The Mercedes News (Mercedes, Tex.), Vol. 5, No. 63, Ed. 1 Friday, June 29, 1928 Page: 3 of 12
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
THE MERCEDES NEWS,. FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1928
Page 3
THORNS AND THISTLES FOR THE TILLERS
OF THE SOIL, SAYS DEMOCRATIC KEYNOTER
ku
}
The text of Claude G. Bowers’ key-
note speech of the Democratic conven-
tion in Houston, follows:
The American democracy has mob-
lized today to wage a war of exterm-
ination against privilege and pillage.
We prime our guns against auto-
cracy and bureaucracy. We march
against that centralization which
threatens the liberties of the people.
We fight for the republic of our fath-
ers, and for the recovery of the cov-
enant from the keeping of a caste and
class. We battle for the honor of
the nation, besmirched and bedrag-
gled by the most brazen and shame-
less carnival of corruption that ever
blackened the reputation of a decent
and self-respecting people.
We stand for the spirit of the pre-
amble of the declaration that is made
a mockery, for the Bill of Rights that
is ignored; for the social and econom-
ic justice which is refused; for the
sovereign rights of states that are
denied; and for a return to the - old-
fashioned civic integrity of a Jack-
son, a Tilden, a Cleveland and a Wil-
son. We stand for the restoration of
government to the people who built it
by their bravery and cemented it with
their blood.
We do not underestimate the ene-
my. The little gilded group that now
owns and controls the government can
pour a golden stream into the slush
fund and make no impression on the
fprtunes they have legislated into
their coffers. The enemy enters the
campaign unembarrassed by a debt—
Harry Sinclair has paid that off. It
enters the campaign with his money
in its pocket and his blessing on its
head.
For forty years the party in pow-
er has conjured with the name of
Lincoln, while following the leader-
ship of Hamilton; and now, after eight
years of successful privilege and pil-
lage it throws off the Lincolnian
mask. It could hardly keep the Lin-
coln mask on its face and Sinclair’s
money in its chest.
Thus at Kansas City, where they
dramatized the issue, it was not Lin-
coln, but Hamilton, who rode at the
head of the procession.
Two Political Schools
Thus they frankly base their poli-
cies on the political principles of
Hamilton; and we go forth to battle
for the principles of Thomas Jeffer-
son. The issues are as fundamental
as they were when Jefferson and
that “God loved the common people pie against exploitation and turned
A.
Hamilton crossed swords more than
a century ago. To understand the
conflicting views of these two men
on the functions of government is to
grasp the deep significance of this
campaign.
Now Hamilton believed in the rule
of the aristocracy of money, and Jef-
ferson in a democracy of men.
Hamilton believed that governments
are created for the domination of the
masses, and Jefferson that they are
created for the service of the people.
Hamilton wrote to Morris that gov-
ernments are strong in proportion as
they are made profitable to the pow-
erful, and Jefferson knew that no gov-
ernment is fit to live that does not
conserve the interest of the average
man.
Hamilton proposed a scheme for
binding the wealthy to the govern-
ment by making government a source
of revenue to the wealthy; and Jef-
ferson unfurled his banner of equal
rights.
Hamilton wanted to wipe out the
boundary lines of States, and Jeffer-
son was the champion of their sover-
eign powers.
Hamilton would have concentrated
authority remote from the people, and
Jefferson would have diffused it
among them.
Hamilton would have injected gov-
ernmental activities into all the af-
fairs of men; and Jefferson laid it
down as an axiom of freedom that
“government is best which governs
least.”
Just put a pin in this: There is not
a major evil of which the American
people are complaining now that is
not due to the triumph of the Ham-
'^‘-iltonian conception of the state. And
the tribute to Hamilton at Kansas
City was an expression of fealty to
him who thought that governments
are strong in proportion as they are
made profitable to the powerful; who
proposed the plan for binding the
wealthy to the government by making
government a source of revenue to
the wealthy; who devised the scheme
to tax the farm to pay the factory;
and whose purpose was to make dem-
ocracy in America a mockery and a
sham.
Thus we are challenged once more
to a conflict on the fundamentals;
and a clear call comes to us today
to fight anew under the Jeffersonian
banner, with the Jacksonian sword,
and in the Wilsonian spirit, and crash-
ing the gates of privilege, make Jef-
fersonian democracy a living force
again in the lives and homes of men.
