The Sunday Oregonian., August 02, 1908, Magazine Section, Page 8, Image 50

21 1903.
B
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAX, POKTLAJTD,
WTZ talkln' to Seh malts today.-
sald the Houn Detective of the
St. Reckleu. "He ain't goln" to
vote for Bryan thla time."
"That's all right." aaid the Hotel
Clerk, "he can vote for Bryan any time.
But what's the matter with Kern, of
Kokomo, already endeared to the hearts
of hla countrymen under the name of
Wbo-TheTs Kern? Kern ought to com
mand the suffrage of every true Amer
ican that wants to see Indiana turning
out something; besides historical novelists
and Senator Beverldge. He ought to have
the undivided and enthusiastic support of
every man who believes that the lower
end of the human face divine waa In
tended by nature for a hay mow. .In
short and In fine. Larry although It's
not so short, but Is something like fine
cut chewing tobacco, hence the phrase
Kern has a countenance which should
win him the vote of the agriculturist, the
naturalist, the explorer, the poet, the
worker In textile factories, the producer
of red timothy and the lover of the
mossy Southern bank where the honey
suckle grows and the love-vine twines In
the molaty drip. I repeat, therefore,
what's the' matter with Kern? Heaall
rlghtwhosallrightkern !
"But what's ailing your friend
Schmalt?--he'B got whiskers of his own,
cr had. 'em the last time I saw him."
"SchmalU says he can't stand for the
platform." said the House Detective. "He
says he don't like It."
"Schmalts Is a liar," said the Hotel
Clerk. "He don't know whether he likes
it or not and neither does anybody else
except those members of the committee
on resolutions that didn't succeed In get
ting their favorite planks snuck across.
A campaign platform, Larry, is some
thing that the party spends from one to
tvro years thinking up. from two to three
days writing out. and from three to four
minutes forgetting. It la designed for
the purpose of helping out the allied hotel
and boarding-house interests In the town
where the convention's being held and
also to give the special correspondents
on the job a chance to say that a great
party which has always been able to
run as good as second now trembles on
the very verge of disruption and will con
tinue so to tremble until about this time
tomorrow afternoon when word is ex
pected from Falrview Farm, located be
tween Linco. Neb., and Washington,
D. C.. but somewhat closer to Lincoln,
that the antl-lnjunctlon clause Is going to
be adopted by unanimous vote or else
is not going to be adopted, also by unan
imous vote, depending on how the present
owner of said Falrview Farm premises
feels about that after eating his usual
hearty dinner.
"I never knew but one man that read
a platform all the way through. I think
maybe he thought it was something else
at the time: or it may have run in the
family. He was a full brother to the
party that wrote the Lord's Prayer on
the back of a 2-cent postage stamp and
it was his own uncle that spent two
years proving the average number of
seeds In a hubbard squash la 2S73. Well,
anyway, he read this platform, through
and It gave him some very, very strong
convictions. But unfortunately he didn't
get to vote. Election day. about o'clock
In the morning, he picked up a most ab
sorbing scientific article on the 'Life and
Customs of Potato Bugs.' and before he ,
BY JIM NASIUM.
Yes." said the Old Sport, in answer
to a question from & group of fans In the
hotel corridor, "It's true that Ban John
son has asked me to Join his staff of
umpires, and while I have expressed my
grateful acknowledgment for the faith
and child-like confidence reposed in me by
Mr. Johnson, I have gently ana nrmiy ae
clined the proffered distinction."
"Why the dickens didn't you take It?"
asked one of the group. "It's a cinch
' Job and I'll bet you could show some of
these saw-dust brained guys how to run
a ball game, too. It'd be worth a lot
of good money to see a game umpired
right for a change."
"Well." replied the Old Sport, "in the
first place, my time Is pretty much oc
cupied at present In mixing up dope for
the sporting world, and If at any time
there should be a falling off In my chaste
and cheerful conversation, the great
throbbing world of sport would be sorely
'grieved.
"And again, I cannot refrain from hand
ing out advice and little wads of dope
when I see some guy running on the
back track, and when I would be telling
some manager how to run his team. If
he' would playfully get up off the bench
and break a baseball bat over my skull,
I'm afraid It would Interfere with the
smooth cadences of my think tank and
.break -.tha thread of thought.
