The G. O. P. was much amazed
To hear a crack like that.
Some said that Calvin must be crazed
Or talking through his hat.
“He’s left us groping in the dark”,
Was it a joke or fun?
That he should wire that cool remark,
“I do not choose to run.”
The G. O. P. is sore beset,
Its wailings rend the air,
To find another they can get
To grace the White House chair.
No man can do what Calvin did,
No man beneath the sun,
What mystery in those words, he hid ;
“I do not choose to run.“
This sentence seems to be so mild,
So simple and so plain,
That any school-boy, tot or child,
Its meaning could explain.
But Congressmen and men well read
Have conned it, one by one,
To find out what “Cal” meant when he said,
“I do not choose to run.”
Supreme Court judges tried in vain
To find what Calvin meant,
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And often asked him to explain,
What was his real intent.
But Calvin shut up like a clam,
As silent as a nun,
And said, in words severe and calm,
“I do not choose to run.”
The senators from every state,
Pastors from every church
All asked why he should hesitate
And leave them in a lurch.
But still he closes up his mouth
And tells them every one,
From frozen north to sunny south,
“I do not choose to run.”
And now he’s in the Badger State,
Where summer days are cool.
He’s on an oil magnate’s estate,
Upon the river Brule,
With ten pound padlock on his gate,
All Lumberjacks he’ll shun,
And to himself he’ll iterate,
“I do not choose to run.”
He’ll angle for the speckled trout,
In streams or lake or pool
That can be found on, or about,
The howling River Brule.
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