{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/an-election-expense",
 "title": "An Election Expense",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-v",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 52,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume V of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1911). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface states that most of its verses are republished from newspapers and periodicals of the Pacific Coast, and which of them printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Stanford, when recently you gave Tom Fitch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ten thousand dollars, gold, to “stump the State”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(A circumstance of no importance, which",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You deemed it right, however, to relate",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To the grand jury) did you calculate",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That it and other sums, which I will not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Embarrass you by naming, would come back,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As bread upon the waters, piping hot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With added pancakes in an ample stack?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twere better, sir, to cast your bread-and-butter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(You’d get that back, at least) into the gutter.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Tom Fitch’s “silver tongue” is very well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If let alone⁠—though that he’ll never do.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For he must live by what he has to sell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And silver should be “free,” that’s very true.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But how the devil could the thing help you?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Like an unruly child, it kicks and squalls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In mutiny whene’er he moves his chin,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And ne’er is faithful except when he falls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Asleep in Je⁠—I mean, of course, in Gin.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Tom’s tongue make Senators? No, no, that’s gammon;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re made by Mr. Stow and Mr. Mammon.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I know they are, for once I saw the two",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hobnobbing in a friendly kind of way",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Up there at Sacramento. It is true",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You were not with them. I heard statesmen say",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You took good care to tarry at the Bay,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where you could be “surprised” when Creed should claim",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your ear, and hope you’d pardon him, and sigh,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And say he’d ventured to propose your name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that all men had thrown their hats so high",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That none had yet come down, and split their collars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With cheers, and⁠—would you loan him twenty dollars?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A famous person said that God and he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were a majority; so, by your leave,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Are you and Mammon; but it seems to me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That you and he on this Thanksgiving eve",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Should drink a stirrup-cup (for I perceive",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You ride your philanthropic hobby⁠—Ned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Curtis astride behind you) and so part.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For, after all is done and all is said.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mammon & Stanford are not over-smart.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The firm’s an old one, but not quite respected",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since you in statesmanship have been detected.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}