Posts Tagged ‘elections’

We’d make life easier for ourselves—and more pleasant for everyone else—if we could learn to behave like respectful adults, even with the people whose ideology we abhor. But if you think American politics is nastier than ever, maybe you can take small comfort in knowing there’s nothing new under the sun.

Take, for instance, the 1910 elections in Maine. The state’s political machine had long been controlled by popular Sen. Eugene Hale, whose son Col. Frederick Hale was running for Congress. In a blistering editorial in his rural weekly, the Six Town Times, Charles Thornton Libby didn’t stop at criticizing the Hale politicians—he also took aim at the senator’s wife:

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