The Washington herald., 1920-08-30
Life of Candidate on Tour,
Dreary Round of Stop-ouers,
Each Like Other, Only Worse
By LABERT ST. CLAIR.

DAYS. Then the merry little family
party begins to look around to see
who sold it a gold brick.
The candidate particularly if he
never has made a national tour
before, usually starts out by max
ing ten-minute speeches from the
rear platform that last anywhere
from half an hour to an hour. At
the end of the second day his throat
is rough as d Tat-tailed fiIe and
then he begins to call out the re-
serves When he becomes wise to
himself, his speech usually consists
Of How happy | am to see you.
friends; GoOd-by."
States invaded by the private
train usually make up the money
to carry the candidate through their
territory. and the largest Contribu-
tors usually seek to get some of
their money back in riding. The
initial stop inside a State line al
ways is a signal for a rush of local
candidates. local celebrities andLo-
cal contributors. They pile into the
train in droves and settle down for
the day. At first, candidates at
tempt to feed them, but when the
Nllflr bdlf " iNll ltdl, announces on
the second day out that he has just
SCraped the bottom of the -four bar
rel and has sixteen more to feed,
the wild-eyed candidate throws the
local celebrities to the hot dogs
along the way and retires to a draw
ing-Toom. or Crawls under a seat
and tries to disguise himself a. a
suitcase. He usually has a few
6. Il
because there is always a candi-
date for governor, or Senator. or
something like that. present. but
only such dignitarieS get hold of
the free provender after the first
few days.
Still, the local delegations do not
get angry and leave the train fiat
just because they have been denied
the right to break bread with the
peoples choice. There is no law to
prevent them from returning home
and saying. 4 says to Jim, and
Jim says to me, and then says
to him. Jim And that is why
they ride. If there WAS no one to
braE to back home. few ever would
ride across 4 State with a candidate.
Candidates learn early that no
local committeeman ever could
make an Introductory sps ech in less
than an hour. The candidate spends
| many hours. first on one foot and
then on another waiting for local
| birds to identify him. But you can
not blame the local spellbinder, ma
tional elections and national Candi-
dates come but once every four
years.
Attending banquets. looking at
local sights and shaking hands with
lot of unknOwns is the candidates
worst test. The opinion seems to
be universal that the entire Coun-
try, except the particular town
where the candidate is pausing tenn
porarily, is letting the poor fellow
starve to death. Hence, If he drops
in at noon, they parade him uptown
in an open car. usually under hot
sun, shoot him into a banquet that
starts with a soup and ends with
a sigh, make him talk himself blind.
and then line him up to shake hands
with everyone in seven counties.
After the poor fellow Is wilted
down to pint size, they throw him
into an automobile and take him
out to see the ice cream, soap and
ONerall factories, the Ne" Inlted
Brethren Church and the iron sta
tue Of the founder of the town, and
finally. they deliver him at the sta
tiOH one minute before time for HIS
train to leave.
There the candidate finds his
train manager pacing up and down
the station platform, biting away
the last remaining hair of his once
luxurious mustache, the engineer
Cussing, the conductor going wild
and three newspaper correspondents
missing.
Limping away from the autOmo-
bile. the candidate falls into the
arms of a friend or two, and as he
is dragged up the steps of his pri-
vate coach he feebly waves a hand
at his entertainers and disappears
from sight. At the next long stop
the foregoing performance is re-
peated.
Some day a local committee is
going to permit candidate to get
off his train quietly and go 20 his
hctel room and rest throughout his
stop in its fair city save the time