Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1884 — POLITICS AND POWDER. [ARTICLE]

POLITICS AND POWDER.

What It Coats to Son a Campaign—Opinion of a Fireworks Maker. [Bocheater (N. Y.) Democrat.] “Five million dollars !’* “Yea, sir, live million dollars, of which two millions are spent for fireworks and three millions for uniforms, etc., every Presidential campaign.'* Thus said Mr. James Palmer, the Bochester fireworks maker, to eur reporter’s inquiry. “The average spent in off years for fireworks is over one million dollars.” “Do we import the bulk of our fireworks?*’ “No, sir, we import nothing but flrecrack/ era. We make the rest in this country. There are only ten fireworks establishments in America,’* Upon invitation of Superintendent Frederick Fitz Fichner, the reporter inspected the Palmer establishment, not without some fear and trembling at first. When the Superintendent saih he had been blown up twice, the reporter turtively asked: “Is not this business a little risky?” “l’es, I suppose it would be so considered by outsiders, but I have encountered greater dangers than any I find here, and don't feel concerned.” “i don’t quite catch your meaning?” “Weil, I have been in this business many years, and the constant though unconscious nervous strain has caused greater suffering than the explosions I have taken!’ Many a day I would be very dizzy, aud everything w6uld get dark. At other times I could scarcely'breathe from choking sensations. Then my appetite left me and I grew thin, weak, and lifeless. I was drowsy by day and wakeful by night My side pained me, my back ached, my limbs burned. I bloated fearfully aud one leg got paralyzed. For ten months I suffered desperately, and two prominent physicians gave me up for a dead man, sure.” “You don’t look it now.” “No, that’s so, but it was a fact just the same. When I found out my troublo, lat once resorted to Warner’s safe cure, and a dozen bottles put me In possession of the best health I ever expected to enjoy, and I was pronounced incurably sick with Bright’s disease. It is the most wonderlul medicine in the world.” “Indeed. You are a fortunate man. Is there any falling off in the fireworks business this year?” “Not at all. On the contrary it grows more popular every year, and this year wc have done an extraordinary business. Tho American people are getting quite as fond of display as the mercurial Frenchman, and they manifest it by rockets and volcanoes, political banner, campaign uniforms, etc. I reckon that $10,000,000 won’t cover the incidental political expenses of a Presidential campaign.”