And
when I "swapped" myself into Mr. Thompson's office, I was surprised to
find that my employer, though a Republican from Pittsburg, was so human
that one of the first things he did was to give me a suit of clothes.
If there is anything more ridiculously dangerous than to blind a
child's mind with such prejudices, I do not know what it is.
However, my own observations of what was going on about me were already
opening my eyes. I had read, in the newspapers, of how the Denver
Republicans won the elections by fraud--by ballot-box stuffing and what
not--and I had followed one "Soapy" Smith on the streets, from precinct
to precinct, with his gang of election thieves, and had seen them vote
not once but five times openly. I had seen a young man, whom I knew,
knocked down and arrested for "raising a disturbance" when he objected
to "Soapy" Smith's proceeding; and the policeman who arrested him did
it with a smile and a wink.
When I came to Mr. Thompson to ask him how he, a Republican, could
countenance such things, he assured me that much of what I had been
reading and hearing of election frauds was a lie--the mere "whine" of
the defeated party--and I saw that he believed what he said.
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