The friendly enemy at Kansas City
has rendered a clarifying service by
proclaiming Hamilton as its father
and beau ideal. This ought to awak-
en the Lincolnians among Republicans
to a realization of what are the fun-
damentals of their party faith. It
was Lincoln who said that “the prin-
ciples of Jefferson are the definitions
tyl the axioms of a free society.”
,What a comment on the confusion of
the public mind on the elementals of
American policies when a great party
is able to claim a joint parenthood in
Abraham Lincoln and Alexander
Hamilton!
Why, you cannot believe with Lin-
coln in democracy and with Hamilton
against it.
You cannot believe with Lincoln
or he would not have made so many
of them,” and with Hamilton that the
people are “a great beast.”
You cannot believe with Lincoln
that the principles of Jefferson “are
the definitions and the axioms of a
free society,” and with Hamilton that
they are the definitions of anarchy.
You cannot believe with Lincoln in
a government “of the people, by the
people and for the people,” and with
Hamilton in a government of the
wealthy, by the influential and for
the powerful.
There are Lincoln Republicans and
Hamilton Republicans, but never the
twain shall meet, not even at Kansas
City, until you find some way to ride
two horses going in opposite direc-
tions at the same time. We here pro-
pose to take our stand so uncomprom-
isingly on the elemental principles of
Jeffersonian democracy that liberals
and progressives may fraternize with
us in a common fight against the
common foe in the common interest
of the average man and woman.
WJlsonian Days
We enter the campaign no strang-
ers to the public. The brilliant rec-
ord of our eight years of power is a
splotch of glorious sunshine against
the smutty background of eight years
of privilege and crime. In those eight
years we wrote more progressive and
constructive measures into law than
had been written by the opposition in
40 years of power.
One thing those eight years did—
they buried beyond the reach of res-
urrection the ancient slander that the
party of Wilson is incapable of con-
structive statesmanship.
They did one thing more—tjjqy <je-.
stroyed the falsehood that Democra-
cy means hard times.
They did another thing—they de-
molished the fallacy that tfie party
that gave the Federal Reserve system^
to the nation is an enemy of business.
And those eight years did one thing
more—they gave another immortal to
the skies.
What a majestic figure was he who
led us in those fruitful years! The
cold even light of his superb intellect
played upon the most intricate prob-
lems of the times and they seemed to
solve themselves. He lifted the peo-
ple to such heights of moral grandeur
as they had never known before, and
his name and purpose made hearts
beat faster in lowly praises when his
praise was sung in every language in
the world. And when at length his
body broken, but his spirit soaring
still, he fell stricken while still bat-
tling for his faith, there passed to
time and to eternity and to all man-
kind the everlasting keeping of the
immortal memory of Woodrow Wil-
son.
We submit that a party that stands
for that democracy which is insepar-
able from the liberties of men and has
given a Jefferson, a Jackson and a
Wilson to the service of mankind has
earned the right in times like these
to the co-operation of independents
and progressives in the struggle for
the conservation of popular govern-
ment and the purging of the nation
of that corruption which has made
America a by-word and a hissing in
the very alleys of the world.
Black Horse Cavalry
Sixteen years ago the late Senator
for that democracy which is insepar-
able government. That invisible gov-
ernment now feels strong enough to
take on visibility. From the moment
of the election of 1920 there was a
moblization of the Black Horse cav-
alry of privilege, and it cantered down
Pennsylvania Avenue, up and down
from one end to the other. Strange
creatures, new to the Capital, put in
an appearance. Desk room was found
for one of these in the Department of
Justice. The Best Minds established
a temple of the new patriotism in the
Little Green House on K Street. Men
who were the very symbols of privi-
lege, whose fortunes had been made
on the favors of the government, were
put in possession of the instrumen-
talities of the state. Acting on the
Hamilton theory that governments are
strong in proportion as they are made
profitable to the powerful, the fore-
most of these was placed in a strate-
gic public station that he might per-
sonally supervise the delivery of the
goods. The representatives of spec-
ial interest hastened to the Capital
with their receipts for campaign con-
tributions to be given a key to the
Treasury and a guest card at the pa-
triotic club on K Street where “there
was a sound of revelry by night.”
