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r •V..J; .v. M©1 mmm The Real Issue f> '6 f WILLIAM ALLEN WHITB •,kr*»Mi«an&. T WAS near the close of a long session--a session which had lasted a' winter and a spring and a gummer, and threatened to push itself Kbto the first days of autumn, when fVhartoti, the western member, who m been In the house five terms, con- 4uded to pack his valise and go home. 1Tb*- campaign was growing warm. #?early all of the county conventions fcari been held, and a majority of the delegates elected were Instructed for fclm, which Insured his renominatlon % the three remaining counties in the fUstrlct did not go solidly against him. lie bad laid his plan mechanically for j| renominatlon, and If he bad stopped to ask himself whether or not he really %anted to come back to congress, he «rould probably have said no. He was tSred. but he did not know why'. He thought he needed rest, that he had een overworked, that he was played 4§ut; yet his private secretary, who tept the run of the pension business nd did his routine work, did not seem Hired--the private secretary even had Refused a vacation, and it was at the tary's own request that be stayed Washington. x! But Wharton, the western member, , jlras tired--dead tired, and he pictured himself the pleasures of going back to his home In the little town of Baxwhere people on the streets who 4bad seen him grow up from a boy and •Called him "Tom," really were glad to m** him. Just before he had left hia , rooms for the departing train his private secretary had handed him the -;|lay'a clippings; and after he had been ||r ;%ldlng for an hour or so, while he was -fumbling In his pockets for a match, ' they tumbled out In a tight little roll. ? >He idly read them. He was used to just abuse and sick of uncalled-for raise. The first clipping was taken the Queen City Daily Herald; it y^'lwre a Washington date line, and was :i;j_|ntrodiiced by the words, "Special to %he Herald." It read: They say here that Whprton of the (HrtJjfpoorth district. Is beginning to fed l|L .T^Hneasy. He has reoplved several let- ; ters from his district that have conduced him that the Populist cyclone ;; has shaken down several lengths of 'Violence in Lee, Meade and Smith eounf ;:fllss. Bill Heatley's strength is said to '• ' developing down there wonderfully. •: V*fco Hon. Ike Russell, who was here | last week looking for a job as receiver ,Of the Baxter National bank, was in 3'ielose consultation with Wharton three •V«f the four nights he was here, and the 5 **old man" is wearing a hunted look and is talking to himselfc They say j $ down in the Fourth district that it will take more than "Our Tom" Wharton's £1#, tug to explain away his silver vote. |ps i Wharton knew the correspondent and ^ „ ,'oniy smiled as he flipped the wadded |^v**lpping out of the car window. There "St, .was a short editorial clipping froiti the I.* aame paper. It read: The dispatches say that "Our Tom" pr;' &-Wharton is wiggling in his seat and f; > ,i trying to project his astral body in the t'\. i:;|Ifourth district to see how his fences £ ; »jare, and at the same time to keep his * • _t corporeal body In Washington to look k Rafter Ike Russell's pie plate. If "Our p . Tom" doesn't fall down in his anxiety W,\, to keep one foot in the "bloody Fourth" » ud the other at the political - bake te shop, he must be either a Colossus of » Rhodes or a "quadrille dancer." WTharton dropped that on the floor fcx i^and read another from the Smith Counitjr Farmer's Friend. It was long and ffull of double leads and "break lines" - and italics and exclamation points. It ... 