Brooks Fletcher Indorsed for United States Senator

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Brooks Fletcher


Brooks Fletcher Indorsed For United States Senator



From this folder you will learn some of the reasons why Congressman Brooks Fletcher, newspaper publisher of Marion, was drafted for Congress and why he has now been indorsed by Huron County, Fairfield County and by many leading democrats of Ohio as their choice of candidates for the United States Senatorship in the coming contest with Frank B. Willis.




EDITOR, PUBLISHER, ORATOR



In addition to his practical business experience as an employer, editor and publisher, Congressman Fletcher, with the exception of William Jennings Bryan, has been one of the highest paid orators on the American platform.  Under Redpath management more than one million six hundred thousand people in the United States and Canada have paid to hear Brooks Fletcher speak.





OHIO NEEDS A PRACTICAL MAN IN THE SENATE



As an organizer and speaker for business organizations in every state in the Union Brooks Fletcher has perhaps addressed more business men than any man of his generation.




Many thinking republicans and independent voters as well as democrats believe the time has come when a practical man of affairs and actual business experience should represent Ohio in the United States Senate.





REPUTATION FOR LEADERSHIP



It is because of his reputation for leadership, his years of work as a successful business man and his wide and practical knowledge of public affairs and his reputation for getting things done that Congressman Brooks Fletcher has been indorsed and repeatedly requested to become a candidate for the United States Senate against Willis.




(Signed) Dr. W. C. Martin, Chairman, Huron Co. Dem. Ex. Com.





A REQUEST



In a letter to Congressman Brooks Fletcher, Attorney M. A. Daugherty of Lancaster, Ohio, states:  
Our Democratic Club has unanimously adopted resolutions requesting you to become the candidate of the Ohio Democracy for the United States Senate.




In Congressman Brooks Fletcher Ohio Has Discovered a New Political Idol and Leader—


Ohio State Journal.






Why Brooks Fletcher Can Defeat Willis



The following is an editorial from the Inquirer, Galion, Ohio:




For many years those familiar with Brooks Fletcher's work and what he has stood for have tried to persuade him to enter politics.




In 1920 the democrats of his home community unanimously indorsed Fletcher and urged him to enter the primaries as a candidate for the United States Senate.  He refused.




Then in 1924 after he had been interviewed by several of the party leaders who wanted him to be a candidate for Congress he at first refused.




It is said Mr. Fletcher hesitated to give up his other work to go into politics because he had already devoted many years to public life and felt he could not in justice to himself, give up a business that had cost him so much time, energy and money to build.




In addition to his success as a business man he was one of the highest paid public speakers on the platform with more engagements than he could fill and had already won national fame.




Besides Fletcher, as publisher and editor of the Marion, Ohio, Daily Tribune, was the newspaper competitor of Warren G. Harding, and for a democrat to win in a republican community, the home of a beloved President, in the face of the previous republican landslide that had sent Harding to the White House looked like a hopeless proposition.




But they got Brooks Fletcher into the fight and he came through the Coolidge landslide carrying every county in the district but one, winning an astonishing victory that made him over night of national interest politically.




Those who want to see him get into the fight for the senatorship claim that Fletcher is the one best qualified to defeat Willis because through the years he has appeared on the platform in every town, village and country community in the State where Willis has always shown his greatest strength.




It is claimed for him that outside of three or four of the larger cities, Fletcher is better known to the people and has a larger personal following and more devoted friends among the masses of the people than any other man available.




That Fletcher has the confidence and loyalty of the people in his home community where they usually estimate a man at his true worth and know him for just what he is, as a citizen, is evident from what the late President Warren G. Harding said of him both privately and in public.




Dr. G. T. Harding, father of the late President, in introducing him at the North Caanan homecoming meeting, paid high tribute to the Marion Congressman and introduced him to the audience by saying, in part:  
I know from years of acquaintanceship with Congressman Brooks Fletcher that he is a clean man; a man the people can trust and it is my belief that the time will come when he will be chosen by the people of Ohio to be their Governor and from the Governorship it is my belief will go to the Presidency of the United States.




