Judge Brown and Dr. Carver sat on the stage with the speakers, young Mason and Bradley. The Judge was very dignified, but there was an exultant strut in his walk and a special deliberation in his voice which proclaimed his pride in his junior partner. He alluded, in his dry, nasal way, to the pleasure it gave him to inaugurate the new era in politics in Rock River. "The liquor question I regard as settled in this State," he said. "And now the discussion of the tariff has free sailing. But you don't want to hear us old fellows, with our prejudices; you want to hear our young leaders, with their principles." He introduced young Mason, who made one of his audacious speeches. "Death is a great friend of youth and progress," he said. "The old men die, off, thank God! and give young men and new principles a chance. I tell you, friends and neighbors, the Democratic party is being born again--it must be born again, in order to be worth saving." When Bradley stepped forward, he was very pale. "Friends and fellow-citizens," he began, after the applause had ended, "I can't find words to express my feeling for the great honor you have done me. I thank the citizens of Rock River for their aid, but I want to say--I'm going to run this campaign in the farmers' interest, because the interests of this county and of this State are agricultural, and whatever hurts the farmer hurts every other man in the State. There is no war between the town and the country. The war is between the people and the monopolist wherever he is, whether he is in the country or in the town. It is not true that the interests of the town dweller and of the farmer are necessarily antagonistic; the cause of the people is the same everywhere. It's like the condition of affairs between England and Ireland. People say that Ireland is fighting England--fighting the English people, but that is not the fact. The antagonism is between the Irish people and the English landlord. So the fight in America is the people against the special privileges enjoyed by a few. It's because these few generally live in towns that we _seem_ to be fighting the towns. "As the Judge said, we've settled the liquor question in this State; it won't come up again unless office seekers drag it up. It has been our State issue--that and the railroads; and now that is settled, we can turn our attention to the finishing up of the railway problem and to the discussion of the tariff." "And the money!" shouted some one; "abolish the national banks!"