The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-03-16
WHY HE QUIT POLITICS.
Louisville Commercial.


The many friends of Capt. Henry Dugan.
of the Ferry Company, will be pleased to
learn that he has withdrawn from the race
for sheriff of Clark county, Indiana. He
was In the race just two months, and his
total electioneering expenses during tina
time were % cents.
He entered the contest with rosy cheeks
and buoyaDt air. that made him friends
wherever he went. and now he has retired
with a distressed look on his face. an un-
easy glitter in his deep eyes and a shaking
confidence in the voting public in general. 1t
is safe to predict that he viii never be a
candidate again. The fact Of the matter is
Henry did not inquire closely into the sal
airy and duties Of the Office when he an
nounced himself. He just shook up all Of
which he would be a candidate. The sheriff
slip won, and Henry declared himself as an
aspirant for that position.
Captain Dugan is a modest man. He was
never the fellow to parade. himself before
the public. and every time he saw his an
nouncement in the papers ne blushed wildly.
Then people who had never noticed him be-
fore began to pay him attentions. There
was never a day bui ne had callers at the
ferry boat. The most Of them were after a
gentle touch" and he gave them the frozen
hand. This i5 why his expenses only aggre-
gated % cents: He bought ten cents worth
of peanuts and five glasses of beer for his
constituents. But he now is out OF 1t. and
his friends expect to see the color come
back to his cheeks and the old-time smile
make its appearance. To a reporter for the
Commercial yesterday he said:
MY young friend, don't you ever make
up, your mind to run for an office. Why; 1
ment thinks 1t OWNS you, and II | had been
elected 1 would never on earth have gotten
owed them for electing me. When / went
into the race, persuaded by a few friends
that ! could be elected easily, not q wave OF
the man said when he was going to be
hanged. These. 1 understand. were the
M MaEss Jennie nj sf Bow@ai. s and PAID paid the ne0 penaity
righteous: and my dreams were Of beautiful
ling of an eye all was changed. The beauti-
full angels became rsd,eyed buns after
t tuTey VINE melody transformed Itself, ri
Never Run for Office Any More or some
thing of that kind. This was when j slept,
cause 1 seldom slept. The town bummers
over in Jeffersonyille were simply awful, but
l thought 1 would do better when got out
into the country. 1t was worse. A country
man stopped me one day and informed ne
that he and a lot more OF the boys In his
village had formed themselves into a clnp,
price. He wanted $25 as q feeler., With this
amount he was satisfied he could do me an
lose himself. Not long after this a red-faced
man with a purple neck strolled. down TO
che dock and held out one hand for me TO
look at. Ii was uuivering nightly. Henry.
I'll just die If 1 don't get a drink he said.
and when I looked down at one end of the
dock and saw a crowd OF other buns walt
fill the bottle. I just turned on him and sug-
gested the town would be better off IL he
didn't get the drink. He gave a whitening
glance that would have wilted a cast-dron
flower pot, and skunk off into the mud Of the
levee.
"a man whose relatives are well-to-do, and
who ought to be able to take care of him.
came to me and asked me to fill a bottle OF
/ told him / would not give him the money.
but If he would see me that night l would
take the bottle to a drug store and nave Il
met two of the worst characters in the town.
and they came up and slapped me on the
shoulder shSsd md in a dark san, dPof on sav tn som eeuare ana
told them 1 spoke the English language thor
oughly and could pronounce most of the
angry. and one of them explained that they
wanted me to buy them a drink. / said i
ceIiad5n, out w two co ape .n snd IN she e one to
each. A copper. you know, is about the size
of a dime. They hurried to a saloon and
them coming back hunting for me, and the
names they were calling me would have
made a hunchbacked preacher lose his hump.
] shivered myself. But one night l got into
a saloon on the way home, and they actually
made me buy five glasses Of beer. The Law
ish expenditure almost took away my breath.
but paid out the quarter like a little man;
and don't YOU know those fellows actually
blew off all the foam and just drank the
solid beer. II seemed hard to have to pay
for what he'd been wasted,s but i didn't say
anything. All / did was to quietly get out
for any more. Then I learned afterward
that one of these fellows who drank my beer
that night was for the fellow who was rum
ming against me-.
what finished the job for me was when
I learned that the sheriff had to collect his
salary, and that he had to be the jailer; and
cooking for the poor old buns vino were
so unfortunate as 70 get arrested. Then 1
threw I'D the sponge. No. / don't want an
office. / am satisfied with my job as COL
lector on this ferry boat, where / can be an
honest, respected man. and not have every
blear-eyed bloat pointing ne out as the man
he made"