Within five months the conditions, in
Washington had become a scandal and
a stench. The reign of privielge and
pillage had begun.
Privilege Enthroned
The moment the bell rang these
men set to the task of undoing the
work of Woodrow Wilson and to com-
mercialization of the government. In
the midst of the usual scandal they
hurried a tariff law upon the statutes
at a cost of from three to four billions
a year to the consumers.
They found the Tariff Commission
we created an embarrassment—they
ignoied it. It wras not fact they
sought. They had promises to keep.
When a little later they found it con-
venient to have a complacent com-
mission to find the facts they sought
they packed it. From that moment
the acoustics of the commission have
been bad. The cries of the millions
for relief can not be heard, but the
dulcet whisper of the pig iron in-
dustry is enough to bring a 50 per
cent increase in its loot.
They found the Federal Trade com-
mission in the way—they packed it.
They took the weapons we provided
for the for the protection of the peo-
them over to the powers of pillage.
Thus Privilege was speedily en-
trenched in every department of the
Government, and Privilege moved into
the office of the Attorney General to
to spike the guns of Justice, and Priv-
ilege took possession of the strategic
points in all the departments and
commissions, and when the machinery
of this potential plutocracy had been
completed there at the control, sat
the very personification of the erst-
while invisible government, looking
after the interest of his flock.
It is a tragic thing to find a Gov-
ernment mortgaged to a little group
that could be crowded into the direc-
tors’ rooms of the Aluminum Com-
pany of America. Under the rule of
this regime the average man has had
no more stake in the government, for
which he may be called upon to die,
than if he had never touched our
soil.
The Tragedy of the Farms
For example, what stake in govern-
ment has the farmer of today? From
the moment of the realization of the
Hamiltonian state under the banner of
the bloody shirt in the brutal days of
reconstruction the American farmer
has been but a hewer of wood and a
drawer of water. During the 60
years of Jeffersonian supremacy the
farmer was on an equality with every
other industry, and it is no mere co-
incidence that his decline and degra-
dation began with the triumph of the
Hamiltonian state. In the Jefferson-
ian concept of society the farmer had
position of permanent importance,
but in all the. political writings of
Hamilton the only reference to the
farmer is a promise that in compensa-
tion for his submission to taxation in
the interest of others he may put his
wife and children to work in the mills.
Thus while the little group repre-
sented by Mellon has found fine pluck-
ing in the vineyards of the state,
there have been nothing but thorns
and thistles for the toilers of the soil.
And the result is a condition of ruin-
ation that is a disgrace to our civil-
ization. Millions of farms have been
abandoned. Two million men have
been driven from the paternal acres
by economic necessity within the
year. The hammer of the auctioneer
knocking down farmlands has sound-
ed like the continuous bombardment
of a major battle inthe West. Does
the ruling caste want figures? Then
take this—in five years of this Ad-
ministration there has been a depre-
ciation in the value of farm lands
and equipment of $30,000,000,000!
And what does the ruling caste say
to this? It calls it “temporary de-
pression.” And what does it pro-
pose? It proposes that the farmers
shall become better business men.
Now when it suits the pleasure of
the privileged to legislate money into
its coffers it is applauded by the
claquers as patriotic statesmanship;
but when the farmer demands his
share in the unhappy game of pater-
nalism they denounce him as a rad-
ical and a crank.
One day the head of the state by a
scratch of the pen increased the tar-
iff loot of the pig iron industry by 50
per cent; and the next day he deliv-
ered a homily to the farmers on the
wickedness of expecting profit from a
governmental act.
One day Mr. Mellon offered an ar-
gument against a farm relief bill;
and the next day a republican sena-
tor by substituting “tariff” for “farm
relief,” and “duties” for “equalization
fee,” converted the Mellon argument
into a devastating denunciation of
the very processes through which
much of the Mellon fortune has been
made.
One month ago the President bit-
terly denounced with contemptuous
phrasing the revolving fund of a farm
relief bill; and the next day he hear-
tily approved the revolving fund for
the favored shipping interest.
