The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-09-10
SEE HE TO ME, MIKE, SEE HE.

SEE HE TO ME, MIKE, SEE HE.
Michael jeremiah Bowling has leaped
into national prominence with strides
that put Jacks seven-league boots
into the tortoise class. From the edi-
torship of a rural paper to the chief
clerkship of the Minnesota house Of
representatives. to the secretaryship
Of the National League of Republican
Clubs (ail in caps) to hobnobbing with
Hanna, to being the welcome and hon
ored guest of the Great Apostle of Pro-
lection and Advance Agent of Prosper
ity, to be turned loose in the best
rooms of the presidential residence and,
as he himself has told US, to be allows
ed 'to drink in their sumptuous fur
nishing;" to have Hanna and the pres
ident so eager to recognize his eminent
services that they wanted to know
what he wanted; to be so modest with
all this sudden greatness as to only ask
a consulship for his father-in-law, and
years, we submit, is a rise without
parallel III the history of this state.
The natural, in fact the inevitable
sequence of this prominence was to in
spire all the crowd of fellows who had
not risen and whose moderate ambi-
lions aspired only to paltry clerkships
with blind confidence in the ability of
Mike" as they Familiarity termed
him, to put them anywhere by the sim
pie statement to Hanna and the presi-
dent of his desire. Probably Mike also
entertained this idea of his influence.
Why should he not? Had he not di-
the memorable campaign of 1896? Had
he not given of his money, as we'll as
his time and energies to the restoration
of prosperity? Had he not tapped his
purse when the members of the league
corked their purses up tightly and the
great institution was running with an
empty fsc? Was not the victory of
1896 due to the league and was not
Bowling the league? Why should he
not have what he wanted for the boys?
But it was only too soon that Mike
discovered that resistible body, him
self, had run against an immovable OBJ
ject. the civil service law. Snugly en-
sconced behind the bastions sat fellows
holding the places and drawing the sal
aries for which his thirsty leaguers
painted as does the hunted hare. No
pig with its head through the fence
and it's hungry mouth within an inch
of the corn which it could not reach,
twist and struggle as it might, ever
presented so complete a picture of baf-
fed appetite and blank despair as did
Mike and his boys when they saw the
fat of the land SO near and yet SO far.
No wonder Mikes generous soul filled
with Indignation. No wonder he sought
communion with the sympathetic re-
porter and communed with him, pour
ing into his tablet mis- wrath, his de-
spair He tells him how his soul is agi-
tated with apprehensions for the flu
ture of this republic and for the fate of
humanity that is attached to its fate,
should this aristocracy- breeding civil
service system be not overthrow and
utterly stamped out.
He not only pours out his own lamen-
tations of Jeremiah, but he repeats
those which have been poured into his
own ears by the eminent men with
whom he has consorted. He tells the
reporter, and the reporter dutifully
tells the boys and the rest of the world,
that a congressman who is so eminent
be astonished if Mike would only i'm
part to him his name was one of these.
SEE he to me only the other day, seq
he. Mike, everything is going to ever
lasting smash, and if this administra
ton keeps this thing up we're busted
blown higher than Gilderoy's kite
Who's going to run things if we can't
get the offices? How are folks ever go
ing to learn anything unless a fresh
lot of boys can go down to Washing
ton every four years and learn how
government is done and come home
and tell folks all about it? It's just
terrible. SEE he to me, SEE he, and [ tell
you what, Mike, SEE he, we've just got
to fight for it. l tell you, Mike, seq he,
it is the money power that is doing this
to us and it is trying to build up a
genuine plutocracy. They never could
| have done it but for the papers; they
own them all, dodblast EN-, but if we
can only get two or three of the big
! ones, sez he, to take our side, the whole
| darned system will go down kerchuck,
seq he. And the eminent congressman
| felt better for having communed with
Mike and it is to be hoped that the ten
sion on Mikes brain is relieved by his
outpouring Meanwhile, we suggeststo
him the danger of rapid asceEts, and,
above all, that he should avoid the risk
| of an assault upon the civil service re-
form.
MAY THEY SUCCEED.