e splendid
thriving city you see before you. Our faces, too long turned backward,
are set at last toward the future. From one end of the State to another
the spirit of honorable progress is throbbing through our people. We
have revolutionized and vastly improved our school system. We have
wearied of mud-holes and are laying the foundations of a network of
splendid roads. We are doing wonders for the public health. Our farmers
are learning to practice the new agriculture--with plenty of lime, sir,
plenty of lime. They grasp the fact that corn at a hundred bushels to
the acre is no dream, but the most vital of realities. Our young men who
a generation ago left us for the irrigated lands of your Northwest, are
at last understanding that the finest farmlands in the country are at
their doors for half the price. With all these changes has come a
growing independence in political thought. The old catchwords and bogies
have lost their power. We no longer think that whatever wears the
Democratic tag is necessarily right. We no longer measure every
Republican by Henry G. Surface. We no longer ..."

Queed, somewhat interested in spite of himself, and tolerably familiar
with history, interrupted to ask who Henry G. Surface might be. The
question brought the Colonel up with a jolt.

"Ah, well," said he presently, with a wave of his hand, "you will hear
that story soon enough." He was silent a moment, and then added, sadly
and somewhat sternly: "Young man, I have reserved one count in the
total, the biggest and best, for the last. Keep your ear and eye
open--and I mean the inner ear and eye as well as the outer--keep your
mind open, above all keep your heart open, and it will be given you to
understand that we have here the bravest, the sweetest, and the
kindliest people in the world. The Lord has been good to you to send you
among them. This is the word of a man in the late evening of life to one
in the hopeful morning. You will take it, I hope, without offense. Are
you a Democrat, sir?"

"I am a political economist."

The Colonel smiled. "Well said, sir. Science knows no party lines. Your
chosen subject rises above the valley of partisanry where we old
wheel-horses plod--stinging each other in the dust, as the poet finely
says. Mr. West has told me of your laurels."

He went on to outline the business side of what the _Post_ had to
offer. Queed found himself invited to write a certain number of
editorial articles, not to exc