Dr. Harding made his public statesmen concerning a man who for many years was the newspaper competitor of his son, Warren G. Harding.




Under the circumstances to receive such commendation from the father of the late President is sufficient proof that those who are after Fletcher to run for the senatorship are justified in making their claims as to his qualifications.




William Jennings Bryan, who often urged Fletcher to use his ability in the cause of politics, said in the 1924 campaign, 
In my friend Brooks Fletcher, you people of Ohio have an opportunity to send to Washington a man of noble character and brilliant mind, who from his youth has fought the battle for humanity and the right and who, as Congressman will make a record for statesmanship of which Ohio will be proud.




From actual experience Fletcher knows some of the sorrows and the problems of the common every-day man struggling to earn a living because he has earned his own way by the hardest kind of labor.




To get an education he worked on the farm, in the boiler works and in the steel mills.  He is a tireless worker.




He has the magnetism, the vitality, the inexhaustible energy and physical stamina of William Jennings Bryan when the Great Commoner was at the height of his power; qualities that will give him an advantage in a strenuous political campaign.




It is claimed for Fletcher that besides being more than a match for Willis as a public speaker, he has the advantage of Willis, because of his years of practical business training, his experience as an employer, newspaper editor and publisher, and man of affairs who has made a close study of public questions.




Mr. Fletcher has had a chance to learn first-hand business conditions and business needs in every state because he has addressed hundreds of audiences of the leading business men in all parts of the country.




It has been reported that Mr. Fletcher has said that he does not want any more politics than he has on his hands now and that he feels it is up to him to stick to business and give all his time and energy to his job as Congressman.




A goodly number of people are coming to believe that that is exactly the kind of man the voters, who do their own thinking, are looking for these days to represent them in politics.




We do not know whether Mr. Fletcher can be persuaded to give up his work in Congress to enter the contest for the senatorship, but if he does enter the contest the people of Ohio will see one of the liveliest political campaigns they have seen for many a day.




Brooks Fletcher is a fighter and he has thousands of loyal friends all over the State who believe in him and who will vote for him regardless of party lines.







Brooks Fletcher in the Eyes of Great Americans
William Jennings Bryan


In a recent speech at Kenton, Ohio, William Jennings Bryan said: 
In my friend, Brooks Fletcher, you people of Ohio have an opportunity to send to Washington a man of noble character and brilliant mind who from his youth has fought the battle for humanity and the right, and who as Congressman will make a record for statesmanship of which Ohio will be proud.




Dr. Albert E. Wiggam's Opinion
Author—
New Decalogue of Science



I have talked with Brooks Fletcher of political economy, of science, of art, of history, of business, of literature, of philosophy.




The wide range of his reading, the accuracy of his profound scholarship, the immensity of his interests, the sympathy of his heart, the clearness of his estimates of men and issues, the accurate insight he has into the processes of society, business and industry, and the lionlike courage that is in him—these were some of the unforgetable impressions that I carried away with me.




An Estimate by Opie Read



If Brooks Fletcher is sent to the United States Senate intelligence will be complimented and the statesmanship of the elder day will, in a degree, be re-established.




Fletcher is not only a great orator but out of the depths of his trained mind arises the true qualities of statesmanship.




By sending him to the United States Senate Ohio will draw about her shapely shoulders the mantle of honor.





An Expression by Judge Ben B. Lindsey



In all my acquaintance with public men I do not know one who has done more than Brooks Fletcher to advance the cause of good government.




Here is a man who knows America as few men know it.  In every state in the Union I find the people know him and have heard him again and again.  Many of the greatest of the nation's leaders are his personal friends.




The work he has done among the young people of the public schools, colleges and universities of the country is alone sufficient to give him national recognition in the field of education.  I find the young people everywhere worship and love him.




To my mind Brooks Fletcher is one of the most hopeful and powerful men in our public life today.  Fletcher has magnetism, personality and the gift for leadership, and as a United States Senator he would be a credit to the State of Ohio, a credit to his people and a credit to the nation.





