Nevada County picayune., 1888-05-16
Speech of Hon. D. E. Barker.

By way of eXordium he gave the congressional committee of this dis trict a hauling over, for seeing fit to exercise it's own judgement as to the calling of the gressional ConVen- ton. and attempt to vindicate him. self for making the canvass in MT. McRae's absence.
 In the next place, he proceeded to give the larger part of the press of the district severe castigation, for supporting MT. McRae in prefer ence to himself-insinuating very broadly that they had been subsidiz- ed and bought to do so. He said that where so many papc IS were so supporting one man, there must be a cause for it, and stronly insinuated that that cause was money. If Mr. Barker had on- 1 lv taken the trouble to look for it |. he could have found a more palpable and evident cause than the one inti- mated by himself, It is highly probable that the intelligent gentle men who conduct the press in this district prefer MT. McRae to MT. Barker because they see in him a su- perior man, one better qualified than MT. Barker to discharge the duties of the high office of our representa- tive in Congress-. MT. Barker affords no evidence whatever that these gen l tlcmen had bceu bought to support MT. McRae and when asked if he in- tended to charge Mr. McRae with buying them up, he stated emphat- icallv that he did not. There is scarcely one of these editors. thus maligned, who is not the equal of MT. Barker in every respect. and Many of them are his supcriors. and none of them more liable to be bought than MT. Barker himself.
 He next alluded to that sentence in his circular in which he said in substance, that he trusted because he was q farmer, that would be no objection 10 him. Now this appears to be demagoguery in Mr Barker because be could not suppose that the farmers of this district would object to him because he was a farmer. And in being a farmer he has no advantage over MT McRae, who is one also-is running a farm in partnership with a good citizen on- ly short distance from this place.
 MT. Barker next announced that the politicians were making war up on him. Now the truth is that he is himself chronic poltician-mak- ing war on everybody opposed to him. He even went so far in his speech here, as to say that he would not except the friendship and kindly greetings of one who refused to sup port i'm.
 Then after some remarks about railroads. and the cotton tax and the mutual indebtedness of Arkansas and the United States to each other and some other matters which he ] rendered in rather a confused man ner-anorlntinG tO nothing. he turn cd himself loose on the Blair bill and charged MT. McRae with stand 1 ing shoulder to shoulder with Sher- man and Blair as to that bill when he knew, or at least ought to have known, that MT McRac is opposed l to those objectionable features in that bill, tending to give the United ! States government control. to some extent, over our common schools. in the event that we accepted the mOn- ey which the bill proposes to give Us. When asked the question as to whether he had not, as member of 1 the Arkansas legislature, voted to re- quest or instruct our Senators and Representatives in congress to do all { they could, to secure the passage of the Sherwin bill. on the same subject as the Blair bill, and equally obiec- tionable in principle, he admitted that he had so voted, but had done so without understanding the Sher- win bill, and that he was now as much opposed to the one as to tho other, In order to show how he might be fooled into voting for for the Sherwn bill, without knowing what was in it, he said that while a member of the legislature he had been induced to vote for the overdue tax bill, ana that upon see ing it in print, after having voted for it, he was strongly disposed to get somebody to kick him for having done so that it was so confused in its provisions that no two lawyers or two courts had agreed in constructing it. Now. if Mir. Barker has told the truth on himself about this he ought not to go to congress. If upon two occasions in the State legislature with every facility for examining for himself, he has been mis-led and honey-fuggled into voting for impor- tant bills of q deleterious character, without knowing what they meant, what would happen to him among