Judge — June 15, 1912 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

'O MAN seeks the presidential nomi- nation. Anybody who brazenly steps before the public, thumps his manly chest, advertises himself and works for the job violates every dictate of decency and decorum. In recognition of this great truth, men of both parties begin every four years crafty preparations for having the honor forced upon them. Each fel- low makes his closest friend promise to manage his campaign, hires a brigade of trusty press agents, engages the ser- vices of an expert card indexer, gives out an interview saying that he has no idea he will be nominated and then, having transformed himself into a lightning rod upon which the presi? dential thunderbolts may beat to their heart's content, he disap- pears. Climbing laboriously, but rapid- ly, the Mount of Self-Abnegation, he ties around his neck the mill- stone of humility and leaps into the deep, unruffled sea of quiet and oblivion. He becomes, as if by magic, a shrinking violet, a blos- som harder to discover than the blue rose, a gentle and fragile thing that will wither, pine away and die under the glare of the ris- ing sun. Wrapping about his Na- poleonic brow the cerements and shrouds of silence, he makes his way into that gloomy and black-plumed yard known as dignified and judicious retire- ment, where he suddenly becomes as talkative as a fish and as approachable as a vestal virgin. He cultivates reti- cence, wears a self-adjusting and double- backacting gag, refuses himself to inter- viewers and hides in the dismal and penumbral shades of solitude. All at once, in the twinkling of an eye, he is gone—gone into pallescent and paludal exile. He is mummified by his modesty. But he remains crafty. Into his wire, and the cerements and shrouds are not wrapped about his head so tightly that he cannot adjust the receiver to his sensitive ear. And once in a long while a fleet-footed courier, beating a pathway through the everglades of his solitude, tells him how goes the battle, reports on the condition of the campaign fund and brings him a message that it is his duty to make a ‘‘whirlwind tour” of the country or to send an ‘‘open letter’’ to Billy Jones, of Podunk Gap, describing exactly how the common people are to be saved from the crime and greed of corporations and monopolies. Fighting three fast rounds with his modesty, knocking the traditions of a cehtury into a million iridescent atoms and conquering his personal sufferings, he emerges from the wilderness of his self-abasement and spends the next few weeks in screaming loudly from the rear platform of a Pullman car and abusing madly the railroad chef. After this, his head publicity man ropes him, hamstrings him, throws him into a corner and beats him over the head with a fountain pen until he reluct- antly, but gabbily, gives up all the tender little details of his boyhood ex- periences, all the triumphs of his college funereal refuge he has run a telephone ' career, and all his struggles with Dame Fortune, including that crucial en- counter when he grabbed the lady by the throat and choked her into submission. Allof this is published in the daily newspapers, thanks to the industry and leg muscles of the press agents. Of course, it pains the candidate greatly to have his life exposed in this manner, but, when you modestly engage in the gentle art of having yourself catapulted into the presidential nomination, you are naturally immensely annoyed every min- ute. Sometimes you have to have vero- nal to make you sleep. Financing a fight for the nomination is a delicate and difficult thing. It is like dancing a fandango on the thin ice of danger and destruction. The candidate modestly never knows where the money comes from. If he does, being a sensible man and averse to investigation and rude questions, he promptly forgets it. But his dear friend has to beat it up and down this fair land and get the coin. If handed to him willingly, he grabs it. If this does not happen, he grabs it anyhow, taking care to issue a statement daily that he accepts no contribu- tions from corporations or rich malefactors. Nobody believes this, but it sounds exceedingly nice and ladylike, not to say idiotic. A real flossy up-to-date pre-conven- tion organization consists of the follow- ing: The candidate, his dear friend and manager, political scouts, press agents, a financial representative, a secretary and a corps of stenographers—all this meaning that no man ever seeks the nomination. And there can be no doubt about it. When it comes to modesty, sense and acumen, the modest candidate makes old Rhadamanthus look like an ossified body surmounted by a petrified bean. He is modestly awake to the main chance. comicbooks.com