Evening star., 1928-11-01

1
pen to the tariff that would take sim
gle five-cent piece out Of the weekly pay
| envelope of the American Workingman
or would in any way interfere with or
iniure business, large or small l made
that so clear and definite that the Re-
publican party managers were thrown
into a panic. They were afraid that
they had lost their timeworn argument,
and one of the Republican spokesmen
went so far as to say that the Demo-
cratic members of Congress would not
sustain my position. That they will is
evidenced by the fact that 90 per cent of
the Democratic Senators and candidates
for both houses of Congress have over
their signatures declared that, if elected.
they will follow the principle and policy
sci down by me in my Louisville speech.
Unless the American Workingman is
prepared to challenge my honesty and
the honest intent of my party he will be
unable to pay attention to the false
alarm raised by the Republican party
for the purpose of fooling him. No
thing to my way of thinking is as stupid
as trying to convince the American
workingman that the Democratic party
under my leadership is going to inter
fere with his prosperity.
He knows that my tariff proposals will
increase the prosperity Of this coun-
try. Not single Republican has dared
to criticise my plan to stop log-rolling,
to take the tariff out of politics and to
treat it as business proposition, in the
interest of the business man, the work.
ingnan and the farmer. The only thing
they could do was to raise the cry that
my party in Congress would not stand
behind me on 1t; and my party in Con-
greSs has rallied behind me almost to a
man and left the orators with nothing.
There is no greater cause for pros
perity to the workingman than pros
perity among the people who buy what
the workingman makes. The farmers
of this country are 80 per cent of the
population. If the buying power of
the farm is destroyed that means, as
l have said, fewer trips to the stores
on Main street. If the farmer buys
less the merchant buys less from the
manufacturer and the manufacturer
has to cut down his force of working
men.
Discusses Farm Aid.
Prosperity, therefore, for the one
third of the American people who live
on the farm, means prosperity for all
the people of the country; and distress
among the farmers necessarily means
distress for business and for working
men. And the Republican party con-
cedeS that the farmers of this country
today are in dire distress.
The desperate plight of agriculture in
this country is dealing a heavy blow
to the Republican forces For the first
time during my public career the Re-
publican party is driven to desperation
in an attempt to hold the farmer vote
of the country. To do it after eight
aF oftnr
years of betrayal, after eight years of
false promise, they have their chief
orator travelling through the agricul-
tural West and Northwest and making
statements on behalf of the Republican
candidate, which they hope will fool the
farmer.
Let me taken some of them up. First,
Senator Borah is busy explaining to the
American farmer that Mr.. Hoover is
his friend, because during the war and
Immediately thereafter, as food admins
traitor. he so conducted his office as TO
keep up the price Of farm products. The
fact is that I read a cablegram from
Mr.. Hoover to one of the farm leaders
in which Mr.. Hoover claimed that he
was keeping the prices down. What Is
the use Of attempting to fool the farmer
why have prominent Republican state
that he kept prices up WneIl lile CdiiuI-
date himself says that he Kept them
down? Mr.. Hoover is to speak at St
Louis on Friday night. I ask him to
make the statement definitely to the
American farmer that he kept up the
price of farm products during the war
I ask him further whether he will
deny that such cablegram ever came
from him. Nobody can dispose OF the
question as quickly as he can himself:
and, If he fails to make disposition OF
the question, the American farmer can
make up his mind that the Repub-
lican spokesmen are fooling him.
In his speech Of acceptance, as a
means of relief to the farmer from the
distress that he finds himself In, he has
promised them cheaper transportation
by the construction of inland water
ways. This In itself is commendable.
The Democratic party is equally COM
mitted to the improvement OF our in
land waterways. But to afford it as a