Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1884 — No Fun Being President. [ARTICLE]

No Fun Being President.

It is no* ax an Jorabla tssat somstiiM ha be IBs editor es a paper, and ssoaid pa bile opinion at eo araeh per mould, and get complimentary tickets to the sleight-of-hand performances, but with iu care and worry, its heartaches and apprehensions, it is more comforting on the whole than being President. When ws were a boy, and sat in the front row among the pale-haired boys with checked gingham skirts at the Ban-day-school, and the teacher told us to live uprightly and learn a hundred verses of the Scriptures each week so that we could be President, we thought that nnruffled, calm, and tmiversal approbation waited upon the man who successfully rose to be the executive of a great Nation. With years, and accumulated wisdom, however, we have changed our mind. Now we sit at our desk and write burning words for the press that will live and keep warm long after we are turned to dust and ashes. We write heavy editorials on the pork outlook, and sadly compose exhaustive treatises on the chinch-bug, while men in other walks of life go out into the health-promoting mountains, and catch trout and woodticks. Our lot is not, perhaps, a joyous one. We sweater through the long July days with our suspenders hanging in limp f'.stuons down over our chair, while we wr’iA the death-dealing pen, but we do nut want to be President. Our sala y is smaller, it is true, but when we get through our work in the middle of the night, and put on our plug hat and steal home through the allpervading darkne-s, we thank our stars, as we split the kindling and bed down the family mule, that on the morrow, although we may be licked by the man we wrote up to-day, our official record can not be attacked. There is a nameless joy that settles down upon us as we retire to our simple couch on the floor, and pull the collar door over us to keep us w arm, which the world can neither give nor take away. We plod along, from day to day, slicing great wads of mental pabulum from our bulging intellect, never murmuring nor complaining when lawyers and physicians put on their broad brim chip hats and go out to the breezy canyons and’the shady glens to regain their health. We just plug along from day to day, eating a hard boiled egg from one hand while we write a scathing criticism on the sic transit gloria cucumber with the other. No, we do not crave the proud position of President, nor do we hanker to climb to an qltitude where forty or fifty millions of civilized people can distinctly see whether we eat custard pie with a knife or not. Once in a while, however, in the still ness of the night, we kiek the covers . if. and moan iu our dreams as we inn-guv that we are President, and we wake w ir.h the cold, damp sweat (or perspiration, the case may be) standing out o: eve:pore, only to find that we av".not.-Pr-‘in-dent after all, i>y an over ,> .-o: joroy, sad we get Up ami - .m a- : the rainwater barrel and ink® a. «.i. ■. and go back to a dreamless, ittioie.e.sleep. — Laramie. Bourne fang.