'was abusive in the extreme and closed | J I'Wlth this tirade: / Now, let us reason together. Tom | Wharton has been In congress ten £ years; he had been jndge six years before entering congress, and county su- /perlntendent four years before he was - judge. Twenty years has this man is been in office; his total salary in that i time has been only $70,000. Yet he Is ; rated by the commercial agencies at •% one-half million dollars. He has banks and railroad stock; he owns mortgages and farms. Where did he get them? His time has been sold to the people; he has been false to every .. trust; he has voted with the East on the money question; he has neglected the farmers at every turn. He Is a garden-seed congressman; he comes : out here and haw-haws around, and then goes back to vote with Wall street. Wall street knows Its friends, •i and "Our Tom" is worth one-half mil- ? Hon dollars, lives In a mansion filled | with hammered brass at Baxter, while ^the farmer foots the bills. Wharton knew that the editor of the : Farmer's Friend had been a candidate for the post office at Smith City; that ' he himself had lent the editor money •f- and held his note for $500. He put ;« the clipping in his pocketbook with v a sigh, and looked through the other i scraps of paper. There were perhaps - a dozen--a few of them laudatory to an offensive degree, some clearly bids for money, and the rest a fair dlscus- ' lion of his candidacy. V Wharton's first week In the district was spent at Baxter. He did praoti- «ally nothing to secure his renominatlon, although wise-looking men from V each of the three doubtful counties " came every day to Baxter and went directly from the train to Wharton's rf house. They all wanted jmoney or promises of "assistance"; and each of them told how some precinct could be "*wung into line" by a little work on the part of the certain third person-- always nameless--who would need money for cigars and Ihrery hire. Wharton put these staMHMHl off. and they went away doubting^whether they would support the "old man" or fight him. The congressman's presence In the little town was an event, and he had callers all day long who seemed to need help In different ways. Soldiers desired pensions, mothers ssked for positions in Washington for their sons; young women called to see about clerkships; widows, whose husbands he had known, came to borrow money. He was honestly glad to see all these people and, when he could, he helped them; he rarely made an enemy, even though he always ^gas frank. It was Saturday evening, and Wharton Was just en&rlng' on his second week at home, he and his friend, "Ike" Russell, were sitting on the southern porch of the congressman's home. Their wives and daughters were in the parlor around the piano, and the two men were at that preliminary stage of conversation in which ideas are conveyed by grunts and monosyllables. "What did Hughe^ of Smith City want today?" asked Russell. "About two hundred, more or less," said the congressman. "Hoghey's a thief; he'd spend about $25, and the rest woald go into his jeans." "I suppose so," 'Wharton answered. "Say we lose Smith cqpnty?" "Well, you say," said his friend. "Did you see Htgglns, from Lee valley? He told me last month that he had five fellows who could swing Lee county for $100 apiece." . "Ugh," grunted the congressman. "That makes $2,900 so far, if I come down." "Well, that's cheaper than you got off before--by several hundred." Wharton yawned, and the silence that followed was broken only by the tinkle of the cow bells in the valley below the town, and the splash of water over the dam across the river that runs around the village. Occasionally the sound of voices singing on the water or the notes of a guitar would come' up on the gusts of wind. The piano in the parlor was silent, and the moon was barely visible under the eastern corner of the porch. man, but Wh. ion went on as If to keep the thread of the conversation In his teeth. "Yes, yes, Ik* X know about my Phlff hat and all that; and then do yon remember how I ran for judge and was nominated for congress back in '84 as a dark, horse on the three hundredth ballot, and how I was elected and told the people from the box down by the bonfire In the public square that I was going to be worthy of the honor? Ike, the tears I shed there was honest tears, for God knows how proud I was. All these ten years were before me, and what a great ten years I hoped they would be. I thought of my plans as a boy--you and me on the fence down In the valley, Ike--and I looked over all the names in congress then--ten years ago I mean--and they seemed great names to me. I could hardly wait to get to Washington to see the men and to be one of them. I was such a boy, Ike--ten years ago." Each man puffed his cigar in a moment's pause. Wharton lighted