The Ely miner., 1914-01-02


they'd come to blows, and from blows
to chairs, and then the man who ran
the place would have to come in and
tell them to get out and fight in the
street or he'd lose his license.
why they lid it nobody ever was
able to tell. It wasn't anything that
concerned the average man. He had
to scramble just as hard to support
his family no matter what happened.
But they'd go at it just as If it was
some Of their business. After they'd
got thoroughly warmed up some one
Of the tribe of agitators called pol
iticians. who had been waiting for
the right moment for some time.
would signal his calcium operator and
suddenly stand forth in the spot
light. Il hate to sacrifice myself, fell
low citizens he'd say, but If you
insist upon it-Here, boys, bring out
those hundred thousand lithographs
I've had made of myself these last
six months
Then the common people, as they
were called then, would be touched
by the noble conduct of the man.
'Hooray!' they'd say. Then the no.
BILE gent would get some of his rich
friends to hire hall and they'd have
what they called convention. Then
was when you could see political.
campaignitis getting in its worst
licks. The minute the average citi-
zen entered a convention hall the
plague hit him behind the ear and
he was bereft Of all sense and reason.
"a man would get up on he plat
form, take drink of water. and begin
to speak. Then the victims of the
disease would think that they ad to
do something queer. Most of them
would keep on talking, and ever so
often the plague would sweep over
his audience and they'd go into con-
vulsions. When the speech was fin
ished the people would think they
had to get up on chairs, throw their
hats and canes into the air and burn
up years energy cheering their
heads off. Then somebody would get
nominated and the people would go
back to their jobs and find that the
boss had got somebody in their place
while they were away.
1T was great game. 1t reached
its climax in 1912 All! well, / remem-
ber how the people of this country
were running around that summer
actually worrying because there were
three parties in the field, and the
election of one was supposed to be
important. Hah! 'Tis queer to look
back on it now. There was Teddy
at one corner, Wilson at another, and
Taft at the other. And the people
actually excited about It, You'd think
it was something important, like the
invention of Tonnesen's Sun Ray
Storage battery, or Mikaroff's Agri-
cultural Accelerator. Now you and I,
lad, We know that the real trouble in
those days was because it was so
hard for a lot of the people to keep
warm in winter and get enough food
the year around That's why they
had those obsolete words, want and
suffering And you and ], lad, we
know that when that Norwegian pro-
fessor began to catch sun rays and
store them for use in winter, and
when the old Russian finally hit upon
the ray that made five crops grow in
the time one had grown before, then
was when something important hap
pened. But in those days they had
queer notions. Politics! PoliticSi How
strange it is to look back at it ALI"
who got elected In that terrible
campaign of 1922" asked the oper-
ator.
Captain MacManus looked down at
II don't remember" said he.
(Copyright, by W. G. .Chapman.)