to work the Campaigner's Companion and makes it almost a pleasure to aspire to office.
I have chosen as an illustration a speech that I have had prepared for Asheville, N. C., but all the others are equally applicable and apropos.
(Note: See that all bearing's are well oiled before you start, especially political bearings. See that the crank is just tight enough, without being too tight, and also that the journals do not get hot.)
Fellow-Citizens of Asheville and Buncombe County and Brother Tarheels from Away Back:
If I were a faithful Mohammedan and believed that I could never enter heaven but once, I would look upon Buncombe County and despair ever afterwards. (Four minutes for applause to die away.) Asheville is 2,339 feet above tide-water. She is the hotbed of the invalid and the home of the physical wreck who cannot live elsewhere, but who comes here and lives till he gets plum sick of it. Your mountain breezes and your fried chicken bear strength and healing in their wings. (Hold valve open two minutes and a half to give laughter full scope.) Your altitude and your butter are both high, and the man who cannot get all the fresh air he wants on your mountains will do well to rent one of your cottages and allow the wind to meander through his whiskers. Asheville is a beautiful spot, where a peri could put in a highly enjoyable summer, picknicking along the Swananea through the day and conversing with Plum Levy at his blood-curdling barber shop in the gloaming. Nothing can possibly be thrillinger than to hear Plum tell of the hair-breadth escapes his customers have had in his cozy little shop.
The annual rainfall here is 40.2 inches, while smoking tobacco and horned cattle both do well. Ten miles away stretches Alexander's. You are only thirty-five miles from Buck Forest. Pisgah Mountain is only twenty miles from here, and Tahkeeastee Farm is only a mile away, with its name extending on beyond as far as the eye can reach. The French Broad River bathes your feet on the right and the sun-kissed Swananoa, with its beautiful borders of rhododendrons, sloshes up against you on the other side. Mount Mitchell, with an altitude of 6,711 feet and an annual rain-fall of 53.8 inches, is but twenty miles distant, while Lower Hominy is near, and Hell's Half Acre, Sandy Mush and Blue Ruin are within your grasp.
The sun never lit up a cuter little town than Asheville. Nature just seemed to wear herself out on Buncombe County and then she took what she had left over to make the rest of the country. Your air is full of vigor. Your farms get up and hump themselves in the middle or on one side, so that you have to wear a pair of telegraph-pole climbers when you dig your potatoes. Here you will see the japonica, the jonquil and the jaundice growing side by side in the spring, and at the cheese-foundry you can hear the skipper calling to his mate.
Here is the home of General Tom Clingman, who first originated the idea of using tobacco externally for burns, scalds, ringworm, spavin, pneumonia, Bright's disease, poll evil, pip, garget, heartburn, earache and financial stringency Here Randolph & Hunt can do your job printing for you, and the Citizen and the Advance will give you the news.
You are on a good line of railroad and I like your air very much, aside from the air just played by your home band. Certainly you have here the makings of a great city. You have pure air enough here for a city four times your present size, and although I have seen most all the Switzerlands of America, I think that this is in every way preferable. People who are in search of a Switzerland of America that can be relied upon will do well to try your town.
And now, having touched upon everything of national importance that I can think of, I will close by telling you a little anecdote which will, perhaps, illustrate my position better than I could do it in any other way. (Here I insert a humorous anecdote which has no special bearing on the political situation and during the ensuing laughter the train pulls out.)
VERITAS
MY NAME is Veritas. I write for the papers. I am quite an old man and have written my kindly words of advice to the press for many years. I am the friend of the public and the guiding star of the American newspaper. I point out the proper course for a newly-elected member of Congress and show the thoughtless editor the wants of the people. I write on the subject of political economy; also on both sides of the paper. Sometimes I write on both sides of the question. When I do so I write over the name of Tax-Payer, but my real name is Veritas.
I am the man who first suggested the culvert at the Jim street crossing, so that the water would run off toward the pound after a rain. With my ready pen—ready, and trenchant also, as I may say—I have, in my poor, weak way, suggested a great many things which might otherwise have remained for many years unsuggested.
I am the man who annually calls for a celebration of the Fourth of July in our little town, and asks for some young elocutionist to be selected by the committee, whose duty it shall be to read the Declaration of Independence in a shrill voice to those who yearn to be thrilled through and through with patriotism.
Did I not speak through the columns of the press in clarion tones for a proper observance of our nation's great natal day in large gothic extended caps, the nation's starry banner would remain furled and the greased pig would continue to crouch in his lair. With the aid of my genial co-workers Tax-Payer, Old Settler, Old Subscriber, Constant Reader, U. L. See, Fair Play, and Mr. Pro Bono Publico, I have made the world a far more desirable place in which to live than it would otherwise have been.
My co-laborer, Mr. Tax-Payer, is an old contributor to the paper, but he is not really a taxpayer. He uses this signature in order to conceal his identity, just as I use the name Veritas. We have a great deal of fun over this at our regular annual reunions, where we talk about all our affairs.
Old Settler is a young tenderfoot who came here last spring and tried to obtain a livelihood by selling an indestructible lamp-chimney. He did well for several weeks by going to the different residences and throwing one of his glass chimneys on the floor with considerable force to show that it would not break. He did a good business till one day he made a mistake. Instead of getting hold of his exhibition chimney, he picked out one of the stock and busted it beyond recognition. Since that he has been writing articles in violet ink relative to old times and publishing them over the signature of Old Settler.
Old Subscriber is a friend of mine who reads his paper at the hotels while waiting for a gratuitous drink. Fair Play is a retired monte man, and Pro Bono Publico is our genial and urbane undertaker.
I am a very prolific writer, but all my work is not printed. A venal and corrupt press at times hesitates about giving currency to such fearless, earnest truths as I make use of.
I am also the man who says brave things in the columns of the papers when the editor himself does not dare to say them because he is afraid he will be killed. But what recks Veritas the bold and free? Does he flinch or quail? Not a flinch; not a quail.
Boldly he flings aside his base fears, and with bitter vituperation he assails those he dislikes, and attacks with resounding blows his own personal enemies, fearlessly signing his name, Veritas, to the article, so that those who yearn to kill him may know just who he is.
What would the world do without Veritas? In the hands of a horde of journalists who have nothing to do but attend to their business, left with no anonymous friend to whom they can fly when momentous occasions arise, when the sound advice and better judgment of an outside friend is needed, their condition would indeed be a pitiable one. But he will never desert us. He is ever at hand, prompt to say, over his nom de plume, what he might hesitate to say over his own name, for fear that he might go home with a battle of Gettysburg under each eye and a nose like a
