COOPER'S FIGHT FOR THE PEOPLE
Cooper's Fight For The People Record Of Wisconsin Congressman Shows He Fights To Drive The "Interests" Out Of Politics—Page Praises His War Votes In Congress IN 1893, the first district of...
...Kansas will support you to a man in any course you may take to grapple with the profiteers who prey on their country and their countrymen in this time of need," said the governor...
...In concluding your speech on the proposed War Declaration, you said: " 'I assume that the war is to come...
...Grown grey in his country's service, with every drop of blood in his body red in love of country, with every talent devoted to his country's welfare, a patriotic patriarch, Cooper is to be turned down by base insinuation, false charges and defamation of an able and honorable career...
...WHEN the bill came up for action in the Third Session, Cooper led the fight on the floor against the iniquitous measure, demanding protection for the public interest, protesting against favors for men who were criminals before the law...
...It is a modest and truthful statement compiled from the record and we quote from it in part: "My connection with the House goes 13 years back of your own, or 37 years...
...At ii\7' NO WING you intimately, 1^ both officially and personally, as I have during the 24 years of your service in the House, and knowing the esteem in which you are held by Members of the House on both sides for your ability, your devotion to duty, and your high character, I was amazed to read in the circular to which I have alluded, an implication, if not a direct charge of disloyalty toward our Government...
...It exhibits an utter disregard of the facts as herein set forth, and is evidently a mean, cheap and base political scheme to discredit a man whose long career in public life has >een honorable and useful, and whose every act and vote since our country went to war has been as patriotic as that of the President himself, whose policies and measures for the vigorous prosecution of the war and the achievment of victory you have consistently supported...
...System Caught Napping...
...Your were constantly present in the House...
...By the fight he then made he saved the people more than 178,000,000 of "hilars, and more than that he proved himself free from temptation...
...You voted for tha passage of this law...
...Of all the Republicans on the committee, not one seconded his efforts...
...Later removing to Racine, the nearest large town, he was chosen District Attorney and twice re-elected without opposition...
...But it was a magnificent triumph for principle and honesty...
...COOPER was born a Republican, his forebears had been of the founders of the Republicai, party...
...To investigate it was to fight it, and to fight it, with Cooper, was to fight it hard...
...This state has suffered grievously and is suffering more and more seriously, from widespread and excessive profiteering by all the big industrial, gougers...
...A Democratic 8peaker appointed him at the foot of the Committee on Pacific Railroads...
...Record of Service...
...Cooper's neighbors, when he was a boy, had invested in the optimism of railroad promoters—and regretted it...
...Cooper joined with two Democrats in a minority report, a minority report in which they were supported by the report of the Wilson Committee of '73, and by Governor Pattison's report of the Pacific Railway Commission...
...They sent him to the State Senate and his services to his constituents were faithful and well rendered...
...When it Cjmes we will be united in support of the Government...
...The record of an individual member of Congress on a given subject must be dealt with, not merely that part which suits the critic's purpose...
...Praise From Page...
...They might assume that he would "fall in line," would be "all right...
...He stood like Adam, the first man, in the infancy of a new world of Republican principle ¦—destined to be the father of Insurgency in the House of Representatives...
...Throughout the stormy debate, he was on his feet, defying the wrath of the leaders of his own party, as well as that of the Democratic majority organization, hurling his ultimatum in their teeth, "Sir, the pending bill is unfair to the government, and nothing can prevail upon me to give it my support...
...You also supported the second great war appropriations Act carrying $5,356,666,000...
...Cooper's Fight For The People Record Of Wisconsin Congressman Shows He Fights To Drive The "Interests" Out Of Politics—Page Praises His War Votes In Congress IN 1893, the first district of Wisconsin sent Henry Ailen Cooper to Congress...
...At the outset you voted for the appropriation of $100,000,000 made for the national security and defense for the year 1917, and to be spent by the President in his discretion without any strings to it, and without his even being required to render an accounting...
...I am writing this letter because I have seen in a circular printed in your district a statement of your votes in Congress on war measures and declaring that you "repeatedly voted against measures to curb the efforts of spies, propagandists, and criminal agents of destruction, and prevent their interference with the effective prosecution of the war.' This statement is absolutely false...
...You voted for the Smoot amendment, increasing civil war widows' pensions to $25 per month"You supported, the bill providing for priority in shipments...
...Also, and most important, his integrity was proof, as that of many new Congress-jnen is not, against all the blandishments and the insidious attacks of money, power, and influence...
...FOR more than 30 years William Taylor Page has been in service in the house of representatives...
...They sent Cooper because they knew him well, and knew that he was honest and able...
...The corrupt Huntington lobby was there, doing business with the Democratic organization, the majority, and the Republican organization, the minority, as it had in the past done business with the Republican organization when it was the majority, and the Democratic organization when it was the minority—domg Big Bnsiness...
