In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

"Fortunately or unfortunately, my fellow-citizens, some twelve years ago I was seized with a strong desire to represent my county in the lower house of the Legislature of my native State. Fellow-citizens, you all know me. I was raised among you. I was a poor boy. I am a poor man now. I ask you to vote for me as an encouragement to the poor boys of the county, that I may be an example to them—that they may point to me and say, 'There is a man, that was once as poor as any of us, who has been honored with a seat in the Legislature of his native State.' I have taught school a good many winters, and the boys that I have taught like me. They will give me their votes. I have sometimes thought I should have to teach school over the county until I had taught boys enough to elect me."

I can not go through with all of his speech, but his peroration was too rich to omit:

"My fellow-citizens, when I look back over the twelve years since I became a candidate for this office, I feel encouraged. When I look back and think of the very few that for years gave me any encouragement, and compare them with the numbers that now promise me their votes, I am proud of my success. I begin to feel that my hopes are about to be realized—that a majority of my fellow-citizens will honor me with their suffrages, and that I shall proudly go up to the Capitol and take my seat among the legislators of the State. But, fellow-citizens, if, unfortunately, I should fail in this election, I take the present opportunity to announce myself as a candidate in the next race."

This candidate was like the suitor whom the lady accepted to get rid of him. Though a large number of his fellow-citizens were very intelligent men, they finally concluded not to vote against him, and allow him to be elected. I afterward saw him in the Legislature, and he was certainly superior to some of his colleagues. He introduced me to a fellow-member from the mountains who could not read or write at all; and told me, privately, that he read and answered all the letters that passed between him and his family and constituents. Mr. George D. Prentice was accustomed to give this legislator from the mountains an almost daily notice in the "Louisville Journal."

After these public announcements were made, the candidates entered upon their work in dead earnest. They often issued printed handbills, announcing the days on which they would speak at different places. They traveled together, and addressed the same crowds in rotation. These political discussions between candidates for the higher offices, such as governor, member of Congress, etc., were often very able and eloquent. Indeed, I have rarely, if ever, heard more able political discussions than some of these. Where they canvassed a State or Congressional district together, they spoke in rotation, an hour each by the watch, and then concluded with half-hour speeches. This gave to each an opportunity to answer the arguments of the other. As both addressed the same audience, and each was applauded and cheered by his own party, they were both stimulated and excited to the highest degree possible. Each wished not only to gratify his political friends by the ability and skill with which he discussed the questions at issue, but to secure from the audience as many votes for himself as possible. They were like lawyers before a jury, each anxious to secure a verdict in his own favor. I have often thought that this method of conducting a political campaign had many advantages over that which generally prevails in the Northern and Eastern States, where a candidate, with no ability to speak, is nominated by a caucus, and the parties afterward meet in separate mass-meetings, and the speakers convince voters that are already convinced and annihilate opponents that are not there. In this manner neither party has the opportunity to correctly and fairly represent its views to the other.

But public political discussions made but a small part of the labor performed by the great majority of these candidates. They solicited the votes of the people in private, and on all sorts of occasions. Some of them mounted their horses, and went from house to house together as thoroughly as if they were taking the census. A story is told of two opposing candidates who spent a night together at a cabin. Each was anxious to secure the "female influence" of the family in his own favor, and one of them took the water-bucket and started for the distant spring to get a pail of water, thinking to make a favorable impression on the hostess by rendering her this aid in preparing the coffee for their supper. His opponent, not to be outdone by this master-stroke of policy, devoted himself to the baby with such success that he won its favor, and succeeded in getting it into his arms. The other candidate returned from his long walk with his well-filled water-bucket, to see his opponent bestowing the most affectionate caresses and kisses upon a baby that very sadly needed a thorough application of the water he had brought, and to hear him pour into the mother's charmed ear abundant and glowing words of praise for her hopeful child. The water-bucket was set down in despair. It is quite unnecessary to say which of the candidates secured the vote from that cabin.

These candidates were always to be found at all large gatherings of the people. They were to be seen at barbecues, shooting-matches, corn-huskings, gander-pullings, basket-meetings, public theological discussions, and all sorts of religious and other gatherings of the people. Here they were busy shaking hands with everybody, and using every possible expedient to win their votes. My friend, the late Rev. Dr. W.W. Hill, of Louisville, Kentucky, related to me a very characteristic and amusing incident illustrating this style of electioneering.

While rusticating, quite early in his ministry, at a somewhat celebrated medicinal spring among the hills, he was invited by his host to go with him to a public discussion on the question of baptism, that was to come off in the neighborhood between two distinguished champions, holding opposite views in regard to the "subjects" and "mode" of baptism. Judge C——, a candidate for Congress from that district, who had a very wide reputation as a skillful and successful electioneerer, was present, as polite and busy as possible, shaking hands with everybody, and inquiring with wonderful solicitude after the health of their wives and families. At the close of the services, or, as the people there would say, "when the meeting broke," his host invited the Judge and several of his neighbors to go home with him and eat peaches-and-cream. He said his peaches were very fine, and his wife had saved a plenty of nice cream for the occasion. The invitation was accepted, and a very pleasant party accompanied him to his house. When the company were seated at the table, the Judge found the peaches very rare, the cream delicious, and was profuse in his compliments to both host and hostess. At length the host said:

"Well, Judge, what did you think of the discussion to-day?"

"The discussion," said the Judge, glancing up and down the table, and speaking as if rendering a judicial decision from the bench, "was very able on both sides. The preachers acquitted themselves most honorably, most handsomely. And yet I must say in all honesty that Parson Waller [the Baptist] was rather too much for Parson Clarke [the Methodist]. He had the advantage of him on a good many points. But, then, he had the advantage of him so far as the merits of the question are concerned, I think. The Greek settles that question. Blabtow may not always, in all circumstances, mean 'immerse,' but blabtezer, its derivative, means immerse—go in all over—every time. There's no getting away from that."