A CALIFORNIAN STATESMAN
PERSONS who have not had the advantage of hearing about the Hon. Henry Vrooman in the past ten or twelve years will be surprised to learn that he is still living. The man has more lives than a ship-load of cats from Malta. In the past few years he has been dying of heart disease so fast that he is in danger of becoming extinct. His death-rate is appalling! He has died in every voting precinct in this part of the state, and his last words are about to be compiled in three volumes. Whenever Mr. Vrooman wants “the suffrages of his fellow-citizens” he gets them together in a hall, makes them a speech, assures them that his sands of life are pretty nearly run out, closes with some neat and appropriate patriotic sentiment suitable to the sad occasion, and then flops down and dies all over the floor. Just before the vital spark is extinct the meeting is adjourned by turning off the gas and the corpse is at liberty to rise and go home. The next morning Mr. Vrooman’s political organ relates how he was snatched from the jaws of death, though his conditionis still critical; and the sovereign electors say: “Well, poor feller, he’s on his last legs anyway—guess it won’t do much harm to elect him.” The wretch never drew a cent of salary without committing the crime of obtaining money by false pretenses; he is always elected on the understanding that he is to die.
But he doesn’t die—he is immortal. The moment that the “innumerable caravan” has passed the polling place he drops out of the procession and hangs about for his certificate of election. Then we hear no more about his poor heart until his term is about to expire, when it begins to trouble him again. He and his term generally manage to expire together in the sure and certain hope of a blessed resurrection.
In the closing hours of the last session of the state senate somebody made a motion to limit all speeches to ten minutes. This brought Mr. Vrooman to his hind feet forthwith. “Mr. President,” he said, “standing as I do upon the threshold of the Unknown, and turning back to address my fellow-citizens for the last time, I feel grateful indeed that an all-wise Providence has so ordered it that my final words can be spoken in advocacy of the righteous andbeneficent principle of free speech, and in denunciation of the reptiles who would limit the liberty of debate. With a solemn sense of my responsibility to Him from whom I received my mental powers, and to whom I am so soon to give an account of my stewardship; gazing with a glazing eye upon the transitory scenes of earth, about which 'the dark Plutonian shadows gather on the evening blast’; conscious that the lute-string is about to snap and the pitcher to be broken at the well, I adjure you, friends of my former days, as in a whisper from the dark, not to let that motion prevail.”
Wiping a light froth from his lips, the failing senator, with a friend under each arm and a half-dozen volunteer pall-bearers following, solemnly left the chamber to the sound of a dozen busy pens drafting resolutions of respect.
A moment later Senator Moffitt walked into the hall, dexterously caught the presiding officer’s eye, and said: “Mr. President, it is my mournful duty to apprise this honorable body of my distinguished colleague’s continued existence. Born of poor but thoughtless parents and educated as a blacksmith; gifted with a penetrating intelligence which never failed in the darkest night todistinguish a five-dollar piece from a nickel, yet blessed with an impartial soul which loved the humbler coin as well, in proportion to its value, as the nobler one; blessed with a benevolence which relieved alike the rich man and the poor—the one of his coin, the other of his character; reared in the principles of religion and giving to the worship of himself an incredible devotion—this great man moved among the property of his neighbors, a living instance of the power of personal magnetism and the strength of political attachment. He was a generous man: one-half of all that he took with his right hand he bestowed upon his left. He was a respecter of Truth, and did not profane her with his lips. He was a patriot: other nations might be more powerful in arms, or more glorious in history, but America was good enough for him if he could get it. Withal, he had a tender heart acutely responsive to indigestion and closely identified with the political history of this state. Mr. President, I move that when the senate adjourn to go to luncheon it do so out of respect to the memory of Henry Vrooman. True, he is no deader than he was when he began to die ten years ago, but, sir, a memorial adjournment may have a deeper and better significance than is visiblein a mere conformity to fact: it may entoken a pious people’s readiness to submit to a tardy bereavement.”
Senator Moffitt’s motion was peremptorily and contumeliously declared out of order, and that erring statesman dejectedly took his seat a sadder and a nicer man. It saddens to add that he solaced himself by consuming the public stationery in composing the following discreditable epitaph:
Step lightly, stranger, o’er this holy place,Nor push this sacred monument aside,Set by his fellow-citizens to graceThe only spot where Vrooman never died.1888.
Step lightly, stranger, o’er this holy place,Nor push this sacred monument aside,Set by his fellow-citizens to graceThe only spot where Vrooman never died.1888.
Step lightly, stranger, o’er this holy place,Nor push this sacred monument aside,Set by his fellow-citizens to graceThe only spot where Vrooman never died.1888.
Step lightly, stranger, o’er this holy place,
Nor push this sacred monument aside,
Set by his fellow-citizens to grace
The only spot where Vrooman never died.
1888.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:Blank pages have been removed.A few obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected, otherwise deliberately inconsistent or inventive spelling has been left as is.
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