Poetry · Chapter
One President explained
A father explains to his child that the weeping statesmen are disappointed because the candidate they praised as honest and capable turned out to actually be honest and capable, contrary to their usual expectations.
What happens
A father explains to his child that the weeping statesmen are disappointed because the candidate they praised as honest and capable turned out to actually be honest and capable, contrary to their usual expectations.
Themes in this chapter
Political Satire
The poem satirizes political hypocrisy, where statesmen are distressed that a candidate actually possesses the virtues they claimed he had.
Hypocrisy and Corruption
The statesmen's weeping reveals their hypocrisy: they expected the candidate to be dishonest like themselves, and are upset by his genuine integrity.
Key passages
“What are those, father?" "Statesmen, my child— Lachrymose, unparliamentary, wild." "What are they that way for, father?" "Last fall, 'Our candidate's better,' they said, 'than all!'"”
A child asks why the men are crying, and the father explains they are statesmen who last autumn claimed their candidate was superior to all others.
The father identifies the weeping figures as statesmen and recalls their earlier campaign boasts.
“They're weeping and wailing and gnashing because They find that he's all that they said that he was.”
The statesmen are distraught because the candidate turned out to be exactly as honest and capable as they had claimed.
The punchline reveals the irony: the statesmen are upset by the candidate's actual virtue, exposing their own insincerity.