One On Wedemeyer

How a Chilly Audience Froze the Sweat on Wede's Brow.

The Hudson Gazette tells of how the perspiration froze on the brow of Washtenaw's favorite son:

W. W. Wedemeyer (for H. S. Pingree) and Henry C. Smith (for Henry C. Smith) talked upon the leading issues of the day (the Atkinson tax bill and the Smith mileage case) before a large and exhausted audience, at Clayton, last Saturday night. Smith assured his hearers that if the women could vote he would surely be the next congressman and occupied the most of his time in telling funny stories and side-splitting jokes. The greatest joke of  the evening however was when Wedemeyer paid an eloquent tribute to Pingree. "Wedey" is one of the best orators in the state and knows how to arrange his speech so as to secure applause at the right time. He went along with a most flowery tribute to Pingree and when he thought he had the audience so they would applaud, whether they wanted to or not, he jumped into the air, swung his arms and said, "that man of the people, that soldier boy's friend, Michigan's grand war governor, Hazen S. Pingree." Then he struck a statue-like attitude and with the sweat rolling down his cheeks, waited for the tremendous applause. Silence, cold, cold, silence followed, and if "Wedey" had not wiped the sweat from his cheeks, it surely would have congealed and made him look like a regular Jack Frost. It was frigid, very frigid, and a gentleman who was in the hall said that the only response to Wedemeyer's tribute on Pingree was a dull, sickening "Huh," from an old republican in the rear of the hall. Even Smith, who occasionally enjoys "freeze-out," said that it was too cool for him, and avowed his intention of buying a pocket stove to use at the meetings while Wedemeyer is paying tribute to Pingree.