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Show The Perils of Politics By JAMES J. MONTAGUE i all and each of those long days, the candidate never turned a hair, never faltered In a speech for an instant, never failed to say something pleasant pleas-ant abcut the town and the people In it, and never showed a sign of fatigue. Often when I was dragging my weary way to bed In a hotel after a terrific day, I would hear him as I passed his suite dictating a speech or discussing something with the native na-tive political yeomanry. And at seven sev-en o'clock in the morning he was out and ready again, his geniality unimpaired unim-paired and his zest for battle keener than ever. On the last night that I accompanied accompa-nied the procession we returned to town In a sleeping car which we boarded at midnight. As 1 passed his stateroom I heard him dictating, "And, as 1 have said so many times before, there are Issues In this campaign cam-paign which " Then I went to my berth and tried to get a little sleep. In the morning I found him packing away a solid breakfast. "Aren't you Dearly all In?" 1 said. "All in!" he asked. "H I no. By the way, If you see my secretary, ask him to come In here. I've Just thought of something I ought to say lo the meeting I'm going to speak to when we get into town." , Bell Syndicate. WNU Service. My service as a member of a cam-ia!gn cam-ia!gn squad have been discontinued permanently. One ought to have something In his past to look back j upon with gratitude because It Is not likely to occur again. Life, after nil, Is enjoyable, but as far as we can be sure, only while one is living It I survived once, but should a second opportunity come to me to travel about on the trail of a candidate, I should politely but firmly leave it un-grasped. un-grasped. In earlier days a man who had been nominated to the high office to which he aspired was carried from town to town in a comfortable railroad rail-road train, escorted to his hotel at the head of a parade and later to the hall in which he was to speak. Seated Seat-ed In n comfortable horse-drawn carriage car-riage he bowed to left and right and waved his hand at the cheering multitudes mul-titudes ranged along the street to do him honor. He made a speech at noon and a speech at night. Then retired to his hotel, ate a comfortable dinner, and spent an hour or two discussing dis-cussing the situation with his local supporters, after which he went to bed and to sleep. That pleasant and enjoyable routine rou-tine disappeared with the coming of the automobile, and with the assistance, assist-ance, by party leaders, of whirlwind campaigns. I have seen whirlwinds In the West and have been awed by them, and wished I was elsewhere. But many days during my service as the supporter of a candidate, I have regarded the days when sections of barns and rural hridges and unhappy unhap-py cows and calves were spinning through the air as days to which I would gladly return. For pep has been put into politics. Our candidate did not put It there, perhaps, but he made no effort to remove re-move It. lie is one of those people ' who likes to shake hands, and who had learned how to get In the first grip, so that his fingers will not be wrung from him by his devoted admirers. ad-mirers. He has learned to write six or seven speeches while he Is driving through the countryside at sixty or seventy miles an hour, and to make the one that seems best suited to the occasion when his local advisors call the parade to a halt. And, nfter a day that would leave a Bengal tiger limp and panting, he thinks nothing of sitting up till two or three In the morning talking with his retinue about what he ought to do tomorrow. But It wasn't so much that that troubled me. It was the dash from town to town or from countryside to countryside In which we who followed fol-lowed his car in a huge reeling motor bus had to participate. On some days he was scheduled for six afternoon after-noon speeches in towns fifty or more miles apart. After breakfast we, of his following, would clamber Into the vast bus, take our seats, get a firm hold on a strap, set our teeth, and dash forth. Ahead of us was the candidate, listening to advisors who were giving giv-ing liim tips as to what to talk about to the next 'audience, and paying scant attention to them. Ahead of him were other retainers, talking over suggestions and plans to lay before be-fore him, and ahead of them were either two uniformed motorcycle policemen po-licemen or a flivver containing state policemen. In ten minutes after the start we were making fifty miles an hour. The sirens on the police cars or cycles shrieked like fire trucks racing through a city, the limousines rocked and swayed, and the motor bus leaped from depression to depression on the road like a giant jack rabbit. Rural motorists, truck drivers, farmers, farm-ers, appalled at the din, drew up beside be-side the road and gazed at us with paling faces as we sped by them. Children raced beside the way shrieking madly. Men and women darted from farm houses and gaped over the fences at us. But on we rushed, unheeding. Presently there was a signal from the sirens ahead, the brakes ground all along the array of cars, and we came to a stop in front of a school house or a town hall. Out hopped the candidate, Into the building he rushed, made a five-minute speech, paused to shake out-stretched hands, then we all went into our equipages and forth we embarked o'er the hard high road. On one occasion we found the audience consisted of children who would have to wait for another ten years before they attained voting age. The candidate was a little taken tak-en aback, but he made a short speech, asked them to tell their parents par-ents about it, and away we raced again. We learned afterward that by some mistake we had got Into the wrong hall, but there was no time to fuss about that. Soon we began to glimpse church spires and the tops of skyscrapers over the trees and low hills, and knew that a city was near. 1 sat back with a sigh of gratitude. Here at least the pace must slow. Not even a political caravan could make its way through city streets at sixty miles an hour. I lit a cigar and prepared pre-pared to take a few minutes of ease. They were never taken. Outside the city we slowed down, but only to exchange our rural guard for a covey of city mounted policemen, and these gentlemen had motor cycles, not horses. Before I could catch a fresh breath, they set their sirens going continuously, and in their wake we rocked and roared along, around corners, cor-ners, over streets under repair and down narrow lanes, never once slackening slack-ening our gait. If we came closer to a truck or a street car than the drivers driv-ers had reckoned on, we merely shifted shift-ed over a few feet while two wheels hiped up on the sidewalk, scattering startled pedestrains left and right, and proceeded on our way. How we ever got through, and how a hundred people or so ever had the agility to escape us, Is something that will forever remain a secret to me. But we did it, and presently were flowing forth from the bus and swarming into a hotel. But not to rest. Three minutes after our arrival the candidate was making a speech and shaking hands. Five minutes later he was telling us what would be his plans for the afternoon. aft-ernoon. In another one minute we were forth and to the harvest field again. Night brought no respite. There were two, and sometimes three speeches, frantic battles to get Into the halls and out again, and often dashes through the night to some suburban hall which the local boys had forgotten for the nonce, but insisted in-sisted must be visited. And through |
