The Saint Paul globe., 1896-12-01
THE MIGHTY EALLEN.


AS one reads over the list of con-
gressional statesmen and notes the
familiar figures who have been retired
from service by their more or less ap-
preciative constituents, the ingratitude
of even republics is borne in upon
ones consciousness with a sharpness
that actually pains. What encourage
ment is there in being a tribune of
the people, painting their wrongs,
roasting their oppressors, exuding per-
spiration at every pore as the red hot
eloquence of indignation pours out
upon the broad pages Of the Congress
sional Record, if the quick ending is to
awake the morning after election
to find that your constituents have left
you to ask of the winds and waves, in
the language Of the bibulous Alabam-
an, Where am I at?"
There's Picker, for instance, whom
some irreverent scribbler dubbed the
wild ass of South Dakota While Pick
Ter, perched on the congressional lad
der, was gazing upward at senatorial
seat, his swinish constituents brushed
the ladder from under him, and the
cold thud of his fall upon the virgin
sod of his prairie state echoes through
the land. To whom is a nations graft
tude due if not to it's old defenders,
and to whom is states gratitude due
if it be not to the defender Of the de-
tenders? When the state gives it's
marble heart to the defender cannot
every old defender mourn the degen-
eracy Of the republic? Who does not
recall the whitening philippics of Pick
Ter, as he pleaded the cause of the old
soldier and assailed this jheartless
Democratic administration for it's fiend-
ish hostility to him? In what vivid
colors did he depict the glee with which
the roll was purged Of Van Leuven's
pensioners by a soldier-hating pension
bureau. How he labored to relieve
those soldiers who had yielded to the
Establishments of the Confederates' and
! exchanged captivity for service under
the gray from the ban of desertion.
And Picker is dropped!
Then there is Hermann, of Oregon,
the watchful shepherd, whose pit
eous bleating for the nations lambs,
whose protecting wool was left unpro-
tected by an inhuman Democratic con-
gress, made the heavy air of the house
palpitate with the sobs Of the Repub-
lican side and made silent, salty tears
! to triclxle down the adamantine cheek
Of Tom Reed. Hermann Is gone and
who is there to take his place? Who
will now guard the f1ocks? Who will
paint the horrors Of free wool? Who
will gather the heart-rending statistics
Of decimated flocks, vanished before the
sirocco of the free list? Hartman, of
Montana, might partially fill his place,
but he has deserted sheep for silver,
lured by the tinkle of the metal from
! the bleating of the lambs. Where now
is the gratitude of the fiockmasters of
woolly Oregon for the devotion of
this congressional shepherd?
If Picker stood guard over the old
soldier and Hermann watched the
sheep by night" the faithful Linton
stood on the nations outer wall and
kept vigflant eye on that insidious foe
Of freedom who is sapping, silently,
craftily, unremittingly, the foundations
of the republic How fearlessly he ex-
posed them and their nefarious plot
ting. How he fired the hearts of the
| church militant with his lurid warn
! ings. How the tocsin rang out it's
alarms when he grasped the rope and
| tugged away at it. What shivers the
alarum sent running up and down the
spines of the timid, as the dread notes
smote on their ears. And Linton, the
vigilant, the dauntless, the sleepless,
joins the other guardsmen in an invol-
untary retirement, silenced by ingrates
who could not appreciate their self
sacrificing devotion to the public veal.