Gov. Jos. W. Folk

              Figure

GOV. JOS. W. FOLK



Redpath






T
HE BUREAU takes great pleasure in announcing a short lecture tour of 
Governor Joseph W. Folk
 OF MISSOURI




No man in the public eye has been more in demand than Gov. Folk, and no man harder to get, and after several years of continual urging he has consented to a limited number of engagements.  Recent editorials in the press of the country have convinced him that the public demands a part of the time of every public man with a message.  Gov. Folk has been doing things—decisive things—in Missouri, and has called the attention of the entire world to his splendid career both in St. Louis and Jefferson City.  Such a man is sure to have a message, and an anxious public awaits him in every state.  Gov. Folk is well known to the Lyceum and Chautauqua platform, he is a tried success, and will be a most welcome addition to the already splendid list of men who are doing great things in this progressive era.





Lecture Subjects



SOLDIERS OF PEACE


THE ERA OF CONSCIENCE





Still Carries the Banner.



Ex-Gov. Folk is still carrying the banner for purity in politics.  Freedom from office holding has but given him more time to fight the good fight.  Whereas, St. Louis was his battlefield, then Missouri, it is now a national issue and Folk of Missouri is spreading a new civic gospel, which reaches back to Calvary and the Golden Rule and is spreading from the Empire State to California, is bearing good fruit on the bloody ground of Kentucky and raising new standards in Louisiana.—Rocheport Progress.






BOSTON SIGHS FOR A FOLK



Extract from Editorial which appeared in Boston (Mass.) Herald, Feb. 2, 1909.




Ex-Gov. Folk of Missouri made in Boston, on Friday night, the best speech on citizenship and graft that a long memory can recall.  
If the Government anywhere neglects the people,
 he said, 
it is because the people neglect the Government.
  Let the mere citizen take that to heart.  If he would but imitate the grafter in his persistence, the occupation of the grafter would be gone.  Gov. Folk's speech could be delivered in every city in the country, and be equally appropriate in each place.  Everywhere, as in Boston, there are men, sane, honest, timorous citizens, who want to cover up the dark spots, whitewash the reeking walls.




There are Bostonians who should be stirred to action by these words.  The 
we in Boston do not approve public exposure of the city's failings
 sentiment is as common here as it used to be in Missouri, as it still is in San Francisco, and it is a powerful sentiment which puts the brakes on the city's progress.  Such sentiment, we say, is not peculiar to Boston.  Gov. Folk has found everywhere that there are men 
who always endeavor to make it appear that a fight against them is a slander against the city ***** that grafters should never be assailed, lest some assume that all within the city are grafters; and lawlessness in business should not be fought lest it be suspected that all business is lawless.
  It is not only the grafter who thus interposes his bulk between the mere citizen and reform; the timorous business man does it, the inefficient, but honest official does it, and certain sorts of professional reformers do it by declaring against every reform measure which they do not originate, or which for the moment has precedence in the public mind.




Boston needs a Joseph Folk, a man who is at all times clear, clean and sane, and against all odds courageous.  
There is less aggressive patriotism in all our large cities than anywhere else.*****  If corruption exists anywhere the people are to blame.  *****What is needed is more of the kind of patriotism that fights for city, state and country every day—the kind of patriotism that will go into battles of war.
  The strong men who cheer or weep and vow that they will die for their country, should occasion offer, when they hear the national anthem, and who go to jail a little later for corrupting the city councils and state legislatures are the worst enemies of law and order.  But too few of them are indicted.  Reform treads on many toes.  
It is one thing to be against wrong; it is another thing to fight the wrong.
  Cannot Boston produce a Fighting Folk whose sanity is as great as his courage?  There are shouters enough, but they lead only to confusion.  They do not see or say what Gov. Folk says and see that 
a government is good in proportion as the average morality of the average citizen is aggressive.
  Remember that.






PRESS COMMENTS



GOVERNOR FOLK PLEASED CROWD
That Packed Auditorium Monday Night; Lecture a Masterpiece.


Despite the very inclement weather Monday evening the high school auditorium was packed by an audience made up of the representative citizens of Zanesville to hear the lecture of Governor Joseph W. Folk of Missouri.
Governor Folk spoke on the subject, 
The Era of Conscience,
 in which he confined himself almost wholly to the idea of honesty in governmental affairs and its essential as a bulwark of a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Too much cannot be said of the lecture.  It was a magnificent effort, typical of the man who has gained world-wide fame for his high ideals and strenuous fight for purity in the administration of the affairs of his office, first as circuit attorney and now chief executive of the great western state.  Suffice to say that Governor Folk held his audience probably better than any man ever appearing on the platform in this city.The committee that has in charge the series of lectures in which Governor Folk was brought to Zanesville is to be congratulated upon the rare treat provided for the people of Zanesville.—


Times Recorder, Zanesville, Wis.



Folk's Powerful Appeal.



Governor Folk does not depend upon oratorical flights nor anecdotes to sustain interest with his audience.  He deals in cold facts and powerful logic.  He appeals to reason and patriotism and asks his auditors to join him in his efforts to laud the man rather than the material.  His speech was well received and his admirers were bound the closer to him by his visit to our town.—


Troy Free Press, Aug. 7, 1908.





Missouri's Great Governor.



An angry and rebellious St. Louis boss once asserted that 
Joe Folk acted as if he'd written the ten commandments.
  There was more compliment in the sarcasm than the boss ever intended.  Mr. Folk actually did insist that the difference between right and wrong held good in politics as well as in business or social affairs.  That Mr. Folk was not a mere mouther of platitudes has been abundantly proven by his course as Governor of Missouri.  No Governor in half a century has been responsible for so much needed and salutary legislation.—


Dearborn Democrat, June 26, 1908.





One Crying in the Wilderness.



Nothing was said by former Governor Folk, of Missouri, here last night on the lecture platform, or in the interview with him which 
The Sun
 printed yesterday, which could not as well have been said by many another man.  What gave Folk's words their weight was the achievements of the man behind them.  While many men have been hearers and sayers of the words of civic righteousness here has been a doer of them.  Here is a man; there are mere sounding brasses and tinkling cymbals.
Most people assent that it pays to be good, honest, decent and upright.  So sure are they of the return that they are willing to defer making the investment until the very last moment.They also assent to the fallacy that a rigidly honest, impartial, open, economical administration of public affairs will hurt business.  This inconsistency paralyzes reform, is the stronghold of human organized selfishness, and the sure defense of graft and corruption.
Want and misery, due to imperfectly discharged functions of government, discomfort, disease and death from wholly preventable causes are the penalties we all pay for tolerating expediency as a substitute for conscience as we do in the ordering of our affairs.  It seems to require many Folks to call us to repentance and, more important than this even, to new ways of living.—

Editorial in Pittsburg, (Pa.) Sun., Feb. 4, '09.




His Strength Lies in the Enemies He Has Made.



It is impossible to specify any class of privileged interests the membership of which is not unanimously hostile to Folk.  But his strength lies in the enemies which he has made.  There is no political parasite, known or generally suspected, in the whole State of Missouri, who is not out with his hammer against the Governor.—


Springfield Leader, quoted in Stewartsville Record, Sept. 4, 1908.





Folk's Record-Breaking Crowds.



It is not necessary for the Governor's supporters to beat the bushes to get an audience for him, for everywhere he goes he is greeted with record-breaking crowds—


Chariton Recorder, July 24, 1908.





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Pittsburg, Pa.



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