Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-03-03

get US in decidedly German at home. We
had no mind for domestic trivialities.
We were bothered about who was going
to be the next President OF the United
States And If that wasn't hydrocephat-
ically imbecile, we'd like to be informed
what is.
We'd quarrel with bosom friends on
street cars and right at their own front
gates, first, about who was going to get
the nomination, and, second, who was 60
ing to cop the election. On several occa-
sions they've attributed insanity to rs
over our views about who was going to
connect with the big chair No doubt
they were right. They are now forgiven
We used to begin about this time of the
presidential year and keep a little per-
sonally conducted slate showing our
views of just how many delegates our
candidate for the nomination ftush. our
candidate. as if anybody on earth ex-
cept ourselves cared a shriveled string
bean who 'our candidate was)-how
many delegates our candidate was going
to have at the nominating convention.
Wed tinker with that slate up to late
at night, according as the ever-shiftiny
Reports came in. one day our cand ate
would have 49s for lead-pipe, the next
day he'd have 524, and the day alter
that he'd have only 81. But we keep
the rubber eraser at work and fix the
slate up in accordance with the vacllat-
ing political barometer.
Then, when the nomination was made.
our man never would come within nine
quintillion light years Figuring I ght to
travel at the rate of 1soOOU niles per
second) of showing even an approxima-
ticn of a symptom of a smell of re-
hottest chance on earth or the waters
beneath the earth of getting the nomina-
ton.
On such occasions we'd refuse to leave
the house for three or four days after
the nomination of the other man was
made. We could not bring ourselves 10
face the ignominious and humil;ating
ribaldry OF the ruff ans among our
friends who had named the right man
in advance.
However, we were "a good party man..
We never knew just why We were "a
good party man., but We were. We
don't know yet why we were. We pe-
longed, that is to say, to the party that
our Immediate ancestor on the pa,ernal
it for granted that he must naturally
know all about everything; and we ABB
sorbed his politics without the least
reason or sense. Ones paternal an
a whole lot Of things. Why should he
be right about politics? There's no
answer to that. But just because he
belonged to that party. SO did we. and
HOWleQ ana DaWieO IOT 1T, anu HuI leu our
cap into the ar for it, and fought and
bled for 1t, and got walloped for 1t. and
made a mastadonic, monolithic anthro-
pod of ourselves in general for It,
-
Issues? Nix on the issues! TIL oil party!
Vince! Soak 'em. Tige. What did We
care about issues? We belonged to 'the
party" That settled it..
We followed the campaign feverishly.
We were in a sinister state of depicting
effervescence about the campaign all the
time. We were obsessed all the time with
the idea that the managers of the cam
paign for our man were making a miser-
able hash of it: they were incompetent,
ivorybeaned. bone-domed idiots. that
ought to be moving pianos or driving
trucks instead of trying to f0ur-hush
around making folks believe that they
knew how to manage political cam
paign.
The roorbacks about our candidate
caused us the profoundest pain and grief
and modification, not to say violent, con-
Stunning wrath. that SO interfered with our
purely private internal mechanism that
We were obliged virtually to live off of
bicarbonate o. soda and charcoal tablets
to keep ourself from cashing in with
acute indigestion before we found out
whether our candidate got the bacon or
got the gate.
The miserable hours we used to waste
wondering and figuring on how New
York would go" or show Ohio would go.'
The fiubdub we exuded and listened to
about pivotal states!'
And the worry that We used to go
through about those straw votes that
would be taken on trains and taken by
the New York Herald and taken on ele-
vators and taken in scullions' quarters
and taken on buildings In the course of
election. and taken UP in balloons and
things,