In one of the many simple dignified
apartments of this building my companion and I were introduced to the
gentleman who was governor of the State at the time of our visit. It
seemed to me that he had a look both worn and apprehensive, and that,
while we talked, he was waiting for something. I don't know how I
gathered this impression, but it came to me definitely. After we had
departed from the executive chamber I asked the gentleman who had taken
us there if the governor was ill.
"No," he replied. "All our governors look like that after they have been
in office for a while."
"From overwork?"
"No, from an overworked jest--the jest about 'what the Governor of North
Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina.' Every one who meets
the governor thinks of that joke and believes confidently that no one
has ever before thought of this application of it. So they all pull it
on him. For the first few months our governors stand it pretty well, but
after that they begin to break down. They feel they ought to smile, but
they can't. They begin to dread meeting strangers, and to show it in
their bearing. When in private life our governor had a very pleasant
expression, but like all the others, he has acquired, in office, the
expression of an iron dog."
Raleigh's most widely-known citizen is Josephus Daniels, Secretary of
the Navy, and publisher of the Raleigh "News and Observer.
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