a fresh one. Russell thought in so many words: "It's one of Tom's talkative nights." Wharton took up the thread-'where it had dropped. "Here I am, Ike, a flesh-and-blood statesman. I've been in It and through IL I've held as high a place In the organization of the house as any of the great men We used to read about* I've passed a pension bill--and the old soldiers, for whom I worked night and day during six months, have passed resolutions against me. I have had my name on a silver bill for which the flat money fellows have abused jne. I've led my party through two successful fights. And what is there in it? You know, As well as I do, that it is hollow--all a hollow show. What's the use of it? Why should a man wear his life out up there in that city just to keep his name in print? There was a man named Kelfer--ran Ohio wan, who was speaker of the house once. Who that reads the papers knows anything of him today? Yet he worked his life nearly out to be a statesman. Where are the Seconds In the Blaine-Conkllng fight? Ike, there's nothing in It but ashes. The politician said nothing; he did The men had not know how the talk was turning. n "They Ware Tall/Thin, Sparo Men in 8wa I low-tail Coats and Chokers, and Hair That Looked Fierce and States manlike." smoked III silence a few moments when Wharton spld: "Ike, mfiat is the real issue In this campjiiW?" "I duftno, old man; sometimes I think It's the tariff; sometimes I think It's silver; and then at other times I Just give it all up. What's your idea, Tom?" The congressman did not reply at once; he seemed to be pulling his ideas together for a longer speech than usual. He twisted his gray mustache nervously; he looked askance at his friend, who was apparently listening to the music that had Just started up again in the parlor. Wharton went over to the garden hose which was turned upon a shrub, changed its course, came back, relighting his cigar, and said: "B'Godfrey, I don't know, Ike, I don't know. Do you remember when we used to cut corn at six cents a shock, and go to school down the valley where those cow bells were tinkling a little while ago? We used to sit on the fence of nights like this and talk 'way Into the night about what we were going to do?" "Yes?" said the politician, expectantly. "Yes, and I used to hope ty go to congress some day; we used % talk of the old-time statesmen and read their speeches in the school readers --Clay and Calhoun and the great man whose names we knew as boys, "ffiky were tall, spare men in swallow-tailed coats and chokers, and hair that looked flei-ce and statesmanlike. Do you remember the congressman from this district forty years ago; how dignified he was, what a really great man he must have been? He lived greatness every hour of his life. The men who went to the territorial legislature-- how superior they seemed, with their tall hats and * close-buttoned coats! Ike, do you remember when I went to the legislature in the winter of *70, and came back discouraged and disappointed with the sham .of it all--the row and the rings and the schemes?" Russell would have Interjected some reminiscent joke on the young states- "Ike," resumed the congressman, taking a firmer hold on his cigar, and tightly grasping the arms of the chair, "Ike, what's the use? Here comes a lot of Bills and Dicks and Toms and Harrys, who want me to put up $2,3Q0 and promises that I'll be two years working to keep, just to go back there. I go back there and work and fret and stew for this, that and 'for the other thing that I don't care a cent for. I have no heart in it; I feel like a sneak; I have to swallow my pride; I've no ideals; there is no reward; nothing but higgling with a lot of mercenary, Impecunious thieves here at home, and log-rolling with a lot of shrewder shy* sters of the same sort in congress at Washington. If I go on, I must buy my way in; buy my own slavery, Ike, slavery to the fellows I despise. I know I've done It three or four times, but I kept thinking the end would some day justify the means. But it doesn't; it never will; it's a fraud, Ike, and I'm done. I am going to be honest Just for once In my life. I don't have to go to congress; I can be lots happier her&--here with friends and my