Methods of Reform . 
283 
will doubt his patriotism and his fitness for office. I well remem¬ 
ber when I was a youngster, a long time ago, starting out one 
day to address a meeting in one of the remote towns of our 
county. The statute of limitations has run since and my youth 
was my excuse for too great compliance. The candidate for 
sheriff, an honest, kindly, silver-haired, whole-souled farmer 
famous for his big heart and his big short-horns, and several 
other county candidates, were of the party. 
We drove through the little town of Middleton and were told 
we must visit all the saloons. “But,” said I, “I don’t drink.” 
“Then you must smoke.” “But I don’t smoke.” “Then you 
must take some pop, and if you don’t it will be noticed and in¬ 
jure your father’s chances.” My father was the candidate of 
his party for congress. Finally, when we had visited all five 
saloons, and I had begun to lose my enthusiasm for pop, some 
one said there was yet another saloon. But we were promptly 
told that the woman who kept it had lost her husband and was 
a widow, and there was no voter there, and so the candidate for 
sheriff and his party did not darken that lone woman’s door. 
All these illegitimate expenses, which the reputable candidates 
would gladly be protected from, but which none but men of 
iron dare deny, the official must make up from his office by fair 
means or foul, and so it is that the liberal candidates who are so 
profuse in the campaign are so expensive in their term of office. 
It all falls back on our patient backs and we must sweat for their 
prodigality. Old St. Francis of Assisi used to preach to the 
beasts of the field and the birds of the air, and with loving hu¬ 
mility he always spoke to them as his brothers, and so it once 
happened that he addressed a drove of donkeys as “ my brother 
asses,” and I will confess when I see with what dull, base 
patience we, my brother citizens and taxpayers, suffer these 
evil and corrupt customs whose burdens always fall on our backs 
at last, I feel that it would be right to address each other as 
"brother asses.” The wrong is upon us and the power to relieve 
the wrong is with us, and 'patience ” is by no means “ virtue ;” 
patience is nothing less than sloth and cowardice. 
Abraham Lincoln is a name to charm with still, and how 
moderate Mr. Lincoln’s ideas of expense in elections and how 
