Enoch Dunlap by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

How many times, during the twenty years / I was your leader, friends of Spoon River, / Did you neglect the convention and caucus, / And leave the burden on my hands / Of guarding and saving the people's cause? --

Sometimes because you were ill;

Or your grandmother was ill;

Or you drank too much and fell asleep;

Or else you said: "He is our leader, / All will be well; he fights for us;

We have nothing to do but follow."

But oh, how you cursed me when I fell, / And cursed me, saying I had betrayed you, / In leaving the caucus room for a moment, / When the people's enemies, there assembled, / Waited and watched for a chance to destroy / The Sacred Rights of the People.

You common rabble! I left the caucus / To go to the urinal!