The Colonel’s Campaign Roadshow
Roland H. Hartley kicks off a seven-week statewide tour, bringing a university quartet to belt out campaign ballads and challenging the power of organized labor.
Roland H. Hartley of Everett started Tuesday on his automobile campaign over the state, accompanied by his campaign manager, Wm. Coyle, a former football star, and a quartette of University boys who are equipped with Hartley campaign ballads to enliven the Colonel’s speaking occasions. Col. Hartley aims to thoroughly cover the state in his tour, making speeches in every town and hamlet. Inasmuch as he has thrown down the gauntlet to the labor organizations, it will be interesting to note the amount of strength he will be able to muster. If he only polls enough votes to demolish the bugaboo of ‘organized labor,’ he will earn the everlasting gratitude of future candidates. The University Quartette is composed of Ned Edris, baritone; Edwin Booth, second tenor; Charles Zimmerman, first tenor and Rick Brass, bass. Col. Hartley’s son, David, will drive the machine during the seven-week trip.
“Inasmuch as he has thrown down the gauntlet to the labor organizations it will be interesting to note the amount of strength he will be able to muster.”
Hartley’s populist, anti-union rhetoric echoes a persistent tension in Washington politics regarding the role of organized labor in the state's economy. His use of a traveling troupe to drum up attention prefigures the modern road-trip campaign style that candidates still use to reach rural voters in the Inland Empire.
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