Decorah Public Opinion

TOADYISM AMONG AMERICANS.
It is surprising that a people who have spent so many lives, so much blood and treasure in the cause of freedom, should still have such an insatiable desire to ape royalty. Many of the girls who have money enough pass by men of merit in our own country, buy a title and marry a dummy with boots and spurs thrown in. This worship of title is most common in this country in the sickening fawning of the people upon office holders. When will our people learn that they are the sovereigns and that office holders, from the highest to the lowest, are merely our hired help and the higher the office and greater the pay the less work to do, giving the incumbent more time to hunt and fish, with free transportation at the expense of the government. Suppose a responsible farmer should hire a hand who had spent his life in work by the day and after he had been engaged for a year or two should suddenly become instead of plain Bill Jones the Hon. Wm. Jones; should wear a stove pipe hat, sport a small cane, a brilliant piece of paste in his shirt front, and wear a yellow watch chain. And suppose that while the Hon. Jones was taking his after dinner nap the farmer or some of his family wished to interview him about crops, stock, etc., or the farmer might want him to go to work and he should send back word by his servant that he was resting, and wished not to be disturbed.
This, as the writer sees it, is a bird's eye view of the position assumed by prominent officials and who are no more nor less than hired help. It is gratifying to see that the people--the bone and sinew of the land--are waking up to a realizing sense of the responsibility resting upon them.