The San Francisco call., 1910-11-07
REED QUESTIONS
THE INDIANA "?'
Ibid You Beat Your Wife ?" and
"Were You Arrested for Kiss
ing a Girl on Street 2"
By CHARLES WESLEY REED.


Before the late Senator Dolliver died
he said that fiamboyant oratory was
no longer tolerated because the Ameri-
can people now demanded simplicity
and sincerity in the handling of pub
lie questions, and the speaker who
could patiently. fairly and truthfully
analyze political subjects was the man
who could hold his audience and influ-
ence voters in campaign. -
On the eve of election day we have
developed campaign in California so
slanderously vicious that Rabbi Nieto
truthfully said last Saturday before the
Commonwealth club that If he were to
take the estimates of the rival candi-
dates for governor furnished by them
selves he should conclude that both
We're totally unworthy.
And we have in San Francisco an i'm
ported professor of languages from In
diana skillfully waving aloft the
mighty interrogat tion point in an intel
ity. We are taking ourselves too seri-
ousIy and especially taking Frank E.
Herring too seriously.
Observe the mechanism of his ques-
tions. First, the statement is made
that Hiram w. Johnson sat silently
by" when William Hoff Cook asked
that J. DalzeH Brown be sentenced to
IS months on a promise that he would
giveAinformation leading to the return
of 81. 900 900 to the depositors of the
California safe deposit and trust COM
pany Cook never made the promise,
but that is only another story.) Next
Mr.. Johnson has pledged the court,
forgot his promise" had been
party to the pledge" Speech is silver.
but silence is golden. Here, however,
silence Is speech-nothing less than
"a pledge to the court"
With silence as the basis of all these
pledges and broken promises, Mr.. Her
ing then asks multitude of ques-
tions about Western Pacific stock,
money had from the United Railroads
and what not. that become in the edi-
torial columns of one of the newspa-
pers an astounding indictment"
May I not ask a question of Frank
E. Herring. professor Of questions, not
really wishing for an answer, but only
desiring to show the viciousness of his
system and possibly raise a laugh at
his expense?
Frank F. Herring, do you not beat
your wife?' You may not have a wife,
but such an Insignificant detail is of no
consequence. If you refuse to answer
my question / will say that silence
gives consent (you can turn silence
into a pledge" promise" etc) and
that you admit that you beat your
wife Thereafter | will refer to you
as an admitted wife beater who de-
serves the whipping post. I repeat,
therefore, Are you not most noto-
rious wife beater? Dare you refuse to
answer this plain question:
If you take my dare and call nfe an
impertinent busybody and retailer of
lies and slander I will reply, Shake
not thy CORY locks at me- l only
asked a question. / never charged you
with being a wife beater.
Or to illustrate in another way the
essential cowardliness of Mr.. Hering's
questions of Mr. Johnson I will ask
Frank E. Herring, professor of ques-
tions. of Indiana, the following:
Were you not arrested on July 6, 1909.
by the chief of police of Indianapolis
fer kissing girl on the street, and
were you not released from custody
only after promising never to do it
again?' Dare you refuse to answer?
Silence gives consent. Next day you
are an admitted street 'masher." You
have been asked If you are not a
"masher' and you do not deny the
charge. Did you sot get away with
the girls bag of candy while she was
fuse to answer?
What right. by the way, has Mr.. Her
ing to predicate his political attacks
on Mr.. Johnson because of his being an
officer of the Eagles unless the Eagles
are opposing Mr.. Johnson as an order?
Is he not bringing the Eagles into poll
ties without authority, because, as is
well known the Eagles never roll the
filthy pool of politics.
The people of the west are a manly
race, but asking questions that are
not meant to be answered is not manly
Insinuating criminal conduct in way
that enables the interrogation to say
that he never made the Indictment is
cowardly. And saying that johnson
has promised" agreed pledged the
court when he did nothing of the
kind is 1perilously near to falsehood
Are the people of San Francisco living
up to their own regulations for open
handed fair play in paying attention to
the unmanly attacks Of the question
mark from Indiana?
Really, it is to laugh.
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