Putnam patriot., 1910-04-15

There aren't very many more of
 these Sittersi Clubs left any more. But there was a lime when every store and l every livery stable and every hotel off, ice used to have one. And the one
 that meets in Lawton's livery is doing
 its best 10 preserve the traditions and
 keep the wheels Of progress on the track.
 Horace helps as much as he can
 here, bat evenings are not the only times when he snuggIes up 10 Nex
 Popui. Not by a long shot. Alt day
 long, when he isn't legislating up on
 smith Hill, he Is behind the counter
 Of his grocery on Newport's Broadway
 And there are mighty few farmers from up country who don't stop in to | talk thing over with Horace" when
 they drive into town. He knows them
 all by their first names, and what he
 doesn't hear about the farming situa-
 ton and the political situation and all the other situations isn't worth hear
 ing.
 The late lamented Farmers Con- l mission could have saved lot of time
 and worry by dropping in at Hassard
 X Co.'s store instead of galivanting
 around the country. 1t could have learned all there was without stirring another step.
 Under the circumstances, the sur prising thing aoout the gentleman from Newport Is not that he went to the Assembly so soon, but that he stayed out of it so long. A good round score Of years had passed after his re. fn hn al l.. |. decided 10 take 50 days off each year
 and help run the State. Even then he didn't go looking for the job. There was bad season for the party in Newport back in 1903. The man. 1 agers were really worried, and began
 to look around for somebody who | couldn't help getting elected, no mat ter what ticket he was on.
 "Who's sure-thing candidate for the emergepey?e they asked. The first man they put the question to reflected minute, shifted his hat to 1 the back of his head, gazed up at the sky and then around the neighboring | scenery, and finally spoke as follows: Well, II you're looking fer the one best bet, the man that mightn't poll the most votes on the ticket but would get those he did get so sure you cuuIdn' t pry' away from him with a crow bar,
 l reckon yon'd better drop around and get Horace Hassard 10 run.
 "Nant somebody that all the boys know is the real goods, do you?n re-
 marked the next man. "NeIl, what | are you standing around here for? Why don't you get Horace Hassard?n The more men they asked, the more times they heard the name Horace,
 until their panic faded and they al.
 lowed that the country was saved. Since then, with the exception of a single year, Horace has been holding the fort.
 As a fort holder, he is about as good as they make them. It takes more than one barrier across the road to keep him of the job when duty calls. They found that out during the Goddard Wetmore Colt deadlock. Horace was pretty we'll tied up with rheumatism that year, due partly to the broken leg he suffered by 27-foot fall from a house he was building in Connecticut
 years ago. It looked to his friends as if he would have to give up. But they didn't know Horace.
 "I'll be there,n he said. "I,ll be there if have to strap my bed to the roof of an automobile and be carried into the chamber on a streteher.a And he was. Which he always is when he says he will, for he happens, they say in Newport, to be one of the good, oid-fashioned sort whose word is
 as good as his bond, an expression that has gone out of style of late years, but means as much as 1t ever did. MT. Hassard has tried to retire from business two or three times, but couldn't stand the strain of idleness He was ready to retire when he settled in Newport, but after three years of 1t
 went into the spring and mineral water business. Then he retired again for three years, and again decided to
 humor himself by working. So ne
 took up the grocery trade, and has
 been at it ever since.
 Incidentally, merely as political
 side-line, he has been member of the
 Newport Representative Council ever since tbat ponderous institution was
 invented. As he very naturally would
 be.-PToyidence Journal.