A POPULAR IDOL.

OLITICS very often brings about unexpected

POLITICS

transformations. So when it was announced one morning in the Politicians' Organ that yielding to the repeated and earnest solicitations of many friends Mr. P. C. O. G. N. Tightpucker had consented to make the run for Congress in the Roosterville District, there was very general astonishment.

Notwithstanding the numerous alphabetical attachments to his name, this general astonishment indicated very clearly that Mr. Tightpucker, despite his long name, was very short of an acquaintance among the readers of the Organ.

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"Who can this new candidate be" was the almost universal inquiry, "this candidate who, under the pressure of many friends,' dares to enter the arena of politics in staid old Roosterville, without having first earned the privilege of so doing by long years of dirty service to the party, and thus in the proper way becoming acquainted with the party's useful and obedient henchmen, the people?"

It was fully six weeks yet before the nominating convention would meet, and here was a candidate boldly entering the field, and throwing down the gauge of battle to all competitors? Everybody conversant with the modus operandi of such things poohed at the attempt as at an absurdity.

There had been a regular, long-established, legitimate way of getting to Congress from the Roosterville District from time immemorial, and it certainly did seem absurd for a new unknown man to thus bid defiance to the regular ruts of precedent leading to Washington and expect to get there.

So the question, "Who is Tightpucker?" became throughout Roosterville one that excited a good deal of merriment, especially among the wise, shrewd, old heads who pulled the strings, managed the caucuses, packed the conventions, and in general terms managed such things for the people.

The Organ, of course, like every well-conducted Organ, made this announcement that Tightpucker would run without expressing any opinion of its own in the matter, in fact the announcement was put into that estimable journal and paid for by him at the regular advertising rates. This is one of the peculiarities of a good Organ, it requires advertising rates from everybody in politics who has anything said of them favorably in the paper, except those whom it especially, as an Organ, plays for, and so Mr. Tightpucker, being a stranger, was compelled to conform to the rule.

But his friends having thus started the ball in motion now set themselves diligently to work to so manipulate public sentiment that it should be placed in accord with Mr. Tightpucker's desires. A secret meeting was held at his house to plan for and provide means for a successful campaign. After much discussion this was the plan finally agreed upon. The contest should be

made upon the strong foundation of reason based upon these facts:

First.
Second.

His peculiar fitness for the place.

The needs of the country.

Third. The needs of his friends.

Fourth.

His wonderful nationality.

With these four planks a platform was constructed upon which Tightpucker was to stand and make his appeal to the people.

In regard to his "peculiar fitness" for the place his aspiration for it seemed a sufficient reason to cover that. A soul thirsting for better things must undoubtedly be considered as peculiarly fit to receive them. No man can be really fit for a public office who does not care enough about it to try in some way to get it, and Tightpucker at this conference gave his friends convincing proofs that he wanted the place badly and would demonstrate his fitness for it by exhausting every reasonable effort known to trying.

As to the needs of the country there could be no question whatever but that it does need more good Congressmen. There is an opening always on the floors of Congress for a first-rate new member, one who has the moral stamina to resist temptation and who will be to the country just exactly what she really needs, a true disinterested friend.

It is no doubt a well-established fact that a man of any character at all should have more than $7,500 per year for exposing it two years as a member of Congress. There has been great injustice done to the so

called salary-grabbers by the public and by the press! In any business requiring great risks, the compensation should keep pace with the risks, and why not in this?

It is evident that whoever goes to Washington goes there with his integrity and virtue liable to be taken from him at any moment. He fights as it were for his life against odds. Few return as pure as they started in; most bring back not even the memory of their original purity. And yet the people, led by demagogues, are unwilling to pay men as they should be paid for so risking their eternal souls.

Some advanced theorists have even advocated the making of a graduated scale of prices for members of Congress. This plan contemplates paying a member a salary proportionate to the virtue and integrity he retains after an exposure to the trials and temptations of Congressional life. Thus, a Simon-pure member would draw the highest salary, a member who was just a little loose such a percentage less, and so on down to the total-depravity member, who would get nothing. It is claimed by the advocates of this plan that it would keep new, fresh, pure blood coming into the House, as the total-depravity ducks would probably leave as soon as their pay stopped. The great opposition to this scheme is on the part of old members.

The need of the country for new members is therefore beyond question.

As to the needs of his friends, there was an extra