Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/427

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GOVERNOR, 1906

but, where the result cannot otherwise be secured, must be set aside. By dividing the lines of a few of the counties, a fairly equitable apportionment may be made and one in accord with all of the other requirements.

I submitted to the legislature a plan working out fair results by dividing one of the counties, as a tentative suggestion. Again the western poet broke into verse:

A message from the Schwenksville sage,
Give ear, the groundlings all, give ear,
While from the broad typewritten page
The clerk, in accents loud and clear,
Declaims the sentiments profound
That Pennypacker passes round.
 
No ordinary screed is this
But one that cannot fail to strike
The mind with awe. Say, who would miss
That verbiage so statesmanlike,
That flow of golden rhetoric
Whereof P. P. well knows the trick.
 
Of course 'tis not, like Holy Writ,
All true. For instance, there's the claim
That those who make our laws are fit
And never play a crooked game.
The legislature. Penny vows,
Is honest. Here—nix komm herause.
 
He says that when the boys last sat
In legislative conclave, they
Ne'er dreamed of graft and pickings fat.
Nor gave the people's rights away.
This thing let's take not as pretense
But in a mere Pickwickian sense.
 
And having said that all is straight,
Behold in stentor tones he calls
Upon the boys to renovate
Their record. Thus he overhauls
Reprovingly the self-same crowd
Whereof he swears that he is proud.
 
409