The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-05
THE STUFFED PROPHET ON THE
STUMP.

dent Grover Cleveland, has taken the
stump in Rhode Island for the Demo-
cratic ticket. The Stuffed Prophet is evil
IDENTIFY encouraged by the failure of the
Democratic free silverites to pass the
Bland bill, and the decline in the stock Of
David B. Hill, to believe that he will yet
be nominated at Chicago in June next.
"The Stuffed Prophet" has done nothing
in particular since he left the White
House but pose as the great American
claimant, and in consequence of this
tomime, and in the absence of any more
violent exercise than the constant WELD
ing of his knife, fork and spoon, 1.-THE
Stuffed Prophet" has probably not
greatly diminished in avoirdupois.
1t is quite possible. too, that Mr.. Cleve-
speeches, feeding heartily upon them,
even as the Office cat of the New York Sun
is said to devour rejected matter; in this
event he will probably find out that mat
ter which may not make very deep inn
preston upon the public mind may weigh
Cleveland has been frugal Caesar, grow
ing great by feeding upon meat that he
made himself, his undiminished weight
and girth would be accounted for. His
speeches are heavy enough to raise his
figure on the scales and ventose enough to
impart to him an appearance of unusual
distension.
Mr.. Cleveland, as a prospective can
didate, needs to be reminded that fat men
seldom run well in public or private life.
As political sprinters fat men are gen.
orally as complete failures as they are in
private life when they burst from ambush
and endeavor to capture the hoodlum
banditti who have yioiassd the sanetity Of
their orchard or mdnnnatch.a Az man
of historical learning Mr.. Cleveland must
be aware that no man of abnormal obesity
ever was elected president of the United
States, or enjoyed any solid distinction
among the statesmen of the world. Fat
men have sometimes been the tools of lean
and hungry statesmen, like David B. Hill.
but rarely has fat man been a successful
statesman through his own individual
energy, acuteness, audacity, sagacity,
speed and bottom.
Dixon H. Lewis, United States senator
from Alabama in Jackson's day, was the
only abnormally obese man who ever rose
to more than mediocre place in American
politics, and in European politics no nota-
bly, fat man ever stood in the first ranks
of war, craftsmanship, literature, art or
philosophy. The natural portliness that
comes to healthy men when about 40 has
marked many able men, but no man of
true Falstaffian physique has ever done
more than amuse a world that he could
neither instruct nor adorn. 1t is not a
crime for politician to be fat, but it is
worse than q crime; it is blunder. The
fat politician has ever been doomed to be
content to lard the lean earth, since he
could not soar. because of hts essential
apathy and merits. to the, lofty, serene
heights of statesmanship.
There is nothing left for Mr.. Cleveland
but to put himself under the instruction of
William Muldoon, Sullivan's former
trainer, mournfully exclaiming, "If to be
fat is to be euchred, then are lean Demo.
cratic statesmen to be loved" To get rid
OF his superfuous flesh as an essential to
political success may seem to Mr.. Cleye-
land the very reductio I'D a5surdun, but
seriously, Mr.. Cleveland, there are no
ancient or modern instances of fat people
taking the cake" in the political race.
. h. l.
cession, some times has been thurst upon
fairness, but fairness has never that we re-
member fought its way upward to throne
or been elected to the office of shepherd of
the people. A fat military hero is un-
known; he seems as incredible and as in
congruous figure as a fat Romeo, a fat
Rosalind, fat Prince Hal or Hotspur: a
fat Macbeth, othello or Cleopatra. Fat
ness belts Falstaif, for he is a feeder. a
fiddler, boaster, coward and a parasite.
If Hotspur had been as fat as Falstaff
his words, Let me taste nv horse who il
to bear me like thunderbolt against the
bosom of the FRINGE of Wales" would have
made all the gods of the gallery laugh as
heartily as when John l.. Sullivan said
LET me think" The fat deity of the
Mugwump Democracy is not a winning
card he is built too much like the lack of
spades to run well. The stuffed prophet is
doomed to defeat; he has only about sixty
days to train down in and that is not time
enough; he will be obliged to content him
self with political posing and pantomime:
political action of the scrobatic quality he
cannot execute, and it would take states
man, at once an acrobat and a contortion-
list, 10 secure the Democratic nomination
at Chicago in June next in face of the fol-
lowing extract from Cleveland's letter of
February 10, 1891, 10 Ellery Anderson,
upon the question of free silver coinage:
ltsurely cannot be necessary for me to make
formal expression OF my agreement with those
who believe that the greatest peril would be in
vited by the adoption OF the scheme embraced
in the measure now pending in congress for the
unlimited coinage of silver at our mints
II we have developed an unex pected capaeity
for the assimilation of q largely increased
volume OF this currency, and even if we have
demonstrated the usefulness OF such an in crease
other conditions fail far short of insuring US
against disaster II in its present situation We
enter upon tas dangerous, thu reckless expert
meut Of free, unlimited and independent. silver
coinage
According 10 the wise men who deal with the
air in motion, cycle es are of tropical origin.
sad are chiefly found in i've locslities-,he
West Indies, Bengas bay and the Chinese COST.
north of the equator, aud in the South Indian
ocean, of Madagascar, and the South Pacific
near samoa In The Antilles there sra not halls