TREADING THE NARROW WAY

EARLY FOOTSTEPS.


Robert Emmett Barrett was the soothing and patriotic cognomen my father
fastened upon me when I first opened my eyes and I looked him squarely
in the face. I say my father named me and I honestly think he did. The
first two-thirds of the name proves my contention and opens the book
wide enough that the reader has no trouble in discerning the nationality
of my father. Mother was an English woman and I knew it the first time
she called father “Arry.” If mother had had her equal rights in naming
me, I might have been a Gladstone; but somehow or other father
monopolized mother’s half interest and she finally became disgusted and
told him to name me any blooming thing he wanted to. If mother could
have foreseen this savage war across the orient, I believe, she would
have handled the center name, but the way it stands I wouldn’t shoulder
a gun for England and I can’t use my undeveloped oratory against
Ireland, and I am about half persuaded to let them settle their own
troubles. It being no fault of mine that I am half Irish and half
English, I let it go at that and get along with everybody the best I
can. It’s hard to separate the halves from the whole, and so, from a
perpendicular standpoint, I give the Irish the top half and the English
the bottom half; I’d rather let the English have the running half
anyway.

So far the name Emmett hasn’t done me much good, I’ve only used it nine
or ten times since I had it, thrice at political speeches, a couple of
Fourth of July addresses, once on Decoration Day, once at a church
wrangle, and a few times when I was mad. I find it doesn’t help me much
on bank cheques, they get turned down as quickly with the Emmett signed
as without it. If the name is ever going to do me any good I wish it
would hurry up and be a progressive or I will be compelled to think
father was impartial and talked mother out of her rightful one-half
interest.

After the ordeal of naming me had been fairly or unfairly dealt with, I
was told I was a free born American citizen and some day I might be
President and have absolute dominion over the blue room, where I suppose
the chief executive goes when he has the “Blues.” I never considered
this encouragement very seriously, for, as I have read in some almanac,
there is only one chance in eighteen million, the odds are against the
slim chance and it’s sort of a blue skim milk proposition or a church
raffle affair, and if it’s the only time that opportunity is going to
knock at my door I don’t think I’ll be at home, I’ll let Wilson do the
best he can and let some live Republican Progressive have my chance.

If Wilson would only hurry up and get the Government to make those loans
they’ve been talking so long about and loan it, at about four per cent,
to citizens like myself, irrespective of names and nationality, and not
have the principal come due too quickly, but in periods, like twenty
year franchises, I believe he ought to have a second term; but if he
doesn’t get some loans placed pretty soon I don’t know what hard working
men like myself are going to do.

The only thing I ask Wilson to be careful about when he loans the money
is the rate. I don’t want to see the rate on loans as high as it was
during Cleveland’s second administration.

I borrowed eighteen dollars in 1894 to settle up a partnership fanning
deal with a Methodist preacher. It seems that outside of the banks no
one had any money, and you had to call on the gentleman banker, get down
on your knees and have tears as large as pullet eggs rolling down your
hollow cheeks, if you succeeded in your desires. Somehow the bankers
knew they had a good thing; they not only got the fat and tallow but
they stripped you clear to the bone.