Life — April 30, 1896 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

Shaking with laughter, Lycurgus McKinlius hurried away out of reach of the cane. ‘The idea of an alleged statesman being so ignorant,” he said later to one of his henchmen. “The idea of His Barrelship saying ‘we shall meet at Philippi,’ when everybody that reads the newspapers knows we're going to meet in St. Looey in June!” Tothe hour of his death Lycurgus McKinlius was an ardent champion of ahigh protective tariff. It is related that one winter day he stood in the street with hat and shoulders covered with snow, and half-frozen tears streaming from his eyes. - —— “Why do you weep?” asked Cato Reedimus. i * Why do I weep?" McKinlius cried, pointing upward toward PLUTARCH'S LIVES 7.0 DATE: the thickly falling snow, “It breaks my heart, Reedimus, to see all this stuff coming in free!" Earle H. Eaton. THE PRAYER. LYCURGUS MCKINLIUS, THE LAW-GIVER. YCURGUS MCKINLIUS, Jr., the Law-Giver of the Buckeye Province, inherited the Spartan simplicity of his remote ances- tor, Lycurgus of old, who was in the simplicity business long before T. Jeflerson, He was simple enough, in fact, to imagine that the people would stand a tax on everything but air to protect “infant industries " capitalized at $20,000,000 €ach. Being a native of Ohio, it was natural that he should aspire to the presidency, for every Ohioan thinks he has a mortgage on the White House. About the only man in Ohio who has not foreclosed is John Shermanus, the author of How I Was T’run Down in "Eighty-Eight.” As a boy Lycurgus McKinlius attended the public schools under protest because they were on the free list, and longed to grow up rapidly and get where he could have a Congress ‘on his hands. At 17 he was a soldier; at 21 he was a captain and brevet- major ; at 24 he was a lawyer; at 33 he was a congressman ; at 47 he was a governor; and at s2, in 186, he was longing to emulate another great Ohioan by leading an army of the un- employed (Republicans) to Washington. Lycurgus McKinlius reached the very pinnacle of fame when he posed before the public on his famous Tariff Bill. In all the earth there was nothing higher than that bill for ‘THE FORMAL RECONCILIATION, him to stand on. We are told that in 186 when both Lycurgus McKinlius and Levi Parsons Mortonus Diogenes, the Grand Old Man of Ellerslie Stock Farm, were coquetting with Metoo Tomplattus, Casca Quayimus and ‘other State bosses and endeavoring to win their support for the presi- dential nomination, the rival candidates met one day and immediately fell to abusing one another. “Your aspirations for the presidency are absurd. The tariff is a back number, and so are you, McKinlius,” sneered Mortonus Diogenes, leaning y on his cane. Speaking of back numbers, Methuselah was a gay young buck compared with you,” retorted McKinlius. ‘You must think the White House is a Home for the Aged Order of Superannuated Has-Beens.” “Get you gone, Lycurgus McKinlius,” Mortonus Diogenes cried inarage. ‘Get you gone; but remember—remember— THE compat. we shall meet af Philippi!” icbooks.com