Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1906 — WHY AND WHEN I FLOPPED. [ARTICLE]

WHY AND WHEN I FLOPPED.

[The following was written by a lady 63 years of age and sent us with a request that we publish same.— Ed.] I noticed in the Munoie Star a while back where Mr. Odell olaimed that the republicans in their campaign should have stood fora good many things that Mr. Hearst advocated. This I think too. I think the republioan party should stand for a great many things that it does not stand for. The G. O. P. is not what it was in ’6l and a few years since. It is getting so corrupt that it oan not stand much longer. When anything gets so corrupt, it must fali, and I hope it will fall in the near future. I was one day as strong a republioan as I am now a democrat —in the time of the oivil war, when the republicans were right and the democrats were wrong. Lincoln was as good a man as ever lived and did one of the grandest things ever done when he liberated the slaves, for, as Mr. Bryan says, ‘‘no man was ever born good enough to rule another man without his permission.” Democrats today quote more of Lincoln’ssayings than the republicans do, but the thiDg has been reversed since Lincoln’s time. The mass of the people are calling for W. J. Bryan to remove their fetters and to throw off the lid that has been screwed down so tight that it is almost unbearable. My father was a smart old republioan. I had two brothers in the civil war. One was discharged and came home to die. The other walks with one leg and crutches, but yet he is a republican. My husband was a republican, dyed in the wool. I did not think much about what I was, but as years went by I began to see things were not right, but not so clearly as I did the first time Bryan ran for president. I was then a widow. All I had at that time was my little cottage home This did not get clothes, fuel, and food. As my education was Dot good enough to help me in any kind of business, I was doomed to go to hard labor. Then it was I began to get my eyes open. I had to go to my work early and come home late and tired. I had only Saturday and Sunday for my own. My house was left topsy-turvey till Saturday. Now listen. One Saturday morning I started out early to do my trading, before people began to get in the way. The first thing I did was to see about getting a ton of coal. When I priced the coal, the dealer told me thore was a strike on and coal was up. Well, I should say, it was up. Up so high that I could not reach it with a liberty pole. So of course I took less coal. I then went to the meat market to get in my Sunday’s supply of meat, and as our butchers shipped in the most of their meat the trust had the lid down so tight that I couldn’t even see in, so I then concluded I would head that off. I would get some eggs and do without meat. I priced the eggs and the clerk told me there was a corner on eggs. I had to have something, so I got a dozen eggs by paying three prices for them. Next I priced flour. It was so high and my money so low that, I concluded to get a loaf es bread, a pound of crackers and a small sack of meal. I thought I would not starve as long as I bad meal and water to make mush, Sugar and coffee were both on the advance, so I bought from the bulk 1 then examined my purse and found that I had a little change left. So I thought, as my house was so dirty and my broom worn out, that 1 would get a broom. I bad an idea in my head that my mush would taste better if my house was in order. I picked out my broom and laid down a quarter, when the clerk informed me that the broom was 40 cents. How was that for prosperity? I set the broom back, took ray money, and went to a neighbor and borrowed a broom. But not till after I was converted a full-fledged Bryan democrat. I simply went home and sat down in my dirt and oried, as all women do, till my tears gave me relief. I then got up and for the first time in my life said,“Hurrah! for William Jennings Bryan. O! that he may get there!*’ And today I can say that the happiest day of my life would be to see Bryan and Hearst in the White House. The day’s experience that I have i'ust mentioned oaused me to flop. have not much fault to And with Mr. Roosevelt. * Perhaps he has done the beet he could under the circumstances. He has worked on a demooratio platform pretty well, but does uot go quite far enough when he does anything that is democratic The democrats stand by him and the ones who kick are republicans. Teddie was smart enough not to make his party any promises in his speech of acceptj anoe or in his letter of the same,

but aa soon as he got in he began to steal, like all the rest of the party. Yes, he did. The first grab he made was to pull out a piank from Mr. Bryan’s platform. Doing pretty well and seeing the democrats were satisfied, he took another and another, but Mr. Bryan being good natured, he didn’t make any kick. He didn’t mind him taking the lumber, providing he put it to good use. Now, I hope that young men who have never cast a vote will think a little for themselves and keep their heads level and under their own hats. Don’t vote the republican ticket just because your daddie did Very likely he voted it because his daddie did, and let some one else do his thinking for him. Think for yourself. Study the causes and take notice of the results and yon will be converted as I have been. Don’t think because you have a good oorn, cattle, or hog crop that the republican party is to be thanked for it, but think how the many are pressed under the thumb of the few, and when you go to the polls two years from now walk up like a man of twice of your years and hit that rooster one good blow, if you never do so again. There is one thing I have always regretted and that is that the laws in our states will not allow a woman to vote. I am like Cel. Ingersoll, [ think a woman should have all the rights of a man, and one more —the right to be protected. Physioally she io weaker. When I have to stay at home on firesidential election day and see unatics pass my door, just brought home from the afcylum for the express purpose ot casting their idiotic vote for the G. O. P. it makes me feel like it was all wrong. If I could vote, two years from now I wonld certainly hit that rooster square on the neck. Like Josh Billings, I admire the rooeter for the orow he has in him and for the spurs he has to back the orow up with. D. K. Upland, Ind.