Brochure For Candidacy of John W. Davis For Presidency
B D29 Pam
Address of Mrs. lzetta Jewell Brown
Delivered at Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, on June 27, 1924, seconding
the presentation of John W. Davis, of West Virginia, for the nomination for the President of the
United States.
of WEST VIRGINIA
THE HONORABLE THOMAS J. WALSH, at Montana, the Permanent Chairman of the convention, in recognizing and introducing Mrs. lzetta Jewell Brown, said:
THE PERMANENT CHAIRMAN: Those who were present at the San Francisco Convention will remember with pleasure, I am sure, Mrs. lzetta Jewell Brown (applause) and the interesting story she told there, which perhaps she might be induced to repeat. I have the honor to recognize Mrs. Izetta Jewell Brown, of West Virginia. (Applause.)
MRS. IZETTA JEWELL BROWN (West Virginia) :
Mr. Chairman, Delegates, Men and Women of the Convention:
SINCE I have been asked to repeat the little story that I told in California, I do so first. You will remember that at that time we were asking for Suffrage, and that is the reason the little story was told.
It seems that on Johnny's return from Sunday School his mother asked him what he had learned in Sunday School, and Johnny said: ''Oh, mother, I learned all about the creation." "Did you, Johnny? Well, what did you learn?" "Oh, teacher said that God created the earth and the heavens, and He created the animals, and then He made man; and He put him in a garden, and the man went right to sleep, and then God came down into the garden, took out his brains and made woman." (Laughter and applause.)
You must remember that those were the days when we were asking for Suffrage. Perhaps you will forgive me if I take just this little moment to say that Suffrage has come to us since, and we want to express to our great Democratic men, our great Democratic Party, our appreciation of the courtesy and the generosity that have been extended to us on every side, and we thank you from our hearts. (Applause.)
Scientists tell us that men and women take on the characteristics of the topography of the country in which they are born and raised. West Virginia is a state of mountains. Sometimes they are rolling and gentle, with fertile valleys between; sometimes they are rugged and strong, cut into deep gorges by sparkling, dashing rivers; sometimes they are stately and magnificent; but always, of whatever type, they are full of beauty and the spirit of fearlessness.
John W. Davis was born in these mountains and raised in them, and his family before him. He has the strength of the mountains and the virility of the mountains in his body, in his brain and in his character. His early days were spent in a small town of the Blue Grass district, with all the connections of the small town. You know, they do say that West Virginia has even more blue grass than Old Kentucky. (Laughter.) He had this contact in his early life, when he was a small town lawyer. His clients in those days were farmers and small trades people. He practiced before the Justice of the Peace. And yet in a few short years we find him making his mark before the Supreme Court of our Nation.
This great convention has paid high tribute to the policies of Woodrow Wilson. There are those who claim to have helped to form those policies; yet when those same policies were attacked before the Supreme Court who was called upon to defend them, to save them, in other words, to make them stick? It was our Mr. Davis.
You know any man that does things is always criticized, fairly or unfairly. There are many splendid men before the Democrats to-day, many splendid men to choose from; and yet we feel that our candidate is perhaps a little more free from deserved criticism than many others - not in any way that criticism can come because it is deserved, but we know how those things are worked out.
I am not going to go into a lengthy discussion of his political life, or of his legal life, except to tell you that he was the President of the American Bar Association. (Applause.)
When we hear of the criticisms that are given, these are the only two that we hear of John Davis: Four years ago in San Francisco they said that he was not known. Now the same people say that he is too well known. (Laughter.) A rather remarkable growth for even a great man in four short years. They say he is a lawyer of Wall Street. Those are the two criticisms.
I love what Mrs. Barrett said about Wall Street and Main Street. They are streets of our country. Wall Street cannot take John W. Davis. (Loud Applause.) Remember, he comes of the mountaineer and that Blue Grass stock of which I was telling you.
You have perhaps heard the story about Bobby. You know, Bobby took his dog to school one day, and his teacher asked him where he kept it. Bobby said, "Why, I keep him in my room, teacher."
"Oh, Bobby, you should not do that," said the teacher. "It is not healthy to keep a dog in your room." "Well, maybe, teacher; but I have kept him there six months and he is all right yet." (Laughter.)
Our nation is great on every hand, whether it is Wall Street or Main Street, as you have heard. And so if a man is to be criticised for being successful, then I submit that we do condemn John W. Davis. He is guilty of being a success. In the two short years that he has been here in New York he has made himself an intellectual power in this, the greatest city of our Nation. His clients have come from all classes because he has been recognized as a lawyer of ability and integrity. (Applause.)
He has been a success outside of politics, and that is one of the reasons he has been a success in public life. We hear a good deal of what sort of man Labor wants, and what sort of man Capital wants. I submit to you we also may hear what sort of man the women want to see in the White House. (Applause.)
Men - God bless them - laughingly say very often: "Women want to see a good looking man there." Well, I submit to you Mr. Davis is good looking. He looks every inch the President. (Applause.)
But I also say that there are two great principles that women want to see emphasized by the man who is in the White House: honesty and world peace. (Applause.)
The skeptics say that honesty in politics is impossible. We want to say that we want a man who is fearlessly and uncompromisingly honest. Place honesty on our party banners this Fall. Nominate a man who is a doer as well as a thinker; a leader, fearless, honest, courageous; a leader among leaders, who will make a definite fight for clean politics, and watch the result.
Four years ago, men and women delegates, I called your attention to the fact that you cannot go far wrong if you vote for a man who is a man's man, a man among men, and a woman's ideal of what a man should be. We think that John W. Davis is an ideal candidate. He is broad enough between the shoulders to have a heart, and he is a wide enough between the eyes to have a brain. (Loud applause.) He is clean cut, courageous, brilliant and successful. His record shows that he is free of the danger of being stamped as a radical. He is also free of the danger of being dominated by big business, or any other interest except his conscience. He is free from campaign promises, free from entangling alliances with the overly political politician, free from all contact with corruption in his past political life. We think that Davis stands before you to-day, not as a candidate of himself, but because his friends are forcing him to appear before you.
You must remember that he holds rather a unique position in that although he served in public life for many years he has never asked for a public office. And neither does he to-day. Three times our great President, Woodrow Wilson, drafted him to service. His friends to-day are asking you to draft him again to public service.
He is just fifty-one, just old enough to have been a man of yesterday and a man of to-day, and young enough to be a man of to-morrow. (Applause.)
I know, my good friends, that you have been sitting here listening to speeches for three days, and I have been sitting up here waiting to speak to you for three days. (Laughter.) I do not know which was the more difficult, but anyway I do understand that I am the last speaker to speak to you to-day, perhaps, and if so, there is a great consolation in it.
I am hoping that my message to you will reach down into your hearts, and in a few days, when the smoke of this intense battle has perhaps cleared a little, you will remember this message, and your thoughts and your votes will turn to our John W. Davis - our great, our lovable, our brilliant John W. Davis. (Applause.)