Morgantown New Dominion
Record Crowd Hears Speech by Mrs. Brown
Candidate for Democratic Senatorial Nomination Makes Strong Plea for Votes.
Defines Her Platform
Says State Has No Reason to Distrust Woman in High Public Office.
August 1, 1922
Before the largest audience that has turned our here during the primary campaign, Mrs. Izetta Jewell Brown, of Kingwood, candidate for the Democratic nomination for United States senate last night at the court house ended her campaign with a stirring appeal for support. Every seat in the court house was occupied and virtually every inch of standing room in the public seating place taken. Her big audience gave her the closest attention during her address of 45 minutes.
"If I am successful in the primary campaign tomorrow and am elected to the United States senate next November, It will not go to my head, but to my feet. I stand for honesty, justice, service, and peace in our government and by service, I mean a perfect union of work and prayer which I have employed in my campaign.
My platform is that of progressive legislation, elimination of red tape in the relief of ex-service men and the execution of our income tax laws, economy and honesty in government, protection of state's right and in opposition to the tendency to centralize our government too much, and for national conservation of all physical and moral resources of the nation."
"I do not want any of you to vote for me because I am a woman, and still more than that to vote against me because I am a woman. I ask your support because you believe that I will honestly endeavor to serve in this high office, if nominated and elected, on the basis of the declarations of principles and intent I have made."
In these words, Mrs Brown concluded her remarks to the big crowd who greeted her with sustained applause. Following her speech, scores greeted her personally and it was evident that she had made an impression on many of her audience.
In her earlier remarks, Mrs. Brown discussed the talk of suffrage being so new as to preclude the possibility of trying a woman in high national office.
"I often hear this remark in my touring about the state," she said. "Let me call your attention to the fact that the move for equal rights of men and women in government is centuries old and that the women of this country are just beginning to enjoy as well as to bear the responsibilities of those who labored for this reform.
I am like Lady Astor who said she could think of but one thing worse than a make government - a female government. What we want is a perfect co-operation of men and women in government just as we have it in the home, the unit of our national life, and in business. Women have for ages contributed their share to the home life, and of recent years to the business life of America. Now they are to contribute their share to its political life and I see nothing to fear.
I have often heard it asked 'What will women do when they get into politics? In this as in everything else, we must be guided largely by experience. The majority of the women of this country are its mothers. Everywhere and all time, we find that they have been working for the good of the spheres in which they have been permitted to operate. We have not found it otherwise where women have been given opportunity to bear public trust.
They say it will lower the dignity of the senate to admit a woman to its membership. I submit that to your judgment. Let me call your attention, however, to the fact that Senator Kenyon, himself a Republican, said of our senate after it had whitewashed Senator Newberry, convicted by a Republican jury and sentenced by Republican judge of corruption in securing his seat, that it would never again be possible to lower the dignity of that body. I am not saying this is true but if it can be no worse, have we any reason for being afraid of a woman members [sic], or to believe that she cannot help to raise it?"
Mrs. Brown spoke briefly of her personal history in connection with the senatorial campaign and of how circumstances rather than personal amibtion [sic] had first connected her with a campaign for the nomination. "I never thought of seeking this office until I read in a newspaper where Senator Chilton had suggested my name as a sort of compromise candidate. I received scores of urgent appeals to make the race, presumably because my activities throughout the state in the suffrage campaign and in the agricultural work had brought me some public attention. I want to say here, in reply to stories of how I was 'brought out' by this or that faction of the party that there is not the slightest truth in such assertions. I represent no class, no set, no faction. I am absolutely free from promises or influences that can command my course of action or my service along any line except that of the public good. I have never attacked my opponent in any of my speeches and I don't intend to do so. I believe in winning by what I stand for and not by attacking my opponent."
Going into the partisan side of the campaign for a few minutes, Mrs. Brown attacked the Republican administration as a complete failure, pointing to its "do nothing" congress which she said was so dubbed by a Republican member, and to its failure to do anything to relieve the social and moral problems which are confronting the nation.
"We all remember the glittering promises," said Mrs. Brown, "which swept the Republican party into power in 1920. The country will also remember the record they have made with those promises, of the months and months wasted in talk while nothing has been done to relieve conditions throughout the country. Congress has traveled in circles for two years jumping from ships subsidy to bonus to tariff and back again without getting anywhere.
I believe eventually that all women will be Democrats because the Democrats have proved in the years during which they have been given control of this government that their party believes and carries out those things which contain the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people."
"'Back to normalcy' was their cry everywhere in 1920. I believe most of the country will join with me in saying this slogan has been tried out, worn out, and tired out. I offer in its place, a new slogan, - that of 'back to prosperity.' Try as hard as possible, the Republican party has not been able to substitute a single measure for the great record of constructive enactment made by the Democratic party from 1912 to 1920. I believe the country is just as ready to change now as it was in 1920.
Another Republican slogan of which we heard to much back in 1920 was 'America First.' There never was a more misleading, misguiding and deceptive slogan. It compares favorably, as interpreted by the Republicans with 'me first' and 'Deutschland over all.' It is to a large extent responsible for our strikes, our closed shops, our unemployment, our loss of foreign trade. 'American First' in the true sense of the words can mean but one thing, - American first in service - and the Republican party has made it anything but that.
The tariff is one of the playthings which has occupied much of the Republican government's time. On this issue, I stand squarely for its consideration as strictly business and non-partisan proposition. It is not a political football and one of my slogans is 'take the tariff of politics and put it in business.'
Economy and co-operation are two big words in public life now and I stand squarely for them. Another issues [sic] close to my heart is world peace and it appears to me that it is high time the senate of the United States heard a woman's voice on this subject."
Mrs. Brown's audience was composed of several hundred persons with a large number of women included. At many points in her address, she was interrupted with applause while at times she kept her audience in laughter by anecdotes related in her characteristic entertaining manner and particularly applicable to the point she was endeavoring to leave with her audience.
Attorney C. B. Dille of this city presided over the meeting and introduced Mrs. Brown. In his introductory remarks, Mr. Dille attacked the Republican administration sharply, saying the Republican party apparently knew but two things - a great people with great wealth and the tariff - neither of which, he added, would save the nation, or the world. In presenting Mrs. Brown, Mr. Dille referred to his own intimate association with her late husband, ExCongressman Junior Brown, of Kingwood.