The Sage of Aberdeen Returns from the Islands

I’m home again, as the poet has beautifully said, home from a foreign shore, home to stay, unless I get sent to some other party. When I struck the familiar plank road which leads from the Northern Pacific railroad to the ferry, and when I furthermore skated down the old familiar chute covered with green frog-spawn and barnacles, I was convinced to trust that I was nearing my home. I was surprised to see the old boat that used to carry folks over tide to the wharf. They had changed the name of it to 'Vigilant,' because under its present commander, Harry Van Tassle, it could beat everything on the harbor. It was not on that, however, that we crossed, but on the little boat called 'Progress,' a Republican boat run by some distant relatives of President Harrison. For the first time in many weeks, I could safely leave the islands, owing to the fact that Grover held the mantle—the mantle of the U.S. government—over the new republic. I was no longer needed. Besides this, I had received pressing invites time and again to come home and join the new party, the 4th party, known as the Populists. It grieves my heart to know I must part from the old party which has saved their hard money, his wages, and his taxes ever since Jackson’s day, to throw my influence with a small party rather than the great democracy. In other words, will it be pleasanter to be king among fools than to be a wise slave? But I wish it distinctly understood that I studied this subject a long time, and concluded that 'vox populists was a Deity,' so I tumbled. I have no hard feelings against the old party that overthrew McKinleyism and choked off the Coxeyites, but as I said before, the world likes something new.