"Again, I'm not fitted by nature, for
the- job. I have not been gifted with
tthat serious cast of features that seems
jto be necessary for the baseball imp
iand If I should happen to forget and let
a smile chase Itself across my mug while
on .'the field I'd sure lose my job. I
want to tell you that baseball umpires
,are born and not made. Take It from
me, I can pick out the future baseball
nrrrplr before he kicks off the swaddling
clothes. The symptoms of future great
ness as an Indicator handler first begin
to break through the crust and butt into
the public eye when a kid refuses to
hand out the customary merry giggle at
the antics of his nurse, and It's a cinch
that the disease has taken when he
bites the neck off his milk bottle and
follows it up by sinking his first little
tooth through the lobe of nurse's ear.
"When you trim your lamps on a kid
who appears to have hogged the family
supply of under Jaw, but who has com
pensated the rest of the family for this
by letting them have his share of sense
of humor, just Jot It down In your dope
book that here la one of nature's master
pieces of umpire material. The kid who
wades through the bright lexicon of youth
like a wooden Indian without splattering
a happy smile over the family hearthstone
occasionally, who rules the home roost
with such a haughty air that his mother
forgets what sewing machine belts were
made for and the old man 1 hypnotized
when he escorts him to the barn In order
to get more sea room In which to beat
out the Inborn cussedness with- a hitch
ing strap, and who plugs through his
Tillage school days for the sole purpose of
- Jielping the schoolmaster and the local
(Board of Education to keep the knowl
I
-S5tlfc 'mmCjy CN1M Vlabuss riND X 3?Jir; llf!M
' - . -V A. rnwir: -RED AV5& , y""-' , A IIVY IM
I W I hl KIND FACED V
MUi ,ssf
7
could put it down it was dark and the
polls had closed. So then he wound up
the cat and put the clock out, and spent
the night in the anthracite bin, after
carefully dressing a coal scuttle In an
outing flannel nightshirt and putting It
to sleep In his own bed. " But toward
morning he was more or less restless.
Did I mention to you that he was in
clined to verge on absent-mindedness?
Well, he was.
"I'll tell you how it Is with a platform,
Larry. For weeks and months every
sage In the party has been spending his
time If I was a humorist. Larry, I'd
spell it thyme and couple it with sage
and have the stuffings of a good Joke
he's been, as I say, putting in long hours
thinking up great Issues that will strike
straight to the heart of the masses. Only
If he's a Republican sage, he don't. A
Republican sage gets his Issues nice and
hot a dozen In a mess, all put up in a
IN WHICH HE GIVES REASONS WHY HE CAN'T BE
edge factory from busting up and going
to the dogs for lack of expert advice,
there Is the kid who is destined by na
ture for the umpire's job.
"I was never that kind of a kid. In
the golden days of my youth, when the
seeds of future greatness were being
sown, I was afflicted with a happy and
cheerful nature that prevents me forever
from becoming a baseball umpire. If I
should ever essay to tackle the job, when
one of the players would walk up to me
and hand me one of his chaste little
jokes I might laugh and put the scene
on the bum, and the sight of a baseball
SiE-f31QlT-arr-A-5ASBALL
UNPIPX-WTli-A-ciHILE-ON
W3T1UGW0ULD-&E-A-
umpire with a smile on his face would
be such a strange spectacle to the patrons
in the stands that they would be mighty
apt to forget that a ball game was going
on. Then, too. the fact that Mr. John
son had actually engaged an umpire that
could smile would occupy so much space
In the papers that there would be no
room for the account of the game, and
the players might get Jealous of me, and
although I admit It would be a great
drawing card, it wouldn't do at all.
"Then, too, I am a thinker, and the
true thinker loves seclusion and rest.
Look at Aristotle, Confucius, Shakes
peare and William Jennings Bryan. What
oould any of them have accomplished
box ready to take home, the same as
fried oysters, which thought naturally
brings In Oyster Bay. But be that as It
may, a Democratic sage has to think up
his own issues. He worries himself al
most Into a state of vocal prostration.
