Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1888 — Pleasures of Public Life. [ARTICLE]

Pleasures of Public Life.

“Talk about the pleasures of public life,” exclaimed Spouter; “why, man, you don’t know anything alxrat it. It is no bed of roses, I can tell you. Now just let me give you a case in point. Old Joe Brown wanted to build a bridge across Puddle Pond, and I made a big speech in favor of the improvement, which I told the Legislature was in the interest of the laboring classes; that it would inure to the welfare of the agricultural population, and that, in short, it was demanded by every right-minded man who had the welfare and prosperity of the country at heart. Well, what then? Why, Bill Jones— Bill is (me of my constituents, you know—came and said that a bridge over that pond would scare his ducks, and he wanted me to stop it. Then I had to go to work and prepare another speech, in which I said that from additional information just received,' I found that the proposed bridge was a move on the part of a capitalist to rob the laboring classes of their rights; that it would be the death knell of the fanner, and that no one who loved his countoy could vote for it. It’s awful wearing on us public men, to walk on both sides of the fence, but we have to do it; our constituents demand it, you see; but as I said'before, it’s terribly wearing.”—Boston Transcript.