of mani
pulating elections applies to all the
other offices in county, state or nation
al campaigns as well. The county con-
ventiOn meets, and from among the as
pirants (of whom our Mr.. Jones is one),
proceeds to nominate candidate for
the legislature. The nomination of our
Mr.. Jones is not due to the eminent
qualifications of our MIR. Jones over
the other candidates for the legislature,
but to the fact that our Mr.. Jones is
the most popular man with his party
by his successful campaigning hereto
fore and his donations of funds to the
party for political purposes. But rest
assured, that whatever other reasons
may have influenced the convention the
main one will be the amount of money
he has to put in the campaign, and in
nine cases out of ten he has freely used
his money in the caucuses and cOnven-
tiOn to secure the nomination. But he
has not completed his investment of
money, for such it is no matter how
much we try to cover up the fact. He
must now commence the canvass which
means that he must first go and sweet
en-" the newspapers, that being of his
own party would perhaps say nothing
against him (unlesS we'll paid by the Op-
position to do it, but which (unless their
editors are we'll clipped" again) are not
going to say much for him; so he must
grease their wheels with little of the
useful" in order to get them moving
along, and the more grease used the
larger the headlines, the longer the col
umns and the more fertile and strong
becomes the editorial brain in advanc-
ing reasons why our Mr.. Jones should
be elected to the legislature. Then next
| he must secure another factor whose
| Importance in contributing to his sue
cess depends somewhat on the charac-
ter of his constituents, which in most
counties in the northwest (sad to saw
will be and is, one of the largest factors
he can call to his aid. OF course then
some heavy investments must be made
in this agency. | refer to the saloon
Sums Of money must be placed with
each salOOnkeeper so he can "set 'em
up to the boys and yell, "hurrah for
Jones' Not only must Jones keep a
balance on deposit there but when he
is in town he must take the boys in and
do the treat act himself, he must add
little more each time to the sum-there
must be no show of stint or economy
either or he will be set down as a
"sOrdid and stingy cuss." He must not
take five-cent drink himself while the
crowd are taking ten-cent ones, and if
the drinks are one dollar for the round,
and he throws down two dollar bill
he must not expect any change back,
that would be too small in him for the
salOonkeeper to tolerate. Nor is this