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Show H Teddy Comes Marching Home H 4tj t)NDON PUNCH" In a catchy stylo pic- H J tures the United States government over- H thrown by Colonel Roosevelt and the H Colonel proclaimed emperor. But "Punch" does M not show very much originality in the sketch. It H pictures the Colonel obtaining power by a coupe 9 . do main, even as poor old Louis Napoleon did. H The idea that anything so tame, so wanting In H dramatic climaxes, so little likely to induce news- m paper notices, would do for our Colonel is too H ridiculous to consider. He should have been por- 1 trayed swooping down on the capitol, he and his H rough riders, all on aeroplane,, horses and men H and riata, carbines and sashes, revolvers and H sheath knives, with a new flag bearing a lion cou- V chant and a black rhinoceros rampant, and in one m corner of the flag a shield, the escutcheon bear- fl ing in burnished brass the words, "What the H , Hall!" Then on alighting the Colonel should be B represented as making a speech something like B My braves, I hated to do this. They forced B me to it. The government had become so cor- i rupt, the people so lax in their duties the truth k is most of them except a few of us won't do Bf that I felt it an imperious duty to interfere and B do what Washington and Lincoln failed to do, B give them a government of me, by me and mostly B for me. About once in so often the world b- B comes so trifling that a man has to be born to Bf restore things. It was so with big Alec of Mace- Bj don; so with old Sesostris; so with Genghis Khan H and Tamerlane; so with Charlemagne; so with B Napoleon. Hence I am here. Bf There will be no occasion for Congress to B conveno this year; it always was a worry to me. B Billie Taft, naturally a well meaning man and fair B lawyer, only he has that obsolete idea about strict B construction that is sometimes troublesome, be- B cause laws, like the currency, ought to be elastic, M I will make a chief justice on the understand- B ing that he will run the supreme court my way. B It will take me a week or ten days to get every- B thing settled so that we can have a government M of us, by us, and chiefly for us, that free govern- M . ment may not perish from the earth. And any B man who objects may be put down as a liar, and B an enemy of the people." |