Individuality in National Affairs. INDIVIDUALITY IN NATIONAL Junior Prize Oration. MANY, many years a go, it is said, there lived in a great pond a nation of frogs who were steadily growing in wealth and influence and were rapidly becoming a power among the nations of Frogland. Now, like every progressive nation, they were ever on the lookout for what would better the condition of the people as a whole, and at the time of which I speak there was a peculiarly unmanage able condition of affairs which exercised the minds of the better class of its citizens. This was the state of the poli tics of the country for it was commonly noticed that the public offices, instead of being held by the best and ablest of the community, were usually in possession of the idle and worthless. This caused considerable murmuring among the heads of families, for they had to work hard day in and day out catching flies and insects enough to feed their own families and, besides this, help support those holding public office, and they thought their exertions should be repaid by adequate public service. But such a state of corruption and bribery existed among candidates for office and delegates to conventions that it was hard to find any frog of worth who would permit his name to go before a convention as a candi date, for he knew that in order to succeed, he would have to use the same methods and go in just as deep as the rest. Things had, in fact, gone so far that the young tadpole graduating from the higher institutions of learning in Frog land rarely thought of entering politics any more and the term “gone into politics” had become almost synonymous with our own expression of “gone to the dogs.” Influenced by these and other considerations, the wiser citizens held a meeting' and adopted a set of resolutions. These consisted AFFAIRS.
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