His voice weakens on him until he' can
hardly speak above a shout. His appe
tite falls; he can't even muster up en
ergy to go to a lynching in his own
neighborhood. Shall he take up this doc
trine, or shall he put it on a diet of pre
pared food and lay it by? Here's one
that don't look like it could last through
the teething period, and the second Sum
mer has been so fatal to so many of our
brightest and most promising Democratic
doctrines! There's Bryan; he's had the
worst luck of any parent in the party.- I
can't think of any of his that's been
able to live from one election to another,
except one, and that one was a step
child and Its adopted father never seemed
with a score of bloodthirsty ballplayers
sinking their spikes Into his big toes
and casting up his pedigree to him?
"Further than this, I am not gifted
with that Christian forbearance and self
command that seems to be a component
part of the successful umpire. When a
guy takes a megaphone and sticks it out
Into the agitated atmosphere for the pur
pose of letting me hear more -clearly that
he thinks I am a mutt-head and have my
head: tilled with saw-dust brains and am
suffering with astigmatism, I begin to
get agitated with a nervous dread that If
I go near him I may lose my self-command
and kill him. I am afraid that
some day when the home fans were en
joying the little pastime of telling me In
their chaste language all about my de
ficiencies and advertising to the assem
bled multitude that I am a lineal descend
ant of Ananias, I am afraid that I
might neglect my umpirlcal duties in
order to get time to shoot Into a drove
of them and mangle them horribly. This
would put the attendance on the bum,
and I would have to request the luxury
of police protection until the popular
feeling In the town had died down a
little.
"Then, too, I have not that magnetic
power over the untutored human being
that some have, and don't seem to be able
to control him by mental force and a
dignified appearance in the manner that
excites so much public admiration In the
baseball umpire. My method of con
trolling and subduing the obstreperous
human being Is the primitive method of
applying a baseball bat with some force
to the medulla oblongata, and I am very
much afraid that when a ball player
would chase up to me and sink his spikes
Into my Instep in order to get . a good
foot hold while he told me his unbiased
opinion of my mental condition that In
stead of reporting him to the president
of the league, I would get confused and
report him to the local Coroner.
"So that perhaps I had better just plug
along as I am, and while wealth may not
be rolling In on me In such quantities as
it does to the baseball umpire, and the
life of the sport may not be plugged so
full of publicity and power and an air of
superiority, sUll it Is a certain satisfac
tion to feel that you can get home
from the ball game without having to
associate with the city police force, and
to know that you can take an evening
stroll without causing an uprising of the
populace and having some guy who lost a
two dollar bot On the ball game sneak
up behind you and muss up your hair
with a brick-bat.
"It may be a great source of satis
faction to the baseball umpire to know
that If he survives the Summer all
right he- can loaf all Winter and enjoy
himself In some secluded spot where
he Is unknown, but to jn It Is a
greater pleasure to know that, though
I will have to work like a sucker all
Winter, I can feel morally certain that
I am going to be on deck when the
snow flies, providing I can dodge pto
maine poisoning at the lunch counters
and worry through dog-days without
getting the hives and a few other little
ailments that human flesh Is heir to,
and to feel that I can kiss my wife
good-by on a Summer morning with
out having my life Insurance policy
mature before I hit the home ranch
again." ,
"Dad." Bpoke up a fan. "you re not
possessed of suffiolent spirit of mar
tyrdom for a hero. If you can do your
country a service you should cut out
to think so much of It anyhow. I re
fer. Larry, to he tariff. '
"After awhile the sage frqm Jackson's
Purchase or Jackson's Hole or Jackson
County, as the case may be, goes to the
convention carrying his- little three-weeks-old
Issue In a portable Incubator
and feeding it on oxygen and the white
of an egg; and when he gets there what
does he find? He finds upwards of 8000
other sages that have moved In from the
sage brush with similar issues, only radi
cally different. Every prominent leader
hat hasn't been mentioned for Vice
President by himself or a close friend
is on the ground, holding the nursing
bottle to the pale blue lips of a small,
young, new, pallid, soft, eternal. Imper
ishable, everlastlng-as-the-Rocks-of-jrb-raltar
issue, called Roxle for short. They
have a terrible time; there's the devil
and all to pay. For 48 hours the com
mittee on resolutions goes sleepless,
hungry and at times almost thirsty. And
then, as the saying 'is. Order comes out
of Chaos, the name part of Order being
capably played by Charles F. Murphy,
a leading sage of this place, in fact I
may say the most leading sage of this
place, who hands the New York delega
AN UMPIRE AND SUGGESTS PREPARATION FOR
1 llfe-ASPIRANT-FOR-WIPIRE-HONORg)
dfl.u ULD LLAkN- 1 U DC
HURDLE-RACER.
your personal feelings in the matter."
