a statesman loyal to the institutions of his country, a husband devoted to his family life, a plain American of simple tastes who loves his neighbours as himself, and prefers the quiet life of a little town, the democracy of the front porch, to the marble arches of the Capitol—so, whatever the result may be,” the orator concluded, “this nation need fear nothing: it has chosen well and wisely in both cases, its future is secure.”
Mr. Flood, during the course of this impassioned flight, had remained ponderously unmoved. In the pause that followed, he sat impassively, his coarse-jowled face and bulging yellowed eyes fixed on the orator in their customary expression of comic stupefaction. Now, breathing hoarsely and stertorously, he coughed chokingly and with an alarming rattling noise into his handkerchief, peered intently at his wadded handkerchief for a moment, and then said coarsely:
“Hell! What all of you are saying is that you are goin’to vote for Cox but that you hope that Harding wins.”
“No, now, Jim—” the politician, Mr. Candler, said in a protesting tone—“I never said—”
“Yes, you did!” Mr. Flood wheezed bluntly. “You meant it, anyhow, every one of you is sayin’how he always was a Democrat and what a great man Wilson is, and how he’s goin’to vote for Cox—and every God-damn one of you is praying that the other feller gets elected…. Why? I’ll tell you why,” he wheezed coarsely, “—it’s because we’re sick an’tired of Woodrow, all of us—we want to put the rollers under him an’see the last of him! Oh, yes, we are,” he went on brutally as some one started to protest—“we’re tired of Woodrow’s flowery speeches, an’we’re tired of hearin’about wars an’ideals an’democracy an’how fine an’noble we all are an’'Mister won’t you please subscribe?’We’re tired of hearin’bunk that doesn’t pay an’we want to hear some bunk that does—an’we’re goin’to vote for the crook that gives it to us…. Do you know what we all want—what we’re lookin’for?” he demanded, glowering brutally around at them. “We want a piece of the breast with lots of gravy—an’the boy that promises us the most is the one we’re for!… Cox! Hell! All of you know Cox has no more chance of getting in than a snowball has in hell. When they get through with him he won’t know whether he was run over by a five-ton truck or chewed up in a sausage mill…. Nothing has changed, the world’s no different, we’re just the same as we always were—and I’ve watched’em come an’go for forty years—Blaine, Cleveland, Taft, McKinley, Roosevelt—the whole damned lot