...Such are the methods of the opposition through printed matter circulated in his district...
...Backs Up War...
...Cooper is not their man...
...If I did not know this by actual observation I would know it by your record on roll calls...
...You voted also to authorize the second issue...
...He did not need to study far to discover that, behind its form and disguises, it was a steal...
...The votes on such incidental questions one way or the other did not have a vital bearing on the conduct of the war...
...Eventually this will defeat all our efforts, unless thoroughgoing and drastic regulation of the big industries can soon be effected...
...The circular is utterly misleading...
...This was Mr...
...But as a minority Member of the House, he was entitled to some committee appointment...
...It was an infraction of party regularity...
...Your every act and word since we entered this war are well known to me...
...You supported the Trading with the Enemy Act "One of the most benificent^ laws ever passed by this or any other Nation was the military and naval insurance act...
...This has familiarized me with the House procedure...
...You were among the members voting soon after war was declared to authorize the first issue of Liberty Bonds...
...It has been my habit and duty to keep in close touch with all that goes on in the House...
...Of thirteen Members on that Committee, Cooper was the last and least in rank and responsibility...
...first he stood practically alone in the committee...
...The fact is that you did support the espionage bill in all of its features as it finally became a law...
...It was a repudiation of party solidarity...
...This is only fair...
...Born and reared in Walworth County, educated in letter's and in the law, he practiced his profession among the neighbors of his boyhood...
...So it came about naturally when the Pacific Railroad funding scheme came before the committee of which Cooper was a member, that Cooper proceeded to investigate it seriously and thoroughly from the standpoint of the public interest...
...The shocking report of the Federal Trade Commission further emphasizes the force and truth of your statement of May 17 to Congress, that information with regard to conscienceless profiteering is available and indisputable, and justifies my appeal to you of six months ago for relief on behalf of the people of Kansas...
...I shall do all that I can to help achieve a victory for our country.'" "On December 7, 1917, Congress declared that a state of war existed with the Royal Austro-Hungarian Government...
...In the committee, behind closed doors, his protests and his struggles were in vain...
...THE new Congressman from the First Wisconsin came, unknown and unnoticed...
...but your critics seem to have forgotten that...
...Hardly one of the great war me^^fes has gone through Congress without amendment...
...He Demanded Fairness...
...The circular would make it appear that you did not support the espionage (anti-spy) bill by referring to your votes on an amendment dealing with only one phase of that bill...
...Some of them have been amended materie^y...
...The little city of Burlington, where Cooper first hung out his •hingle as a lawyer, had been "held up" by a railroad...
...A practical solution of either will amount to a remedy for both and will strengthen and en-hearten the people amazingly for all the trials and demands of the war...
...You voted for the War Revenue Bill...
...Cooper with lack of patriotism...
...Cooper's first big fight in Congress in favor of the people and against the special interests...
...For an issue they furl the flag around their unholy enterprise and charge Mr...
...I doubt if there is another as good a record for attendance in the House, and I ant sure there is none better...
...CONGRESSMAN COOPER'S record of faithful public service is too long to discuss in detail...
...He stood alone in his party...
...They had helped to rear the party upon the foundation of a great principle...
...That first big issue found Henry Allen Cooper right with his constituents, and he has been right with them since...
...You supported all appropriations for the conduct of the war to the extent of $21,000,000,000, including $7,000,000,000 in loans to the Allies...
...But that he has been able, conscientious and a hard worker, none will deny...
...When finally the bill reported by the committee was forced to a vote, and the votes were counted, it was found that a majority of the Members of the House, when they came to make their votes of public record, had voted with Cooper, and the bill was beaten...
...For it had a bill to be passed, a bill to beat the government ont of its claims against the Pacific Railroads, a hundred and seventy nriUion or more...
...They are doing more to hamper us than all the devices of the enemy in making the necessities of life and industry cost more than the people can earn...
...For 13 terms he has been approved by the people of his district by overwhelming majorities...
...To be shamelessly and continually exploited for the necessities of living by a great commercial plunderbund, which they and their sons are defending in a war that taxes their every resource, is an outrage on the patriotism of the people too intolerable to be borne...
...The majority of the committees reported the Pacific Railroads founding bill, as tne railroads wanted it...
...In that report, they pointed out that the bill reported by the majority of the committee, at the behest of the System lobby, was one to defraud the government and the people of the United States out of a public loan of $178,000,000, principal an<5 interest, by subordinating the government claim to all other liens upon the property—liens aggregating more than the roads were known to be worth...
...You voted for the joint resolution subjecting to the war excess profits tax the compensation of officers and employees under the United Stat-es, including the Members of Congress and soma fifty other war measures...
...When Cooper was a young man, Wisconsin had been a "Granger state...