"Well," replied the Old Sport, "per
haps you're right. But when It comes
to doing my country a service I think
I have a better scheme than becoming
a baseball umpire. If you guys will
capitalize It I will start a school for
umpires, and take it from me, you'll
be founding an Institution that will go
down in history as the greatest char
itable work of the age. i
"Now, we all know that there isn t
a solitary baseball umpire In the busi
ness who Is fit for the job. We know
It because everybody says so. I have
never been to a ball game that I
haven't heard a large majority of those
present saying that the umpire offi
ciating was blind of one eye and
couldn't see out of the other, and his
head was filled with mush Instead of
brains, and he didn't know anything
about the game anyway. This Is a
terrible state of affairs.
"What we ought to have Is men who
will please everybody with their deci
sions and meet with the individual and
collective approval of the gTeat throb
bing world of sport. This requires a
man, of wide Information, unquestion
able tact and other useful and orna
mental attainments.
"It, will at once be seen how tough a
contract It Is for the president of a
league to dig up this class of men.
and the aim of our school for umpires
would be to supply the material.
"My suggestion would be for the
student who is out for an umpire's Job
to spend the first two years of his
preparation in meditation and prayer.
This will give him the spirit of Chris
tian martyrdom and resignation to his
fate that Is necessary to prevent bim
from giving all close decisions to the
tion a green transfer showing them
Where they get off, and then Sage Guffey,
of Pennsylvania, starts for home sobbing
out his sorrow on the sympathetic shoul
der of Sage Patrick McCarren, of Brook
lyn, who also happens to be coming this
way by rail, and shortly thereafter the
news Is flashed to the waiting world that
on motion of Sage Olllie James, of Ken
tucky, the party In convention assembled
has Just ratified by acclamation, amid
unparalleled enthusiasm, one of those
platforms that you can climb aboard
anywhere, rlda sb far as you please, .en
Joy a pleasant nap and drop off at a
point that looks almost exactly like the
place where you got on."
"Who Is this here Mister Ollie James
that cut so much Ice out to Denver?"
asked the House Detective.
"He's a grand new device that is now
used putting all motions in a Na
tional Democratic convention," said the
Hotel Clerk. "As a puttist he stands
without a peer. You use a jimmy to
break a safe. Larry, but a James to
break a silence, which is a joke that
came to me like a flash, right out of my
own head, and a mighty clever conceit
at that when you come to think It over:
Ollle James is all right. He comes from
that section of Kentucky that has pro
duced the largest livestock. Hippopoto
mously speaking, he's the noblest Roman
of them all. He's what you'd call states
manship In bulk. He measures six feet
A- UlAJ MUN
home team, and will prepare him for
the surprise and injury to his feelings
that he may experience when the
whole county calls him a mutt-head
because he doesn't call a strike every
time the home pitcher glares at him.
"The ensuing five years should be
spent In learning to restrain his laugh
ter at mirth-provoking Incidents, as It
Is an unparonable sin for an umpire
under any consideration; then should
follow a course of massaging the face
with a baseball bat or an old wood
rasp or some other mangling instru
ment In order to acquire the cast of
feature necessary to look the part of
master of the situation, and about two
years' practice with heavy dumb-bells
and steel billets.
After this about two years more
should be spent-in familiarizing him
self with the profane language, so he
will know what the players are talking
about when they converse with him in
their native tongue, and about ten
years more of hard mental training is
necessary to remove every trace of sen
sitiveness from his system, so he will
not go home and cry himself to sleep
over the things people say about him.
My suggestion would be to bust the
head of his ear-drum while It is young
and tender, so he can plug along and
fulfil his duties without being com
pelled to listen to what the occupants
of the stands think of his family af
fairs. "Then, after spending about five
years more in committing to memory
the rules of the game, he should put
in a few years In becoming a champion
hurdle raoer and expert dodger through
a broken field, and a year or so more
in learning to dodge pop bottles and
getting accustomed to traveling over
.KERN HAS A.
