(Oration of Nero Stenographically Reported for the Stygian Siftings.)
Ladies and Fellow-Citizens—If it please the ladies, I come to speak in my own behalf and crave your attention and your vote. As there appears to be no other candidate who is so anxious for the office of janitor of the hall of fame and general benefactor of Hades as I, it seems to me that no other qualifications are needed. However, there are some persons who are conceited enough to imagine that they will give me a hard run for my money. Why, fellow-citizens and voters, these men are not even natives of this fair country, the finest the sun forgot to shine upon! ‘Tis true they have been naturalized, but they never can be civilized. They may have push and cheek, but they lack the pull to get there.
Some men are so suspicious that they won’t take stock in anything except the thermometer; under the present climatic conditions in Hades, that is bound to rise. The time for prejudice is past. It may be necessary to remind the opposition that we are a populous community. We have not taken into our limits any farm lands. In all our borders there are only solid blocks of houses with here and there a football park, where the players may break each other’s bones on the gridiron. There are other institutions to which we might refer with pride, but the metropolitan press is stirring them up with a muck rake. We own up to all the charges made and herein we differ from summer resorts up on the earth, where they sit on the lid and say their prayers, and then lie a little about the real condition of things in their community. The Stygianite, who lives in the earth and not on it, cannot prevaricate without being found out. He owns up whenever he has to, and that is pretty often. Up on earth, however, descendants of Ananias are as numberless as the hairs on the head of an after-taking advertisement.
I do not desire to answer the idiotorial attack of the editor of the Cimmerian Chatterbox, for I agree with him that it is better to boil your candidates in printers’ ink before election than to roast them afterward.
If I decide to accept the office which the chairman of the Roman executive committee assures me will be tendered to the only Nero, I promise you all exemption from taxes, divorce without six months’ probation in the backwoods—anything and everything you ask shall be yours. You deposit the ballot; Nero will do the rest.
Among the reforms I intend to institute will be a wholesale cleaning of Hades. I will put fresh paint on the houses daily to keep Alexander from wearing out the buildings by leaning against them. I will install couches in the public parks for men who have run for office so much that they must be tired, and I will not debar any of the candidates I defeat from six feet of Squatters’ Ground. I will even distribute campaign mirrors to others who would like to see themselves as I see them. Of course I believe that the man should seek the office, but the only reason I ask for your votes is so that I may have another office to put on my official letter-head. I’m not sure I can find room for it, but I can increase the size of the paper and perhaps employ another typewriter. Don’t be like a balance wheel, ready to move in either direction on the slightest provocation. The man who borrows trouble on election day must return the goods if he bets on the wrong man. Never mind if the reformers ask: “Where did he get it?” Every politician knows where his graft comes from; call on me the day after election and I’ll see that you all get yours. Don’t sell your vote for a mess of political pottage without seeing the color of my long green.
And now I must conclude, for my voice is husky with much speaking. Most of the great orators are dead. Cicero is dead; Demosthenes is dead, and to tell the truth, gentlemen, I don’t feel very much alive myself! (Great applause.)
NERO’S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE.
To the Dilettante Political Club: Greeting—It is with pleasure that I accept the endorsement of your distinguished body. All I ask is that if the voters don’t feel like giving the position to me, kindly turn down the other fellows. Alexander and Louis XIV. will serve their constitutions, but not their country. They offered their services in the late unpleasantness, but only on condition that they were not to leave the country unless the enemy entered it. Your endorsement of me has been hanging over their heads like a dynamite bomb swung from a socialistic cobweb. Now the silence of political oblivion has fallen with a dull, sickening thud, and they are shaking in their boots with muffled ice and bated breath.
The party plank is a see-saw to catch votes. I stand upon this platform: I am in favor of making Hades the centre of the universe as it now is of the earth, and building a bridge over the Styx to New York, so that disappointed politicians and all others weary of life may here find refuge and a warm welcome.