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Show jl Colonel Sterrett THE committees that handled the encampment business have been most patient under the jj parting shot that Col. Sterrett gave them. We l do not doubt, however, that they will in due time 1 make a showing which will give the public a it w faint idea how much they suffered and how much II ' they bore under the thought that the encampment I must be a success, regardless of the ostensible I director hero and his ways, hence we have no in- 'ft cllnatlon to anticipate anything vital which they D may desire to give the public or to the members I . of the G. A. It. association. ' H But there is a side to the business which it is R everybody's right to consider. Imagine then a m common man in the honored uniform of the Grand Army coming here, without education, without jig Inherent talent, without any clear knowledge of II the war itself, without any gifts, as either an Wk orator or a writer, without any clear idea of any III 6 oE the sImnle factB of nistory which all Americans 111 are supposed to know; coming here with an Idea ill that h's accomplishments would overawe the com-H com-H mon herd of the west from tli first day, and that ill within a week after his arrival he could send ill back to the little provincial towa In Ohio from V which ho hailed, the conclusive dispatch "Ven', III vldi, vlol.M B From that pen portrait rudely drawn the cas ual reader may see one reason why ho went away so chagrined and disappointed, that he could not refrain as he stood on the platform of the car about to move east, from hurling back a few plebeian anathemas at the people of this reglojn as lacking alike in patriotism, in generosity iiS business acumen, in adminstratlve ab'lity and all that in the eye of a great soldier falls to fill his Ideals. When Mr. Cleveland was first elected president, presi-dent, he pent a gentleman here from Illinois to be surveyor general of Utah. Old man Barrett of blessed memory met him and showed him around and finally took him to the Alta Club and introduced intro-duced him to the gentlemen there. Ho spent perhaps per-haps forty minutes in the club and as he and Mr. Barrett reached the street he said in a surprised and satisfied tone: "Barrett, from the hasty call I made at your club I would think that 60 per cent of those gentlemen compare favorably (In Intelligence) with the men of Illinois." He lived to know something and his knowledge came suddenly to him under the Influence of one of General McCook's deceiving punch bowls, but we - fear Colonel Sterrett -will never grow very much more In knowledge. We fear so because there is not room. The space is already occupied. When the big Cornish pump was started on the Ontario mine, there was a knock with every stroke of the piston. The late Colonel Ferry was riding by and heard it and, stopping. his Jiorse, called the engineer in charge of the pump to his buggy and said, "Why do you not stop that engine's knocking?" knock-ing?" "I have tried every device and cannot," Was the reply. Then the Colonel said, "There is no elasticity to steam but there Is to air; bore a small hole into your cylinder near the end on the exhaust side; the air may act as a buffer." The advice was accepted and acted upon and the knocking ceased. That might cure Col. Sterrett, only the cylinder of his intellect exhausts at both ends and we fear it is a hopeless case. |