Toasts and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say the Right Thing in the Right Way

by William Pittenger

SPEECH AFTER A POLITICAL DEFEAT. SELECTED

My Political Brethren: You seem to be in the dumps! Don't like the figures; wish they were a cunningly devised fable. How did it happen? Big vote and intolerable cheating cooked our goose. But we are india-rubber and steel springs, and no amount of hard usage can take the fight out of us.

Let our opponents laugh! We are not savage—would not hurt a hair of their heads personally, but politically will skin them alive next time. But we prefer to convert them, and hope they will hear our speakers as often as possible before the next election.