Seattle, W. T., December 12.--I am up here on the Sound in two senses.
I rode down today from Tacoma on the Sound, and to-night I shall lecture
at Frye's Opera House.
Seattle is a good town. The name lacks poetic warmth, but some day the
man who has invested in Seattle real estate will have reason to pat
himself on the back and say "ha ha," or words to that effect. The city
is situated on the side of a large hill and commands a very fine view of
that world's most calm and beautiful collection of water, Puget Sound.
I cannot speak too highly of any sheet of water on which I can ride all
day with no compunction of digestion. He who has tossed for days upon
the briny deep, will understand this and appreciate it; even if he never
tossed upon the angry deep, if it happened to be all he had, he will
be glad to know that the Sound is a good piece of water to ride on. The
gentle reader who has crossed the raging main and borrowed high-priced
meals of the steamship company for days and days, will agree with me
that when we can find a smooth piece of water to ride on we should lose
no time in crossing it.
In Washington Territory the women vote. That is no novelty to me, of
course, for I lived in Wyoming for seven years where women vote, and I
held office all the time. And still they say that female voters are poor
judges of men, and that any pleasing $2 Adonis who comes along and asks
for their suffrages will get them.
Not much!!!
Woman is a keen and correct judge of mental and moral worth. Without
stopping to give logical reasons for her course, perhaps, she still
chooses with unerring judgment at the polls.
Anyone who doubts this statement, will do well to go to the old poll
books in Wyoming and examine my overwhelming majorities--with a powerful
magnifier.
I have just received from Boston a warm invitation to be present in that
city on Forefathers' day, to take part in the ceremonies and join in the
festivities of that occasion.
Forefathers, I thank you! Though this reply will not reach you for a
long time, perhaps, I desire to express to you my deep appreciation
of your kindness, and, though I can hardly be regarded as a forefather
myself, I assure you that I sympathize with you.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be with you on this day
of your general jubilee and to talk over old times with you.
One who has never experienced the thrill of genuine joy that wakens a
man to a glad realization of the fact that he is a forefather, cannot
understand its full significance. You alone know how it is yourself; you
can speak from experience.
In fancy's dim corridors I see you stand, away back in the early dawn
of our national day, with the tallow candle drooping and dying in its
socket, as you waited for the physician to come and announce to you that
you were a forefather.
Forefathers, you have done well. Others have sought to outdo you
and wrest the laurels from your brow, but they did not succeed. As
forefathers you have never been successfully scooped.
T hope that you will keep up your justly celebrated organization. If a
forefather allows his dues to get in arrears, go to him kindly and ask
him like a brother to put up. If he refuses to do so, fire him. There
is no reason why a man should presume upon his long standing as a
forefather to become insolent to other forefathers who are far his
seniors. As a rule, I notice it is the young amateur forefather, who has
only been so a few days, in fact, who is arrogant and disobedient.
I have often wished that we could observe Forefathers' day more
generally in the West. Why we should allow the Eastern cities to outdo
us in this matter, while we hold over them in other ways, I cannot
understand. Our church sociables and homicides in the West will compare
favorably with those of the effeter cities of the Atlantic slope.
Our educational institutions and embezzlers are making rapid strides,
especially our embezzlers. We are cultivating a certain air of
refinement and haughty reserve which enables us at times to fool the
best judges. Many of our Western people have been to the Atlantic
seaboard and remained all summer without falling into the hands of the
bunko artist. A cow gentleman friend of mine who bathed his plumb limbs
in the Atlantic last summer during the day, and mixed himself up in
the mazy dance at night, told me on his return that he had enjoyed the
summer immensely, but that he had returned financially depressed..
"Ah," said I, with an air of superiority which I often assume while
talking to men who know more than I do, "you fell into the hands of the
cultivated confidence man?"
"No, William," he said sadly, "worse than that. I stopped at a seaside
hotel. Had I gone to New York City and hunted up the gentlemanly bunko
man and the Wall street dealer in lambs' pelts, as my better judgment
prompted, I might have returned with funds. Now I am almost insolvent.
I begin life again with great sorrow, and the same old Texas steer with
which I went into the cattle industry five years ago."
But why should we, here in the West, take readily to all other
institutions common to the cultured East and ignore the forefather
industry? I now make this public announcement, and will stick to it,
viz.; I will be one of ten full-blooded American citizens to establish
a branch forefather's lodge in the West, with a separate fund set aside
for the benefit of forefathers who are no longer young. Forefathers are
just as apt to become old and helpless as anyone else. Young men who
contemplate becoming forefathers should remember this.