And then, with milions of produc-
ers on the verge of bankruptcy and
despair, they contemptuously kicked
their case from court and adjourned
the congress with a cheer. Thus for
eight long years they have stood in
the midst of the wreckage of the
farms and have done nothing—noth-
ing to decrease the cost of transport-
ing the farmers’ produce to the marts;
nothing to rehabilitate his lost mar-
kets ■ across the sea; but they have
added a billion a year to the cost of
things the farmer has to buy.
Now we do not ask paternalistic
privilege for the farmer, but we do
demand that the hand of privilege
shall be taken out of the farmer’s
pockets and off the farmer’s throat.
We propose to tear down the system
of privilege and put the farmer on an
absolute equality with every other in-
dustry—that is Jeffersonian democ-
racy. We do not propose that the
most basic of all our industries shall
longer be a door-mat for all the oth-
ers to wipe their feet upon as they
enter the Temple of Privilege.
Democracy and Business
Ah, but when we protest against
the commercialization of government
they say we are enemies of business.
Well history refutes that. Thomas
Jefferson was not an enemy of busi-
ness. He merely objected to the use
of the instrumentalities of the state
to make it possible for a few men
to pick the pockets of their fellow-
men under the protection of the pol-
ice.
Andrew Jackson was not an ene-
my of business. He discriminated be-
tween business and brigandage; and
he was so much the friend of honest
business that he fought to make it
free.
Woodrow Wilson was not an ene-
my of business. In the eight years of
his administrations we gave more in-
telligent legislative service to honest
business than had geen given to it in
a generation before.
We defy them to name a democrat-
ic president who was an enemy of
business.
But we differ from those to whom
Mr. Mellon is sacrosanct in our def-
inition of a business man. In every
tax reduction measure of the last
eight years the democratic minority
in congress has fought the battle of
95 per cent of the American business
men against his 5 per cent.
We hold that the owner of a little
shop, the proprietor of a store in an
average town, is as much a business
man as the barons of iron and steel.
The man who owns and operates a
ranch in Texas or Wyoming is as
inuch of a business man as the banker
in New York. The men who till the
soil and feed the Nation are better
business men to the Jeffersonian
than the most successful speculator in
stocks and bonds. We cannot under-
stand the regime in power for we are
interested in the Babbits, and they
are in the Bulls and the Bears.
We wage no war on Big Business if
it be honest business; we find no
fault with fortunes, however large,
provided they are not accumulated
through the misuse of government
power. But we do wage war upon the
commercialization of government that
makes for corruption and crime.
Corruption
Privilege and Pillage are the Gold
Dust twins of normalcy. The Wilson
administration is a green spot bound-
ed on one side by the Mulhall mess
and on the other by an oil tanker
flying a pirate’s flag.
The last seven and a half years
have been putrid beyond precedent.
We make no charge—we follow the
official record.
We have seen a governmental de-
partment designed for the legal pro-
tection of the people converted into a
rendezvous for the barterers of illegal
permits.
We have seen the agents of the de-
partment of justice sent forth at the
nation’s cost and with the administra-
tion’s sanction on the infamous mis-
sion of “framing” a United States
senator who had dared expose the
criminality of its proceedings. Noth-
ing more disgraceful blackened the
days of the federalist sedition law. A
baser and more dastardly prostitution
of the judicial processes has not sham-
ed the story of a civilized nation
since the unspeakable Jeffries sat
upon the bench. And he died, deser-
vedly, like a miserable felon in the
Tower.
We have seen the money appropri-
ated for the case of the sick and
wounded soldiers squandered on the
pleasures of a drunken libertine. We
have seen the Nation’s oil reserve, set
aside by the prescience of Roosevelt,
and sacredly guarded by the honesty
and wisdom of Wilson and Daniels,
bartered away by a member of the
cabinet for a bribe in a little black
bag.
Addition, Division and Silence
Shameful as these things are, more
shameful far has been the cynical sil-
ence and indifference of the high
functionaries of the state to whom the
people had a right to look for the
protection of the nation’s property,
and the nation’s honor. We submit
in no spirit of political flubdubbery
that it is a shocking thing that we
have waited vainly seven years for
one word, one syllable, one whisper
of the mildest criticism of these crim-
inals and crimes from a single repre-
sentative of the administration.
They heard LaFollette’s denuncia-
tion of Teapot Dome—and were sil-
ent. They saw the various processes
in the alienation of the nation’s prop-
erty—and were silent. There was not
a man among them with enough will
power, or lung power, to blow a po-
lice whistle.