family and--now don't laugh, old man --and--and--my honor. That's a little stagey, Ike, but that's the real issue in this campaign and I'm out of this fight. Let's go In and hear tha music, Ike. That's the end of it, I've thought It all over and I've dedded." Probably most men--at least most moralizing men--would have called the "old man" weak had they seen him the following Monday making out a check payable to Isaac Russell for $2,300. But most men do not know what It Is to rtorshii) an idol for a lifetime, and they cannot understand how a man can love his Idol even when he knows to his bitter sorrow that it is only clay. A 8p«llblndsr. "Your wife makes a splendid speech." "Yes," replied Mr. Meekton; "and I noticed she Impressed an entire audience the same way she does me. She says what she likes and no one even thinks of talking back."--Washington Star. BUTTKRFLV8 FAREWELL CALL Now Mr. Monarch Butterfly had been talking and singing to Mr. Sun, . . and he had made all his plans for going away for the ' winter months. It was his custom to go South, add he traveled by wing, as the birds travel by wing. He was going to make one call before he left--that was on his friend Sir Clouded , Sulphur Butterfly. "Ah yeo," said Mr. Monarch Butterfly once more, "it Is fine that I can travel South In the winter. "It is more/Mnteresting to travel than to sleep. "Of course those who sleep in the winter wouldn't agree with me. But then It would be a dull world If everyone agreed with everyone else, a very dull world Indeed. "And It would be a dull world If everyone did the same thing as everyone else. "Well, I mast bfe off for my call, and then for my Journey. Bow lucky I am that I do not have to carry my luggage. "I don't have to bother about express companies and railway trains and tickets and such nonsense. "I don't need any tlc&et the way I travel, no Indeed, and I don't need a; trunk, and I don't need a suitcase. All i I need to do Is fly by day and rest on/: the bushes at plght. Sometimes I'll have companions and sometimes not." The Monarc/i flew over to his friend. Sir Clouded Sulphur Butterfly. Sir Clouded Sulphur was at home in his Clover library. "I've come to say good-by for the winter," said Mr. Monarch Butterfly. Tm going down South, as is the-family custom." "I'm sorry to see you go," said Blr Clouded Sulphur, "but soon I'll be asleep, and I wouldn't be very sociable that way. "Isn't it rather a long trip to take by/ yourself?" he added. "I should think: you'd be afraid." "Oh, It's always hard to leave, I suppose," Mr. Monarch Butterfly salft "I can't bear to say good-by, but I don't care to sleep for the whole winter, as so many of you do, and so I must go to a warm climate. £ "Sometimes I do feel a little afraid. But, Sir Clouded, we'll ^ever get anywhere at all If we're alwaya afrald, will we? v "And I wouldn't deserve my name of Monarch Butterfly if I \vere a coward and afraid to go adventuring. Besides, I've had narrow escapes here. "I've been sitting in the warm sunshine sipping -sweet drinks, and live almost been caught! "I've passed through danger*, anil I'm not afraid. I want to have adventures. I want to see the great, wide world. I want to go where (he birds go, where there'll be singing all through the winter! I love music. And the flowers will bloom, too! "And Mr. Sun has promised that he will not fall to see that I keep warm. 8o I'm going. It is exciting to think that I shall fly off this very day! "And I'll go beyond these hills and these valleys- for a journey and ad-., ventures." "It Is ai) right for you," said Sir! Clodded Sulphur, "but I never, never, never want to leave my home." "You make me feel a little homesick already," said Mr. Monarch Butterfly. "Good-by, good-by, pleasant sleep!" Sir Clouded Sulphur waved a goodby In his cheery fashion. And then Mr. Monarch started off. Then he turned back after he had gone just a little way., "Good-by, milkweed home," he whispered, as he bent down over the mll^Jk* weed plant which had been his beloved food and resting place and p 1 a y ground, "please be here when I comeback in the spring.' "You've made me so happy, and I love you so, my little simple, beloved milkweed home" Then ha kissed one of the leaves