The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1908-07-09

THE FARMERS WIFE WOULD HAVE
CALLED YOU
and sleep more souudly than any bust
ness man in America You newspa-
per fellers think you know it all. but
you'd take drop to yourselves if you
were on the tramp for month. You'd
see more human nature with the bark
Oh in that time than you can find on
the east side in New York in five
years
Say, now" continued the man, can
you name me one single newspaper in
the state of New York that felt sure
of ROosevelts election as governor:
No; you can't. | hit his majority with
in 1000. Why? Because was
among the people and knew how they
talked Plenty of politicians and news
papers said he'd be elected rs prrSi-
dent when he ran, but no man or no
newspaper came within a thousand
miles of the popular majority don't
say that | hit it, but | could have
given pointers to a hundred editors.
Before the next national convention
of either party meets I'll have tramped
over three or four states. and I'll be
ready to wager my life against nickel
that | can name the victorious caudi-
date. I'll wager that | can predict it
far closer than any newspaper in the
land If you want to know what this
country is thinking about. my boy.
don't box yourself mp in a sanctum and
read few exchanges. Get out and
rub elbows with the people 1t isn't
the few big cities that settle the great
political questions. It's tile farmer and
the villager. and they come pretty
near being dead right every time
When | had tramped across seven
counties of New York state. shouted
for Hughes. A politician in Syracuse
who heard me had me thrown out of Il
meeting and wanted the police to ar
rest Inc. | heard that he had a bet of
$1,000 oil another candidate and was
predicting Hughes defeat by 10000.
But enough of this. I'll switch off and
tell You something that has hurt me
for the last three or four years.
'Do you know that few men com
paratively have almost changed the
nature of the country and village popu
lation? No, you don't. but your learn
of ii some day through some magazine
writer who gathers mp his points in the
way have Time was when not one
farmer in ten in the land locked his
house or barn at night. Now ninety
out of hundred do it. When Il stran-
ger came along they welcomed him
When a mali talked with them. they
accepted his statements. What they
saw in the newspapers they believed
without cavil Well. they have got
over all this. The patent medicine
fakir, the mine eXploiter. the bucket
shop man and the hundreds of other
swindlers have destroyed the conf
dence of the farmer and villager in hui
man nature. They have been bitten so
often and so hard that they have come
to doubt il such thing as honesty
exists. They won't take strangers
word for anything They have got
through believing that there is an
honest advertiser, They have even be-
come distrustful of each other. 1t has
become the hardest kind of work to
sell windmill, piano or other article
direct.
Victim of Fakirs.
"You can't get out into the country
and walk five miles without finding
victim of the fakirs. The farmer has
invested in bogus mines, bogus oil
wells, bogus stocks and bogus other
things, and not only lost his money,
but come to know that he was as good
as robbed Of 1t. The villager has
been trapped the same way 1t has
hardened their hearts and given them
the worst view Of mankind. You can
know nothing Of this feeling nor the
Als-=saEa eAaA1uaAaass.-..