Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1914 — LOOKING DOWNWARD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LOOKING DOWNWARD

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BY LEE MACQUODDY

THE ANCIENT XHBEABE OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGN ITIB. "They’re having a great time down 1n Abyssynia,” said the photo-tele-graph operator on the New Tork receiving float of the F. C. & A. Aerial line, as he came out of his darkcabinet and rubbed his eyes, red with staring at the moving films of the world’s events that had been flashing before him. “A fellow would think this was the year 1912 instead of 1962.” “What are they doing down there?" asked Captain MacManus, Master Alrigator, retired. “Oh, they’ve gone mad —the whole nation,” said the operator .wearily. "To look at the films you’d think they were having a war, or a plague, or a wholesale riot all over the country. They’ve just held what they

call a convention. For three days ■they’ve been marehing around witlr brass bands and banners and shouting and talking, and doing everything but declaring actual war on one another. Today about twenty thousand of them got into a big hali and shouted their heads off to decide on who they were going to shout their heads off tor the next four months to comeT or until election time, as they call it. You’d think the way they went about It that an invading fleet wps hanging over their heads threatening to spill the Hertzian rays on them before sundown. And all in order to decide on what name is to go on their campaign banners. “It’s a fright," continued the operator, removing from his ears the wireless sound-conductors that had Caught

the speech and noise of far-away Abyssynia as they came over the wireless telephone. “People aren’t paying any attention to business or the other things that concern them. They’re fairly consumed by this inexplicable excitement. Abyssynia has gone mad.” Captain MacManus leaned back and chuckled heartily. * “What are you laughing at?” demanded the operator. “1 tell you it’s no laughing matter to sit still and watch a whole nation go crazy this way.” , “I laugh, my lad, because you take me back to the days of my youth," chuckled the captain. “You make me remember the days when moßt people lived on the ground. You take me back to the days when railroads and steamships were trying to carry people and goods around on the Earth. That’s why I laugh. But don’t worry. The uncivilised nation of Abyssynia has not gone crazy—not permanently, at least. It’s just suffering from an old disease, a disease that now afflicts only the few nations that are still barbaric enough to the old, discarded customs. The name of the disease is—let me see; I believe I've forgotten. Ah! I have it: 'Politics.’ That’s what’s the matter with Abyssynia, it’s suffering from an attack of polltlcal-campalgnitis.” ♦ What's that?” asked the operator. “A joke.” said Captain MacManus. “Is it dangerous.” . “Only to the bystander. He’* likely to get kicked i* the fracas, as this ancients used to say.” “What is the cause of it?” “Imagination.’* “Imagination?”

"Yes,” said the captain, "imagination. You see, political-campaignitis isn’t a real disease, il really isn’t anything. It never was, not even back in the old days of 1912 when it used to be so prevalent—before the people got onto the joke of it Polib-lcal-campaignitis really is nothing more than a state of mind, a hallucination. The victim imagines that he must get excited over a name printed on banners, must quarrel with his best friend about the merits of tbe men whose names are on the bankers, and otherwise behave like 8 madman. It is inspired by the agitators .who used to be known as politicians. Of course'there isn’t any of it left now in the civilized countries, but what you’ve been seeing and hearing from down in Abyssynla, where they still refuse to turn their government over to an efficient General Managerris~a~*pretty good imitation of what that same used to do to this United States of America, in the days of my youth, around tbe year 1912.”

The operator laughed easily. “Do you mesa to Tell -me that- this enlightened country ever went into convulsions like .that?” “I mean to tell you that, and It’s the truth,” retorted the captain. “You must remember, my lad, that back in 1912 this country was still in the ground and water age. It was not until many years after, when Camerot’s self-sustaining and self-balancing float helped people to learn that it was easier and cheaper to live in the air than on land or water, that the country really became enlightened. Then, when living became easier, and

over-crowded cities' became a thing of the past, people began to take themselves less seriously. They laughed the politicians out of business, and a sorry day it was for the latter, too, because they couldn’t do anything useful in the world, and most of them had to take up posing for the moving pictures to earn a bare living. They were good at that—posing. They’d been at it all their lives. „ “But before these things came to pass this country was the worst example of what the imaginary disease of polltical-campalgnitis could do to a country that ever was known in the history of the World. Every four years the plague came down. You have seen how they’re behaving in Abyssynia today. Well, that is a picture of this country as it was, say in the summer of 1912.” The operator mused, shaking his head Incredulously. "What caused these ouhreaks?” he asked. "That, my lad, is something that none of the great scientists who studdied it ever was able to discover. But this is the way it could begin: a bunch of usually sane citizens wqjild be sitting together, and all of a sudden one of them would happen to look up at the calendar. ’Whoops, my dear!’ he’d yell. ‘By the calen 7 dar I see that next year is going to be the year when we’ve got to elect another president Who shall it- be?* ’Roosevelt’ one would say. 'None of it’ would oome from a second. Taft is the boy,* Taft your eye!’ ifcjptthird would yell. *Wilson! Wilson forever!’ Then all of a sudden they’d bevelling back at one another, and fronPWbrd*

they’d seme to blows, sad 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 did it nobody ever waa able to tell. It wasn’t anythin# that concerned the average man. He had to scramble jilst 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 pot itlcians, who had been waiting Tor the right moment for some tfine, would signal Us calcium operator and suddenly stand forth in the spotlight. T hate to sacrifice myself, fellow citizens,’ he’d say, hut if you insist Upon it—Here, bops, 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 noble gent would get some of his rich friends to hire a hall and they’d have what they called a convention. Then was When yob could see politicalcampaignitis getting in its worst licks. The minute the average citizen 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 platform, take a drink of water, and begin to speak. Then the victims of the disease would think that they od to do something queer. Mqst of them would keep on talking, and ever so often the plague would sweep over his audience and they’d go into convulsions. When the speech "was finished the people would think they had to get up on chairs, throw their hate and canes into the air and burn up a year’s energy cheering their heads off. Then somebody would get nominated .and ..the people would go back to their jobs an® find that the boss had got somebody in their place while they were away. 7~ “It was a great game. It reached its climax in 1912. Ah! well, I remember hofr 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 MlkarolTs Agricultural 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 I, lad, we know that when that Norwegian professor began to catch sun rayß 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 cne had grown before, then was when something .important happened. But in those they had queer notions. Politics! Politics! How strange it is to look back at it all!” “Who got elected in that terrible Campaign of 1912?” asked the operator. Captain MacManus looked down at the city below and shook his head. “I don’t remember,” said he. (Copyright, by W. G. Chapman.)

“What are you laughing at?” demanded the operator. "I tell you It’s no laughing matter to sit still and watch a whole nation get crazy this way.”