Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1932-04-07
GOVERNOR OLSON'S
SPEECH AT FARMER
LABOR CONVENTION
BY KNUD WEFALD

by hNOD w Ell ALL
The daily press has busted itself
with tearing to pieces Governor Floyd
Olson's speech to the recent Farmer
Labor convention, but it can not tear
out of the memory of those who heard
it delivered, the profound impression
it made ON them. 1t was a day and
a speech to be long remembered. The
size of the convention showed clearly
that his party had grown, it's DELHI
erations showed that it had grown in
wisdom; but the governors speech
showed, clearer yet, that the governor
had ripened and matured. 1t was no
boyish speech, it was no youthful gov
ernor; before the convention stood
full-grown warrior, eager for the fray.
With merciless logic he tore to
pieces the charges of the Republicans
against his administration, with con-
sumate skill he defended his own adj
ministration and showed how it had
benefited the state. With biting sar-
casm he fastened the label of 'hy-
pocracy" upon the Republican high
priests of the state, whose hierarcy
has ruled the state for Is years and
piled upon the back of it's people its
debt load, but who now counts the
dimes and the pennies they might
have saved had their benign rule been
still further extended. There was not
single note of apology in his speech,
there was a challenging ring to it as
though he invited still further criti-
ciSm.
They will not drive Governor Olson
into a defensive campaign, they will
not get him in corner.
But the grandest Cutburst of oratory.
and that which received the most APP
plause was, when to paraphrase In
gerSOll, like an armed warrior, like
a plumed knight, he threw his shining
lance full and fair against the brazen
foreheads of the maligners of his
honor l wonder what the whisper
ers" whisper now?
Effective speech! Well, | should say
so! Even in the corridors of the
capitol have the vipers wheezed and
whispered, even into the ears of his
closest friends have they tried to pour
the poison. But it became so still and
silent the minute he had spoken. Yet,
it was like the whisper followed him
right up to the speakers platform,
when he came in.
In effect he told his adversaries,
that in open combat, face to face, he
feared none and would take them all
on. The stabS in the back he did not
relish, but if that was the way the
fight was to be waged, he would fight
them with their own weapons, pay
them back in their own coin. eve
will call the roll!'' he said, and he
started the roll call by calling just a
few names, of the little fellows-and
it seems as though they do not want
him to complete the roll call.
1t was the blood of his viking an
cestors that spoke through him, the
blood of the fearless, -defying
vikings, sinful men, who yet in their
time were the only ones who in a
dark age had ideals of liberty and
justice and who held these up so high
that the world could see them. The
men, who from their days to ours,
have been the doors of deeds, could
never walk a chalkline and do things.
The hypocrites, who stretch chalk
line for others, do never walk it them
selves either.
From that hall, and from under the
spell of the governors speech, walked
the thousand or more delegates, de-
termined to do battle; and it, as they
say, that Olson will only be a one
term governor, the battlefield will
long bear the imprint of the feet of
men who stood up fighting until they
were cut down.