Bricker's Sawdust Trail

Big, white-haired John Bricker rolled on in his prodigious Western tour, preaching the straight Republican gospel morning, noon & night, sometimes making nine speeches in a 15-hour day of traveling. He stumped Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, riding hatless up dozens of main streets in dozens of shiny open automobiles. Applause followed his tall, white-crested figure constantly, but it was hard to tell whether his muscular evangelism was bringing Democrat sinners forward to be saved or merely firing the faithful with enthusiasm.

Most of John Bricker's gospel was compounded of dogma which Republicans have used with dulling regularity; he called upon the citizenry to consider the horrible facts of the public debt, and New Deal bureaus, and unblushingly cried out a warning against U.S. Communists. But with John Bricker, as with Billy Sunday, it was delivery rather than text which filled the big tent.

Fine Figure of a Man. The blue and honest Bricker eye, the hearty Bricker handshake, and most of all, the deep Bricker platform voice, full of enthusiasm, platitudes and love of his fellow man, stirred crowds wherever he went. He was a man the people at whistle-stops could understand. He was the man for Fostoria, Ohio; for Shawnee, Hennessey, Pauls Valley, Upper Sandusky and Lower Salem. By the time he reached Oklahoma he was happily exhibiting two ten-gallon hats, a lariat, and a pair of spurs, gifts from the grateful citizenry en route. When a critic out front challenged his pronunciation he broke off and said: "Listen, I came off a farm in Ohio."

When he charged the New Deal with "scourging the employer" and precipitating "class hatred," when he hacked away at the P.A.C. and the national debt, the crowds whistled and stamped their feet.

At Harry Truman's birthplace, Lamar, Mo., more than half the town's 3,000 citizens were waiting for him at the railroad tracks--local Republicans swore he drew more people than had attended Truman's notification ceremony. At week's end John Bricker moved into Michigan, with Ohio, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania ahead. He pressed on--belaboring Sidney Hillman and Earl Browder, crying out for a flood of votes to submerge the wicked works of the New Deal and to float anew the ark of Republicanism.

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