San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-03-07
SUNDAY, MARCH I. 1897.
L WANT A PIECE OF PIE.

are reproduced in some form in our
maturer years. The small boy wants
jam on hisbread, or sweetnin if he
has to eat bread at all, but he prefers
pie. Ii his opportunities can so wor-
~ the life out of mother that, in the
disposition to do or give anything
to silence his peevish whining, she will
give him pie then he does it. Who has
not seen one of these infants terrible,
following his mother, or the custodian
of the family edibles, from kitchen to
dining room, from dining room to pan
try, in and out, crying: Il want piece
of pie" Gimme piece of pie" till
in sheer desperation the poor haunted
mother or servant who has refused n
score Of times, finally consents and
the pie is produced
Just so it is with that child grown
to a man. He has the same peevish
fretfulness in his composition that
cropped out in earlier life around the
pantry and the kitchen table. Plain
bread and butter and meat is not good
enough for him He wants pie. This
appetite has grown by what it fed
upon until it dominates the man, and
place him where you will he wants
pie The ruling passion of this tribe
of pie pleaders is that of a personal
preference. They have had their I'M
healthy appetiteS pandered to in baby
hood and in childhood and in boy
hood and in young manhood until the
unhealthy desire has become second
nature. Now in their mature years
they are the sport of habit, grown
strong as an iron fetter, and on every
proper or improper occasion they
mouth out their desire for pie.
There is no dish that is prepared in
the civilized world that is so truly
American as the pie. 1t has formed
the theme of more satire on the part
of foreign writers, been made the
target for more witty shafts by cos
mopolitan travellers, been written up
and ridiculed more generally and per
sistently and justly than any of our
national foibles. None the less the hab-
it remains. A nation of pie eaters are
we, and we will so remain to the end
of the chapter. Pie for breakfast"
says the foreign gourmand. 'WhO
ever heard of such n barbarity," but
there is the pie upon the table, and
the universal Yankee Nation" eat it.
There is no article of food so I'M
healthy as this mixture of fat and
-four and fruit, so say the hygienists,
but that matters not and the unwhOle-
some compound is accepted as the
staff of life.
1t is not alone that the eating of pie
is in itself so detrimental to health
but that the habit destroys appetite
turns the eater away from the more
wholesome foods upon the table, gives
him a growing disrelish to that which
is really needed to build his tissue
make bone and strengthen nerve. The
child who has been INDUCED in this
perniCiOus pie appetite, can not be
persuaded to eat like any other boy
He cannot sit at the table like little
gentleman taking his share of the me
nm as it is served, waiting with the
rest his turn for pie. He don't wan
this and he don't like that and he
wants pie. If compelled to wait unit
the pie is regularly served he mouths
over what is on his plate and does no
eat. He is waiting for pie. He would
sit at the table until he was veal
with real hunger before he would ca
anything but pie, so long as pie wa
in sight and whining would get then
piece.
This national prediction for pie
with all of it's peculiaritieS, its un
healthy effects upon the stOmachs o
the pie eaters, its creation of an un
natural appetite, has come to be gen
orally applied to those who, with al
unnatural craving for Office. follow tn
dispensers of patronage from tn
home to the caucus, from the caucus
to the convention, from the cOnven
ton to the Legislature or the depart
ment. pleading for office as in the day
of their bOyhOOd they begged the cool
for pie. There is wonderful fitnes
i'm the name pie Plcaders" that ha
by general consent been affixed t
these kitchen politicians, who like III
winners of old. referred to in tn
.'book." beSought to be put in tin
priest office that they might get some
thing to eat 1t is not that they ma
get something to satisfy their rea
hunger that the most of these pi
pleaders poster the life out of tn
dispensers Of patronage. but that the
may eat pie.
Just as the boy refused the bette
food and the most nourishing in orde
to get pie, so do these pantry pOlit
clans refuse again and again the mol
nutritious foods of the table of reg
lar and legitimate business in ord
TO be fed with the pie of a public p
sitiOn. There is something in the a
mOsphere Of this country that GREAT
n desire, unhealthy and unnatural f
pie. and there is something in the q
nosphere of our municipal and coun
and state and national administr
lions that engenders an appetite fl