|SPEAKING of elections and returns, brings back to our memory the
time when it was pretty close in a certain congressional district in
Wisconsin, where W. T. Price is now putting up a job on the Democrats.
In those days returns didn't come in by telegraph, but on horseback and
on foot, and it was annoying to wait for figures by which to determine
the result. At Hudson the politicians had made a pretty close estimate,
but were waiting, one evening after election, at a saloon on Buckeye
street, for something definite from Eau Claire county. The session was
very dull, and to cheer up the little Spartan hand some one suggested
that old Judge Wetherby ought to "set 'em up." Judge Wetherby was a
staunch old Democrat and had rigidly treated himself for twenty years,
and just as rigidly refused to treat anybody else. The result was that
he had secured a vigorous bloom on his own nose, but had never put the
glass to his neighbor's lips. He intimated on this occasion, however,
that if he could get encouraging news from Eau Claire for the Democrats,
he would turn loose. The party waited until midnight, and had just
decided to go home, when a travel-worn horseman rode up to the door. He
was very reticent, and as he was a stranger, no one seemed to want
to open up a conversation with him, till at last Judge Wetherby, who
couldn't keep the great question of politics out of his mind, asked him
what part of the country he had come from. "Just got in from Eau Claire
county," was the reply.
"How did Eau Claire county go?" was the Judge's next question. "O,
I don't pay no attention to politics, but they told me it went 453
majority for the Democrats."
Thereupon the judge threw his hat in the air and for the first and last
time in his life, treated the entire crowd of Republicans and Democrats
alike. It was very late when he went home, also very late when he got
down town the next day.
When he did come down he was surprised to find a Republican brass band
out, and the news all over the city that the Republican candidate had
been elected by several hundred majority. In the afternoon he learned
that Hod Taylor, now clergyman to Marseilles, had hired a tramp to ride
into the Buckeye saloon the previous evening and report as stated, in
order to bring about a good state of feeling on the Judge's part. Judge
Wetherby, since that time, is regarded as the most skeptical Democrat in
that congressional district, and even if he were to be assured over and
over again that his party was victorious, he would still doubt. It is
such things as these that go a long way toward encouraging a feeling of
distrust between the parties, and causes politicians to be looked upon
with great mistrust..
Although Mr. Taylor is now in France attending to the affairs of his
government, and trying to become familiar with the French language, he
often pauses in his work as the memory of this little incident comes
over his mind, and a hot tear falls on the report he is making out to
send on to the Secretary of State at Washington. Can it be that his hard
heart is at last touched with remorse?