We have only beheld some
Principle riding aloft, not the mud through which her chariot
wheels are dragged. The ways must be swept before we can walk in
them--but how and by whom shall this be done?"
For my part, _I_ can't say, and I wish somebody would tell me.
Well--after seeing our State, which we used to be proud of,
delivered over for two years to the control of a party whose
policy was so repugnant to all our feelings of loyalty, we
endeavored to procure, at least a qualification of intelligence for
voters. Of course, we didn't get it: the exclusion from suffrage
of all who were unable to read and write might have turned the
scales again, and given us the State. After our boys came back
from the war, we might have succeeded--but their votes were over-
balanced by those of the servant-girls, every one of whom turned
out, making a whole holiday of the election.
I thought, last fall, that my Maria, who is German, would have
voted with us. I stayed at home and did the work myself, on
purpose that she might hear the oration of Carl Schurz; but old
Hammer, who keeps the lager-beer saloon in the upper end of
Burroak, gave a supper and a dance to all the German girls and
their beaux, after the meeting, and so managed to secure nine out
of ten of their votes for Seymour.
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