Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1908 — Frank Davis Talked Soma. [ARTICLE]

Frank Davis Talked Soma.

Frank Davis, the Brook attorney, talked politics Thursday evening in the east court room, and had a goed sized crowd out to hear him, among tiie audience being a number of his friends who are sorry to see him throw such brilliancy to a cause so faulty. Frank opened up by taking off his collar, and got a little ripple of merriment when he said that the last thing he had promised his wife was that he wouldn’t take it off. He then sauntered off into a flight of o atory in which he told of the rise and fall of the Roman empire and spoke of the days" of the supremacy of Greece. He was a veritable “Silver-tongued orator, From whose lips Sweeter than honey Flowed the stream of speech.” And Frank seemed to know a “right and Aristotle and the two Dionysius despots performed, and he lecalled the wars of conquest waged in those ancient years. Going back a lit le better than 2,000 years he had the history of those countries right off the book, but when he took a smouch at the protective tariff he forgot that sad two years when the democratic party under Cleveland had control of the legislative bodies of the country and passed.the Wilso.i-Go m n measure that tore down the walls of protection and closed the American factories. Strange how a fellow can read things frontf an encyclopaedia and remember it almost by heart and then forget that the old man had to mortgage the farm to buy seed corn add potatoes and duds for the kids only twelve short years ago. Frank objected seriously to paying ti e fifty cent tariff on a hat, even if the fifty cents did go to the paying off of the hands in an American hat factory. He wants the tariff taken off the hat manufactured in Germany or England and the laboring men going bareheaded and barefooted. Frank is in favor of a revision that will knock the tariff “clean off,” even if he destroys the demand for the products of the farm and reduces com to 20 cents & bushel. Frank Is about the only right out and out free trader that we have run across since the day that Wm. Bryan, the boy orator of the Platt, helped pass the Wilson measure, and took a smack at the coal barons by shutting tlown the factories. Frank says he is opposed to giving the manufacturer his advantage before the laborer gets his, but we can’t figure who Is going to pay the labor if the manufacturer don’t get a profit on his goods. Over at Brook they have secured two or tjiree mi-,bty good factories by subsidizing them. The commercial olub that fathered the plan was not philanthropic, but they expected to get their money back. How? Why, ' the factories that received the money were to employ labor and the labor was to live in Brook, rent or build houses there and buy their groceries and meat and clothing there. By this method the money and much more was to be sp.nt

right there in Brook. That is the national republican policy of a protective tariff. The tariff on the products of foreign factories keeps out the articles that are manufactured in countries where labor is underpaid, and the American factory starts up, and is able to pay its labor good prices. Who gets the protection? Why che laborer who did not have a job until the factory was started in this country; the manufacturer who makes a profit on the goods he manufactures or the man who buys the bat, or the coat or any other article because he has a job where he formerly did not have one, or because he enjoys the trade. of the man who has the job. But where does the American farmer come in? Why, the employment of labor creates a demand for the products of the farm, cal is for wheat and corn and beef and pork and eggs and everything that the farmer raises, and price increases with demand. But isn’t it hard on the laboring man to pay the high prices for what he eats. Why,"God bteraryouTtr Isn’t stj im-d as it was before be had a job. Which would you sooner have, good wages and a good price for everything oi’ low prices and no job? I guess I’d sooner work and take my chances. But the trusts? Well, don’t yen worry about the trusts, the i epubli- j can party has never seen any two years when it did as little toward curbing the trusts as the democratic party did from 1894 to 1896. The republican party believes and enforces laws that will curb and control the trusts, but It does not advocate any ! radicalism that will destroy business 1 and consequently the price of the farm product and the employment of labor. | Well, Frank “blowed” np badly as a trust buster and tariff expert and then he took a long slant on the lati est Bryan vaguery, the guarantee of bank deposits. Here he worked hard; and talked to the rafters, but aside from doing the Bryan stunt of malting the most of a thing while It is new he did not accomplish anything. The Republican has waited a long tinle to discuss the fad- borrowed from Oklahoma, but will take up that proposition In a few days. It Is socialistic and would destroy the individuality of the banker. It will never become a national law until the government goes into the hands of the socialists, Frank Davis is too big a man to remain in Brook, but he Is not big enough to conquer the world for the fallacies of Bryan.