From an Editorial by James Schermerhorn,



(Distinguished Detroit Editor)




Despite handicaps, Brooks Fletcher has built himself up to be a commanding figure in the public life of America.




His advent in the United States Congress gives to the State of Ohio the credit of having restored a measure of the special intellectual equipment and forensic power that once was the glory of that distinguished body.




Somehow the coming into leadership of a man endowed as is Brooks Fletcher brings back to memory the days of Reed, Grosvenor, of Carlisle, and Randall, and Garfield, and Blaine, and real statemen leaders of like mould.




Brooks Fletcher standing where these Congressional luminaries stood!  It seems like a leaf out of the record of the golden age of what was the greatest deliberative body in the world.





President Harding's Prophecy



Although newspaper, political and business rivals, there always remained between Warren G. Harding and Brooks Fletcher a loyal and affectionate friendship.  Many years ago the late Fresident prophesied that Brooks Fletcher would some day distinguish himself in statesmanship.  Many think the prophecy is soon to be realized.






Vice President Dawes and Brooks Fletcher



Congressman Brooks Fletcher's first speech in Washington was a sensation that took the Vice President of the United States by surprise and was received with thunderous applause by a great audience of Ohioians.




Chief Justice William Howard Taft is President of the Ohio Society before whose members on the McKinley Birthday program Congressman Brooks Fletcher and his talented wife made their first formal appearance in the National Capital.




Through the years there have appeared on the programs of the Ohio Society the most distinguished men of the Nation.  On this occasion Vice President Dawes and Congressman Brooks Fletcher of Marion were the speakers.




The following is from the Washington correspondent's comment on Congressman Brooks Fletcher and Vice President Dawes as published in the Columbus Dispatch:




For once Vice President Charles G. Dawes has been eclipsed as a platform speaker.




Accompanied by Mrs. Dawes, the fire eating, Senate-defying, hell-and-Maria hero arrived.  He was given a tremendous welcome as he strode to the platform of Rauscher's hall, packed to capacity by a distinguished audience.




Everyone leaned forward.  There was an air of suspence.  Perhaps Dawes would take another wallop at the Senate. Perhaps he would attempt to put Senator Simeon D. Fess, who was present, on the griddle.  Perhaps he would spring some new sensation.  Reporters were present ready to make the most of it.




There was evident disappointment when Dawes bowed himself off the platform and retreated from the hall.  Then Brooks Fletcher advanced to the platform.  Judge Foster gave him a speedy send-off by saying, 
Now watch Brooks Fletcher make good.




And Brooks Fletcher proceeded to make good with a double vengeance.  First he poked derisive fun at Dawes to the huge delight of the crowd.  He remarked he was sorry Dawes had not stayed to hear him.




I hope some day,
 Fletcher said with a sardonic smile, 
that I will be in a position where Dawes will have to listen to me.




This was taken as a notice by Fletcher that the House is a mere way-station enroute to his main objective, the United States Senate, and he was gleefully applauded.




Congressman Fletcher further ingratiated himself with his listeners by a gracious tribute to Mrs. Fletcher who had previously charmed them with two exquisitely rendered vocal selections.  He intimated that he probably never would have come to Congress except for her.




You know she campaigned around the District with me
 he explained.  
First she would sing, then she would make a speech, and while I was making my speech she would sit on the platform and take my speech in shorthand for the newspapers so the people flocked to see and hear her and then remained to endure me.




Fletcher then launched into his eulogy of McKinley whom, as a boy in Canton, he had known.  He compared McKinley with Harding with whom later, at Marion, he became acquainted as a rival publisher.




Before they realized it those present found themselves caught in the spell of a real orator.  They listened to a mighty voice which unleashed shook the rafters or, modulated, modulated, murmured sweetly like a South wind.




Brooks Fletcher had everything.  And when he closed the thunderous ovation he received voiced the feeling that here was a man who appropriately represented the Harding Congressional District and the great State of both Harding and McKinley.




Huron
 
County
 
Democratic
 
Executive
 
Committee.




ALLIED PRINTING
 TRADES UNION LABEL COUNCIL




Chairman.



Dr. W. C. Martin