A PRESIDENTIAL PROGRESS
First American Sovereign—Hurrah! Hooray! Hurroo!
Second American Sovereign—What’s the matter with you?
F. A. S.—What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with all of us? Don’t you see the President’s train? Don’t you hear him speaking from the rear platform?
S. A. S.—What’s to prevent?
F. A. S.—Nothing could prevent—not all the crowned heads of Europe, nor all their sycophant courtiers and servile subjects!
S. A. S.—No, nothing—just nothing at all—excepting personal self-respect and a decent sense of the dignity of American citizenship.
F. A. S.—What! You think it base and undignified to pay honor to the President’s great office?
S. A. S.—It is easy to call it “honoring his great office.” I believe we commonly do give the name of some virtue to our besetting vice. I observe that the President, too, honors our own great office by the most sickening flattery of the people everytime he opens his mouth. His reasons are better than ours, for we really rank him: his great office is of our own making and bestowal. But I wish he wouldn’t lick my boots.
F. A. S.—Sir, you have no right to use such language of the ruler of the nation!
S. A. S.—It is “ruler” when you want an excuse to grovel; in your more austere moods it is “servant of the people”—and that is his own name for the thing that he has the distinction to be. I don’t cheer my butler, nor throw flowers at my coachman, nor crush the hand of my cook.
F. A. S. (aside)—This must be a millionaire! (Aloud) I see great wisdom, sir, in what you say. I’ll never again abase myself before any one. Listen to the senseless applause! (Aside, as loud as he can bawl) Hooray! Hooray!
S. A. S.—Ah, that was the fellow’s expiring platitude. He has finished waving the red flag and is coming this way.
[President passes, shaking hands with both.]
F. A. S. (gazing at his hand with deep emotion)—God bless him!
S. A. S.—Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!