The Hawkeye Skirmisher by Michael Ceraolo

From his American Gallery project series.




The Hawkeye Skirmisher


I was born in Ohio,
and
flirted with becoming a Sooner
around the time of the land rush,
but
from age ten 'til the end of my life
I was a Hawkeye,
with
a few interruptions along the way


The first of those
was when I halted my law studies
to travel to California for the gold rush
I returned home soon after,
put off by
"the unusual greed for gold"
something I was fortunate enough
to discover early was not for me


I started out as a Democrat
because my father was a Democrat,
but soon converted to anti-slavery
and campaigned for the Republicans
in my first presidential election;
a few years later I used the phrase
"bloody shirt"
before the war had even begun


Soon after the fall of Fort Sumter
I volunteered for the Second Iowa
and spent three years fighting "for the cause
of Chirstianity and constitutional liberty"
(I understand that referencing religion
today makes many uncomfortable;
such was not the case in my time)


Most of the rest of my life
I would be involved in political skirmishes
either as a campaigner or an officeholder
I was a Republican postwar,
but
I always considered political parties
to be the means to an end,
never the end in themselves,
beginning a twenty-year journey
by becoming a member of the Greenback Party
and being elected to Congress as such,
where
I introduced bills, which didn't pass at the time
but would do so decades later,
for the creation of a Department of Labor
and for a Constitutional amendment
for the direct election of Senators


I ran for President twice,
in 1880 as the standard-bearer of the Greenback Party,
in 1892 as the standard-bearer of the People's Party
(sometimes called the Populist Party):


"In consequence
of the great avenues to public opinion---
the press, the bar and the pulpit---
being mainly under the control
of the enemies of our movement,
your convention thought to request
its candidates to visit
the various sections of the Union
and talk to the people"
thus
becoming one of the first candidates
to travel the country speaking for himself
rather than being spoken for by party mouthpieces:


"The people demand relief,
and we cannot get it from Congress
Now we propose to appeal to the people"
for
"these old parties shall not build anew
the temple of liberty in our beloved country,
for they are parties of blood"


"Take the honest laboring classes,
take that for your cause,
and
you will be on the Lord's side"
because
"he who supposes that the great struggle
for the emancipation of labor
ended with the destruction of slavery
fails to comprehend the philosophy of the contest,
and
does not understand what freedom means"


Again putting principle before party,
in 1896
I supported fusion with the Democrats
because they had nominated
William Jennings Bryan,
and
led the fight for us to nominate him too,
and after we had done so,
campaigned vigorously for him
because I believed his election would ensure
a government that would enable
"all its citizens,
the weak as well as the mighty,
the unmolested enjoyment
of their inalienable rights"


And
thus I returned to the Democratic Party
or, rather, it had returned to me



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