JEST ’FORE ELECTION

  My henchmen say “Your Honor,” as on their knees they drop;
  Some people call me Hopkins, but to most I’m known as Hop! 
  For pretty nigh a year I’ve run the City Hall machine,
  Protecting my policemen and the gamblers on the green. 
  Love to boss, an’ fool the pious people with my tricks—­
  Hate to take the medicine I got November 6! 
  Most all the time the whole year round there ain’t no flies on me,
  But jest ’fore election I’m as good as I can be!

  Gran’ma Ela says she hopes to see me snug and warm
  In the bosom of Mugwumpery, whose motto is reform;
  But Gran’ma Ela he has never known the filling joys
  Of bossing “boodle” candidates and training with the boys;
  Of posing as a gentleman although at heart a tough;
  Of being sometimes out of scalps while some are out of stuff—­
  Or else he’d know that bossing things are good enough for me,
  Except jest ’fore election I’m as good as I can be!

  When poor Rubens, wondering why I’ve left my gum-games drop,
  Inquires with rueful accent:  “What’s the matter with Hoppy Hop?”
  The Civic Federation comes from out its hiding-place
  And allows that Mayor Hopkins is chock-full of saving grace! 
  And I appear so penitent and wear so long a phiz
  That some folks say:  “Good gracious! how improved our mayor is!”
  But others tumble to my racket and suspicion me,
  When jest ’fore election I’m as good as I can be!

  For candidates who hope to get there on election day
  Must mind their p’s and q’s right sharp in all they do and say,
  So clean the streets, assess the boys for everything they’re worth,
  Jine all the federations, and promise them the earth! 
  Say “yes ’um” to the ladies, and “yes sur” to the men,
  And when reform is mentioned, roll your eyes and yell “Amen!”
  No matter what the past has been—­jest watch me now and see
  How jest ’fore election I’m as good as I can be!_

I will conclude this exposition of the attitude of Eugene Field to politics, public affairs, and public men with a whimsical bit of his verse, descriptive of how business and politics are mixed in a country store, premising it with the note that Colonel Bunn has since become a national character: 

  A STATESMAN’S SORROW

  ’Twas in a Springfield grocery store,
    Not many years ago,
  That Colonel Bunn patrolled the floor,
    The paragon of woe. 
  Though all the people of the town
    Were gathered there to buy,
  Good Colonel Bunn walked up and down
    With many a doleful sigh.

  He vented off a dismal groan,
    And grunt of sorry kind,
  And murmured in a hollow tone
    The thoughts that vexed his mind. 
  “Alas! how pitiful,” he said,
    “And oh! how wondrous vain,
  To run a party at whose head
    Stands such a man as Blaine.