MY OLD MAN had the reputation around our old home town of Pueblo of being deeply interested in national politics, but he told us privately that it was just because he had schooled himself to be a good listener on that topic and never to argue when somebody got to telling how the country was teetering on the brink of an abyss, and that under whoever was President at the moment, free government was on the wane.
My old man said he knew from reading history that there had never been a time when the country was not teetering on the brink of an abyss and never a time when free government was not on the wane on account of that fellow, whoever he was, in the White House, so why get himself all sweated up arguing about it?
My old man said he could take you plumb back to George Washington, the first President, and show you that even then the country was teetering on the brink of an abyss and free government was on the wane–that is, to hear some people of the period tell it. My old man said that he had learned that as time went on and one President succeeded another, the country kept teetering more and more on the brink of an abyss and free government kept on waning.
He said he guessed it was like an act he once saw in Sells Brothers’ Circus. He said a fellow piled a lot of chairs one on top of the other on a table and then he got into the topmost chair and started in teetering himself backwards and forwards until finally he had everybody gasping with terror, figuring he was going to teeter clear over and hurt himself, but when he did finally go over, he landed right side up and went away bowing and smiling.
My old man said that as a rule those chaps who got to telling him that the country was teetering had not read much history and thought they were sounding a brand new alarm.
He said they were generally so pleased with themselves that he did not have the heart to tell them how old the teetering act was. He said it might also discourage them in another direction. He pointed out that when he just stood listening and occasionally nodding his head and muttering ah, yes, the arguers would keep motioning to the bartender at proper intervals.
Thus a pleasant time would be had by all. They would finally go away thinking my old man was a mighty wise coot who appreciated the imminent danger to the country as much as the arguers themselves. My old man said this left a much better feeling than if he up and told them that they were rehearsing remarks over a hundred years old.
My old man said he once made the mistake of telling a prominent Republican, who informed him that the country was teetering on the brink of an abyss and that under that dreadful man in Washington free government was on the wane, that the same thing had been said when Abraham Lincoln was President. My old man said the Republican was just about to motion to the bartender when he heard this crack, and that he turned on his heel and walked out of the place.
However, a prominent Democrat came in right afterwards, and when he said the country was teetering on the brink of an abyss and that under that awful person in the Presidential chair free government was on the wane, my old man said he had sense enough not to reply that the same thing had been said when Jefferson was President. So the Democrat motioned to the bartender.
My old man said he could remember, however, when he was as much alarmed as anybody else at the way the country was teetering. He said in those days he was always looking under the bed for anarchists and hating capitalists and getting in fights with fellows he suspected of being members of an organization devoted to religious intolerance.
He said he saw in these conditions the yawning of the abyss, and he thought the end of free government had arrived sure enough when he saw the Black regulars come riding into Pueblo on top of box cars in ’93, the time of the big railroad strike. He said he guessed he said as many mean things about fat old President Grover Cleveland as anybody in this world.
Then he got to reading history and learned that a lot meaner things had been said about other Presidents and that the matters that had alarmed him were, in one form or another, an old story. He said his reading saved him a lot of money, because in the days of his alarm he used to do a lot of the arguing and consequently a lot of motioning at the bartender. It was the accepted custom back in our old home town of Pueblo that the man who had the floor should do the buying.
My old man said he had finally come to the conclusion that what would happen to this country if it kept on teetering on the brink of the abyss like everybody was saying it was, would be the same thing that happened to the man in the act in the circus. It would always land right side up. My old man said that when it comes to teetering on brinks of abysses, this country has got the trick of balance down as fine as the hair on a frog’s back.