Nay, more: when a warning of the
impending crime was sent to a mem-
ber of the Cabinet, but recently
knighted by the golden wand, he
sent the letter to Albert B. Fall with
his notation: “I should be- glad to
convey to this gentleman any reply
you may suggest.”
I sometimes think that the virtues
of silence may be overdone. Some-
times silence is golden—for the thief.
Some years ago a corruptionist de
luxe phrased the shibboleth of the
powers of pillage in these words—
“Addition, division—and silence.”
When the pillagers got their loot,
there was addition, when the faith-
less public servants got their share
there was division; and from the men
set by the people in the watch tower
to guard their treasures there has
been the invaluable contribution of
silence.
Imagine Andrew Jackson silent in
the midst of such crimes; imagine
Tilden; imagine Cleveland, imagine
Wilson! Why, they would have thun-
dered their denunciations from the
loftiest station in the world and have
scouraged the rascals forth with scor-
pion whips tipped with consuming
flame.
Do they tell us that all these things
have been exposed and something has
been done? This is our answer: If
an Attorney General of odorous mem-
ory no longer sits at the council ta-
ble of the nation’s chief, it is because
a democratic senator so exposed the
crimes of his regime that public
sentiment lashed him out; and if he
was permitted to go without rebuke,
and to march out with all the honors
of war, it was not with the consent
of the party of Thomas Jefferson.
And this is our answer: if the na-
tion’s oil reserves have been restored
it is because the inquisitorial genius
of Walsh of Montana exposed the
crime and forced the proceedings that
brought the restitution of the nation’s
stolen goods.
Division of the Spoils
And why the silence in the watch
tower ? Because the organization of
the party of the men stationed there
was a beneficiary of the crime. Not
only did it know of the crime, and
maintain silence—it knew of the di-
vision of the spoils and knew that a
goodly part was being used to pay the
party debt.
What a picture of American his-
tory! We see the erstwhile chairman
of the National Committee of the re-
gime in power laying aside his duties
as an elder of the church to slink into
the office of Sinclair to get the taint-
ed bonds. We see him sneaking about
like a receiver of stolen goods
to men of means to persuade them
dishonestly to contribute these to the
party fund under cover. We see him
sending a portion of these bonds to
the dictator of the administration, af-
fectionately known as “Andy”; and
thus we know that the high function-
aries of the state knew that the party
(Continued on Page 10)
Too Good to Miss
The White Ship is In
Get Yourself a Box of
These New
White Broadcloth
SHIRTS
With the New Patented
Stay Rite Collars
Each
3 for $5.50
ram __________
The Maris Shop-Mercedes, Texus
The Pioneers of
The Rio Grande Valley—
■JUST about eighty years*ago General Zachary
Taylor landed his troops on Brazos Island off
Point Isabel, and prepared to march inland
to begin his invasion of Mexico. It was a monu-
mental task to move thousands of men, horses
and heavy cannon through the dense thickets of
mesquite and cactus, so his engineers cleared a
path and built a broad road parallel to the Rio
Grande which is in use to the present day and is
well known throughout the Valley as the “Mili-
tary Road.”
This was the forerunner of the highway system
of the Valley, and today there is actually under
way a comprehensive road building program
which, when completed, will give the lower Valley
475 miles of paved road in addition to the 130
miles of pavement already in use.
In a highly developed agricultural community,
where so many perishable products are marketed,
and rapid transportation from farm to shipping
points such an important consideration, the value
of these road improvements cannot be over-
estimated.
About 75 miles of these new paved roads will
traverse the system of the American Rio Grande
Land & Irrigation Company. We have some high-
ly desirable farm tracts located on or close to
these roads, moderately priced—on our usual easy
payment plan.
Real Estate Department
AMERICAN RIO GRANDE LAND AND
IRRIGATION COMPANY
Mercedes, Texas
c$i.- *>«$+• ^
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Matching Search Results
View 10 places within this issue that match your search.Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
The Mercedes News (Mercedes, Tex.), Vol. 5, No. 63, Ed. 1 Friday, June 29, 1928, newspaper, June 29, 1928; Mercedes, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth651662/m1/3/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library.