The Journal Leon, Iowa December 13, 1883 As I passed through the streets of your fair little city, I beheld such a sign as excited my pity, Joe Guzzler it was, lying low in the gutter, And this was the substance of what he did uttter. I am what I am, and I be what I be, And how I came here, I will tell you said he, The error I made, the mistake of my life, Was thinking and acting and voting for wife. The kindest and best she always was to me, On Temperance only, we didn't agree. I thought it meant taking a little at a time, And she thought e'en tasting or touching a crime. I acted for both, and I voted "Saloon," That I might have a little at morn, night and noon. I am where I am, and I be what I be, And how it all happ'd I've told you, said he. Not a syllable more he seemed able to utter, He turned himself o'er and he snoozed in the gutter. Don't you think 'twould be better for both in the future, If wife did the voting and Joe were a neuter? I disfranchise the man that's a drunkard, I would, And enfranchise his wife in his place, if I could. Give Woman the ballot, and trust to her skill, In weilding it wisely and with a WILL. Old Alcohol's kingdom would soon come to grief, And woman, the sufferer, find sudden relief. Treaters and treated grow scarcer, you bet, Saloons would be few -- they'd find nothing to get. Joe Guzzlers might thus be redeemed, through their wives, And lead from the tempter, lead temperate lives. -- Leon, Iowa PLEBIAN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert January 7, 2010 [email protected] It doesn't take much to amuse me -- and "Joe were a neuter?" -- cracked me up..