Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1897 — Champ Clark’s Wit. [ARTICLE]

Champ Clark’s Wit.

Champ Clark of Missouri is not only one of the wittiest men in the house of representatives, but he is one of tho best posted on the tariff question. In ridiculing some of the rates of the Dingley bill that to him seemed subject to criticism, he recited how a man of the name of Goodyear went before the ways and means committee and secured the tariff he wanted by some skillful palaver about the great statesmen that Maine had produced. Then he said: “Mr. Chairman, that piece of ‘soft soap’ made it harder for every poor man in the United States to build a house. Governor Dingley swallowed the bait as quick as a trout would swallow a fly [laughter], and next summer some poor devil out west, living in a dugout 100 miles iiem a railroad station, who voted for McKinley under the deluded idea that prosperity would come under his administration and who has not heard of this tariff bill, ciphers it out that be can build him a two room cottage with lumber and other building materials at the old rate. He goes to the station to get the lumber and finds that the price has gone sky high, and he goes back to his home and says to his wife: ‘My dear, I am sorry that we must stay in the dugout. We cannot build our little house. A great man by the name of Governor Dingley has put the price of lumber and other things so high that we cannot do it, but, thank God, he has left dragon's blood freo. ’ [Laughter. ] Next year, when my handsome friend from lowa (Mr. Dolliver) returns to that fine agricultural district which ho represents, some man who has not been able to buy a coat because of the high price of woolen cloth will say to his neighbor, ‘There comes Dolliver, who put up the price of woolen goods. ’ But the successful candidate for the postoffice in that district soys, ‘Oh, but Dolliver put divi-divi on the free list!’ And in chorus they sing, ‘Dolliver and divi-divi forever.’ ” [Laughter. Applause on the Democratic side. ]