COUNTENANCE
ymcn JHOULD
"WIN TUB VOTE-SOP
THE
AfiIlCULTUSI5Tf
from tip to tip or from dome to dome,
or whichever way Is proper to space oft
a sage that weighs 800 pounds net with
his shoes off. and never has a dry thread
on him during June. July August and the
first part of September if the hot weather
should happen to hang on. In action his
voice could be distinctly heard from
here to Staten Island and half way back,
and he has a power of oratorical endur
ance that would make Old Faithful gey
ser, out yonder In the Yellowstone Park,
look like she was tongue-tied. He can
put the 16-pound motion 175 feet inches
at one put and not half try. and when It
comes to moving the previous question
he's got Matt McGrath and all these
other professional hammer-throwers hid
ing in the bleachers. Bryan thinks the
world and all of him and If he's elected
he's going to appoint him to fill the
chairs of Secretary of State, Secretary
of Commerce and Labor and First, Sec
ond and Third Assistant Postmaster
Generals. The other Jobs will go to
Oklahoma.
"I tell you whafs the matter with your
friend Schmaltz, Larry, He's one of these
Independent Democrats. You never hear
of an Independent. Republican. If he was
lnrtanendent he wouldn't be a Republican.
But Independent Democrats are scattered
around everywhere. Automobiles run
over them at night; nervous old ladies
find them under the bed upon retiring;
Harper's weekly prints letters from them
in the humor column: the chambermaids
sweep them out of Republican National
headquarters of a monwig. Do you hap
pen to know what an Independent Demo
THIS IMPORTANT OFFICE.
back fences and In unfrequented alleys.
"The closing 20 years of the course
should be spent In acquiring a prac
tical knowledge of surgery, the art of
prospecting for bullets In the human
system, how to run a hundred yards In
ten seconds flat with a broken leg and
a fractured cranium, how to see accu
rately in four different ways at the
same time, learning mind reading and
second sight, studying hypnotism,
slelght-of-hand. the rules of the prize
ring, the art of repartee, the study of
law, elocution, ancient and modern his
tory of baseball, civil engineering, di
plomacy, weights and measures, phy
sics, velocity of projectiles, geometry,
mathematics, acceleration of speed,
how to quell riots, personal magnet
ism, self-control, the signs of the zo
diac, weather prognostication, a study
of the life and methods of the Czar
of Russia, and any other bits of gen
eral knowledge that may occur to him
as being useful In his chosen pro
fession. At the age of 95 the student will
have lost that reckless and impulsive
style of Judgment so common among
the umpires of today, and he will
emerge from the school with his
knowledge-box loaded up with the in
formation that Is demanded of him by
the public, and we will then have um
pires who can Judge plays fully as ac
curate as the occupants of the stands
who can see things plainly at a dis
tance of a hundred yards from the
scene of action.
The heyday and springtime of his
life will be-past, it is true, but if his
eyesight remains good he will then
possess the -mental accomplishments
that the public demands in the baseball
umpire, and which it is Impossible for
li
BY
5. COB
crat is. Larry? Well. then. I'll tell you.
He's a Democrat who's boen trying ta
vote the ticket ever since Hancock ran
and the closest he's been-able to get to It
was attending a Palmer and Buckner
ratification meeting. If it's not the plat
form, it's the candidate, and if it's not
the candidate It's his wife's folks by mar
riage." "Well. I always vote her straight." said
the House Detective, stoutly. "It alnt
the man with me, it's the principle."
"Spoken like a true patriot," said the
Hotel Clerk. "No more do I. If we hung
back on the candidates often we wouldn't
vote at all.. I remember the kind of Con
gressman we used to send to Washington
when I lived at home. I don't know so
much about it since I came on to New
York and the regular organization re
lieved me of all responsibility In the mat
ter. The only time I hear of my Con
gressman being in Congress Is when I
hear of him being put out. But in the
country you get a chance to look 'era
over, close up.
"For years and years In my district ws
used to send one of those kind-faced old
muley cows that had a War record and
a bald spot running back as far as the
glacial period and the top of his spine.
