Plus ça change

Yesterday, auction day, I brought home a handful of old paperback cookbooks to add to Mom's collection. Tucked inside the front cover of one of these booklets was a newspaper clipping, dated "...ER 1908", from the Peoria Herald-[cut away, don't know what the rest of the paper was called]. The little yellowed rectangle speaks across a century rather pointedly, I think.

From the section of the paper titled "Transcripts"

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS
By the People
Once more you're all at Washington
at work with might and main ;
It's cost this land a pretty sum to
send you there again.
Your salaries are counting up you're
quite a luxury ;
We hope that you'll be worth it,
though on this we don't agree.

You're there, of course, to do some
work ; we've outlined it to you ;
Some delicate repairing on the tariff
you must do.
It's a tremendous ticklish task – it
must be done just so ;
Just put your mind upon it and let
all the small jobs go.

We want this done and done just
right ; we choose you for the work
Don't sit around and let it slip ; don't
dally and don't shirk.
For if you let the year go by and
don't get through this chore,
You know just what we'll do to you
when you come home once more.