The last legislature, having nothing else to do, passed a law providing
for a change in the coat-of-arms of the State. There was no change
particularly, except to move the plows and shovels around a little, put on
a few more bars of pig lead, put a new-fashioned necktie on the sailor who
holds the rope, the emblem of lynch law, tuck the miner's breeches into
his boots a little further, and amputate the tail of the badger. We do not
care for the other changes, as they were only intended to give the
engraver a job, but when an irresponsible legislature amputates the tail
of the badger, the emblem of the Democratic party, that crawls into a hole
and pulls the hole in after him, it touches us in our patriotism.
The badger, as nature made him, is a noble bird, and though he resembles a
skunk too much to be very proud of, they had no right to cut off his tail
and stick it up like a sore thumb. As it is now the new comer to our
Garden of Eden will not know whether our emblem is a Scotch terrier,
smelling into the archives of the State for a rat, or a defalcation, or a
_sic semper Americanus scunch_. We do not complain that the sailor with a
Pinafore shirt on, on the new coat-of-arms, is made to resemble Senator
Cameron, or that the miner looks like Senator Sawyer. These things are of
minor importance, but the docking of that badger's tail, and setting it up
like a bob-tail horse, is an outrage upon every citizen of the State, and
when the Democrats get into power, that tail shall be restored to its
normal condition if it takes all the blood and treasure in the State, and
this work of the Republican incendiaries shall be undone. The idea of
Wisconsin appearing among the galaxy of States with a bob-tailed badger is
repugnant to all our finer feelings.