Vice President Dawes and Brooks Fletcher

              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. Fees, 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, 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.




ALLIED PRINTING TRADES UNION LABEL COUNCIL WASHINGTON





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 statement 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.