INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 



people and the wagon was usually drawn by two 

 or three yoke of lusty oxen. In all respects, even 

 to the dress of the young singers, the outfit was 

 made to typify pioneer scenes in a wooded country. 

 Mass meetings were held at many hamlets and not 

 infrequently a half a dozen of these log-cabin 

 cavalcades would be present. With so many lusty 

 singers it was inevitable that a great portion of the 

 exercises should consist in singing these popular 

 and rollicking songs ! 



The Whigs used ash for their liberty poles in 

 honor of Henry Clay of Ashland, I suppose ; while 

 the Democrats used hickory in honor of " Old 

 Hickory," General Jackson. As poles of ash 

 could be procured which were longer and 

 straighter than hickory poles, boys of the Whig 

 persuasion made fun of the hickory poles. This 

 soon created bad blood between the two parties 

 and, not infrequently, the liberty poles were cut 

 down in the night time now by one party and 

 now by another. This led to the device of inlaying 

 the poles with horse-shoe-nail iron, with old horse- 

 shoes and stubs of nails. Even with these precau- 

 tions the poles sometimes met an untoward fate 

 for they could be bored off near the ground or, 

 with the help of a ladder, they might be sawed 

 off above their armor plate. 