He had a brain like a bran mash and as a
public speaker he belonged in tho family
of mullosks. sub-order, fresh-water mus
sels; but had a knack amounting to a
perfect genius for sniffing out postofflce
money. The way he could smell around
a wainscoting and locate a custom-house
appropriation would have been worth a
great deal of money to him In his busi
ness if he'd only been a rat terrier. But
after several sessions a lot of young fel
lows grew up that didn't seem to take
the proper Interest In the third day's
fighting at Gettysburg and one day they
Jumped the Hon. White-Fared Hereford,
gentle and true but a trifle old-fashioned,
back into the county Judge division and
put a young Silver Tongue who carried
all his goods in his front show case but
had a way of spreading out and hiding
the empty shelves in the back of the
store. He could have traded what was In
his head for what's In a two grain pill
and nobody would have been any the
worse off except the pill; but he was
there with the eloquence. He could utter
almost any six syllable word ln a way
that would cause the audience to burst
Into tears and when he turned the Juice
on full and reached for a, good one like
'incomprehensibility' it was time to re
move the women and children to a place
of safety. Take any large public occasion
from laying a cornerstone to cutting the
first home-grown watermelon of the sea
son and you'd find him soaring aloft Into
the blue ether In a manner calculated to
make the Wright Brothers look like the
stationary engineers of a brick smoke
house with stone trimmings. He's In
Congress yet from our district. He prob
ably feels more at home there among so
many others whose constituents haven't
found out yet that Instead of bring the
whole cheese they're merely a few of the
holes In It."
"We don't turn out as many Henry
Clays In this country as we used to," re
flected the House Detective.
"No," said the Hotel Clerk, "wo don't.
But on the other hand we never had a
larger acreage of the Richmond Pearson
Hobsons?"
the aspiring youth to amass much un
der the age of 95 or 100 years.
"Think it over, fellows, and see if
you don't think It is a good schema."
The World to Come.
A distinguished German scholar who
had devoted his faculties to what he
claimed to be the demonstration of athe
ism came consistently to his death bed.
He waa prepared, he said, to prova out
of the expiring spark of his own, life
that it must become a quenched anif
blackened flame. He observed the pro
cesses of dissolution calmly, with the
Jong habit of the eclentlflo method.
Friends, themselves unbelieving and no
hoping, stood about him, waiting to
catch the last flicker of defiance from a
soul to its God. For some hours he had
lain unexpectedly silent, and with eye
closed. He had very dark, large eyes,
piercing and powerful. SujBdenly ho
opened them, and from their caverns
shot out a fir before which the eoldett
scoffer In the room shrank back. With
a loud voice the old scholar cried out:
"There Is another world!" and fell
upon his pillow dead. Elizabeth Stuart
Phelps In Harper's Bazar.
Centralization of Jews.
Within 20 mile of New York's City
Hall there Is a population of 1,000.000
Jews, more than In all America besides.
It Is the greatest aggregation of Jews
In any one spot on earth., one-eleventh
of the entire-Jewish population of tl
globe. Here are one-fifth as many Jews
as in Russia, one-half as many as In
Austria-Hungary, four times as many as
are in the British Isles, ten times as
many as In the Holy Land, and 20 times
as many as dwell In Jerusalem.
Longing.
Chicago News.
I am quite fond of olives, I dote on dill
pickles.
I lore charlotte rues, I adore mayon
naise. A toasted marshmallow my appetite tickles.
.I'll lunch upon all of them one of thso
days.
Such a feant I've Imagined! Some day I'll
be wealthy
And realize then what la now but a
dream;
And 1 mean to wind up. Just to show thst
I'm healthy,
With a lovely big dish of delicious Ice
cream.
I have just read a novel it's simply de
lightful. I wish I could be In the heroine's plrace;
Though the way that she suffered wae per
fectly frightful.
To save her poor father from shame and
dl-Rratse.
I should like a nice hero myself an Apollo.
He'd take me to lunch and how sweet
It would seem!
I would have stuffed tomatoes; nut salad to
follow;
And then he could buy me some lovely
Ice cream.
That I don't get enough is the worst of
distresses;
In Summertime, too, It Is harder to bear;
But you only Just wait till they let down
my dresses
A tuck or two more, and I put up my
hair.
I shall have my adorers as soon as I em
able
And on one and all Til Impartially beam
If thevMl ass: me to ait at a marble-topped
table
And beg and Implore me to have some
Ice cream.
i
i
r
J