and also took a wee bit along for a keepsanel He felt rather sad for a few moments and then be spread out his wings and took a deep breath of the sweet autumn air "How foolish I was to feel sad!" ha exclaimed "I couldn't sleep all winter and I'd freeze my wings If I stayed up here. And Mr. Sun Is going to shine over me. I'll not be lonely. "There may be dangers ahead--but I'm leaving dangers behind. And I'm not afraid. "For what Is life without adventures ?" And he began his long flight, straight for the warm and sunny South I "Good-by, Milk- Homs." SPEAKING FOR MOTHER It was so hot It seemed to me I «sold scarcely live. I had cleaned house thoroughly, made a cake, baked bread, canned tomatoes and peaches, and by night was completely exhaustad. Just as w* sat down to supper three mj husband's nieces appeared with ge sufficient, seemingly, to last Whole ttauaer. These nieces are mm# Thgy ' v . \ A v; vSki&itb* come, uninvited, each summer, and expect to be waited u£on as summer guests at a fashionable hotel. I cannot appear to be glad to have them, and my children all know they bore me. It Is a common saying In ottr family that If a rooster trows in front of a door It is a sure sign some one is coming. Well, at breakfast next morning a rooster came right to our kitchen door «nd crowed with all his might. Harold, who knew my state of mind, sppko ./ up immediately, "Stoat Up, booster. Mother doesn't want any more company."--Chicago Tribune. it iffigle scale from a salmon will tell you Its owners' age, and whether his pickings ' have been slim or the Opposite. When viewed through a microscope the scale will reveal tiny lines, which have developed at the rate of 16 a year. Lines crowded close prove that the salmon has been living high. Lines widely spread indicate a scant diet . -j. • ...W. i.jjiSlife Prtsent Was Lacking. Jane, aged>four, had S«ist'W turned home after her first morning in kindergarten. "Well," asked her mother, "how did you like it?" "Didn't like it at all," she replied. "The woman put me on a chair and told me to sit still there for the present--" "But," Interrupted her mother, "wasn't that ali right?" "But," continued Mary Jane, "aha nover gave ma any prassot." - • ; . j . On the Road of Good Intentions jo*n,m pitv5 iiilTmm H&fi Hot <0 Iggp f •ruffitaiw . „ <J\ SAXkGEf AHEM! tKTlWrfTC r &\nO0nP a UK *Vr,3^ h niSM/5 Oh, Mickie! oh OtSf loowrf iMWA . ^vir ^ ^ WORMS! : • GcotrA ao too AM » .r ,*?,*>1 Ams®m A OCC? BM& VOt«6) 19 KMCKVCS weu-, M\CKIE SICK MU> Q*UY CONNS to •choou \S WW (voice P*O»A iwe otHea EMO "> WHO wittl fipeAnma? v?r 'V'- - jjfy T'HW 'UP1,' « * Surprised at You, Mother f ; ; : ' V I>» GIADTO ^Et "frEYRE REPAIRING WHAT *> mAT o MACHINE. FREDDIE» t o t ' - THE ROATfc --THEN CEPCTAtNLX NEED IT #; % -it: i V5^ ; a 5DEAM 3H0VEI how Does IOOP.K ? ¥/ 4|p. WELL MOTHtfc, I CHESS Wou DON'T know MUCH ABOUT "HlSTfcRW HOW DOES? IT VJ0RK f Nmowf Uftioit The City Man's Garden The city man's backyard garden ts ah Inherited expression of the cropgrowing instinct. What of the man who hates gardening and flower planting? He probably likes to roam in the woods and fisl}--a throwback to ancestors who lived by fishing and hunting. They were roanie.s. unlike the soil tillers. Another type In spring goes cnuy on sport. If they could trace their family tress far enough, they'd probably find gladiators and professional soldiers at the roots. Nature intended all men to be tillers of the soli. Wandering therefrom, *'e have economic and health problems that result from congestion. From these we revolt In springtime--revert to type fish, roam, plant vegetables, tfees, grass and : First Paper Makers. Wisps construct their paper nests from wood pulp; and it Is quite likely that ages ago, when the human rat*/; was In a far more primitive state than It Is at present. It gained Its idea In paper manufacture from tha social wasps, which had the sama habits then as now, says the American Forestry Magazine. Most of the** social wasnfl obtain the material froaa which thejr make their paper from the looser parts of the surface of old, impainted fence boards, rails, house shingles and so on, and it is formed into the necessary pulp by being chewed up with the saliva u a mixer.