...In line with your other votes for preparedness and support of war measures you supported the Aviation Act...
...You supported the bills recommended by the Secretary of the Navy...
...You answered or voted upon 285, or a percentage of 92...
...With the majority and the minority leaders in the House "right, and with the majority, if not all, of the committee on Pacific Railroads "safe," the System lobby concerned itself little or none with the new Member at the foot of the committee—at first...
...And, for once, the System nodded...
...But, Mr, Cooper's district is changing from a farming constituency chiefly, so that now the city population is larger in proportion and as this proportion increases the demand of special interests becomes more insistent...
...He has had rare opportunity of judging men and measures...
...Nothing t» my mind could be baser, more unjust to you and to your family, or farther from the truth than such a charge...
...It exhibits an utter disregard of the facts as herein set forth, and is evidently a mean, cheap, and base political scheme to di»« credit a man whose long career in public Ufa has been honorable and useful, and whose every act and vote since our country went to war haa been as patriotic as that of the President himself, whose policies and measures for the vigorous prosecution of the war and the achievement of victory you have consistently supported...
...His attention having been called to the misrepresentation of Mr...
...Now Cooper was to learn, as a rude shock, the sad lesson that party regularity was not always a vir tue...
...KNOWING you intimately, both officially and personally as I have during the 24 yeara of your service in the House, and knowing tha esteem in which you are held by Members of tha House on both sides for your ability, your devotion to duty, and your high character, I wag amazed to read in the circular to which I hava alluded, an implication, if not a direct charge of disloyalty toward our Government...
...Since we entered the war there have been 298 roll calls...
...In every relation, he justified the public confidence...
...While Cooper had 60 prejudice against railroads, as such, he had inherited rather strong prejudices in favor of Common honesty...
...Our national fitness in the Middle West depends on a speedy solution of the profiteering problem and the equitable financing of the war or upon a thoroughly effective solution of the problem of price regulation that shall include all necessary commodities...
...pleaded that the welfare of the entire country as affected by the transportation charges of a great, transcontinental trunk-line railroad built with public money demanded that any legislation, looking to the settlement of the Pacific Railroads' indebtedness, should be fair to the government and the people, and that it should "limit fairly the amount of capital," that it should provide for "strict government supervision," allowing investors only "the right to receive an honest return upon an honest investment...
...You supported the two great food laws...
...You voted in favor of this declaration...
...Big Railroad Bill...
...To this committee were referred the bills of the Pacific Railroads...
...For in the old days, when the Pacific Railroads crowd were corrupting Congress in Washington for money, the forebears of Cooper were risking their fortunes and their liberties in conducting a terminus of the "Underground Railroad," aiding fugitive slaves to Canada and liberty—a hazardous enterprise offering no reward save the satisfaction of vindicating the principle of human freedom...
...Your own long record is familiar to me...
...The minority report disclosed that the pending measure, while failing to provide for the payment of any interest on the huge debt due the government, would wipe out tha government's statutory lien upon the property^ substituting only worthless security—proposed new bonds to be taken by the government merely as collateral—that the bill did not even .definitely provide for the payment of any of the prior mortgaged indebtedness of the railroads, and postponed all rights of the government for a period of fifty years...
...With a broad outlook, he pleaded not only for the protection of the government in its money investment, but also for the protection of the shipping and consuming public, tributary to more than two thousand miles of railroad...
...And you also voted to strengthen this law in what is known as the sedition act...
...v Attack is Unfair...
...Now that war is on the profiteers in the rear of the patriots are many and powerful as the questions of taxation come up and the ^wealth of the country is called upon to bear a larger proportion of the burdens of war and a special effort is to be made to reach war profiteers by taxation through the insistency of the president the war profiteers and wealthy men of his district instinctively look for help...
...You also supported the third and fourth Liberty Loan acts to meet expenditures for national security and defense and to prosecute the wart GOVERNOR CAPPER of Kansas has made an appeal to President Wilson to follow up the report of the Federal Trade Commission on profiteering and to drive the profiteers out of business...
...Nothing to my mind could be baser, more unjust to you and to your family, or farther from the truth than such a charge...
...When Cooper came to Congress, the House was Democratic, but the System, then as now, was bi-partisan...
...He was profoundly impressed, as most new Congressmen are, with the sacred obligation of his office to safeguard the public interest...
...Cooper's record, he wrote to Mr...
...Such insatiable greed will stop at nothing short of stern and drastic compulsion...
...QlNCE we entered the war Congress has O voted every possible power to build, pur-chose, and commandeer ships, and the Record G&ows that these measures have all had your support...
...Cooper a reply 'for use in the campaign...
...At every crisis, he proved himself a soldier of principle, a Cooper of the Coopers...
Vol. 10 • August 1918 • No. 8
