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Four Candidates For Bacon’s
Term in tire U. S. Senate.
''THERE are four candidates for the Sena
-1 torial position left vacant by the death of
Hon. A. O. Bacon.
(1.) Governor John M. Slaton is a candi
date; and he is heavily handicapped by mis
takes that he made at the beginning.
It was a mistake for him to appoint a tem
porary Senator who would not be a candidate
for the remainder of the Bacon term.
That had the appearance of using a public
trust for a selfish ambition.
The people will always believe that Cap
tain M est was selected because he was the
aspirant who would be satisfied with the fag
end of one Congress.
Logically, Joseph M. Brown was the man
for Slaton to appoint, and everybody knows
it.
Had the Governor appointed Brown, with
no strings tied to him, and then announced
himself for the place vacated by Steve Clay—-
a place which the people have not yet -filled —
he would have defeated the treacherous, self
appointed Smith, with all ease.
The Brown-Slaton team would have been
invincible.
Secondly, Governor John showed the
white feather, when he refused to run against
the self-appointed Senator Smith.
Our people are not blood-thirsty at all, but
they never enthuse over a man who shows
the white feather. Governor John will not
be able to get away from the fact that he
showed it.
Thirdly, Brother Slaton fell down badly
when he virtually declared that Atlanta is
entitled to both the Senatorships.
The fair minded people of Atlanta do not
think.that way; and the voters of the other
counties do not think so.
In spite of all that Governor Slaton can
say, it will appear to the people that his
demand is something like this:
“The corporations and politicians of
Atlanta have agreed on me and Senator Smith
as the two U. S. Senators for the State of
Georgia. It. now becomes the duty of the peo
ple to ratify what the Atlanta corporations
and politicians have agreed on.”
Fourthly, Governor Slaton's announcement
for Senator did not make any “pints.” He
did not say what he was for, nor what he was
against.
He issued no declaration of faith, and did
not tell us what he would at least try to do,
if we put him in bed with the Hog-eye man.
All that Jack told us was that he’s a Geor
gian, married a Georgian, and loves Geor
gians, especially those Georgians that vote
for John Marmalade Slaton.
Fifthly, he made a mistake in not resign
ing from Rosser’s law firm, and from the
governorship, when he put himself in the
Senatorial race.
Now, that's enough about Jack.
Two other candidates belonging to the
Smith faction of Rule-or-Ruin natriots claim
to Lx) running for the Bacon term.
Air. Felder set the good example of resign
ing the office of Attorney-General before
going out to make speeches for himself as
candidate for another office.
It is very mucli to his credit that he did not
continue to draw a salary from the people,
at a time when he was neglecting the duties
of his office.
He is in pleasant contrast to Messrs. Slaton
and Hardwick, as even his political enemies
must admit.
Politically I have been his opponent: per
sonally, I do not know him at all.
Congress is holding, now, one of the most
important sessions since the Civil War.
THE JEFFERSONIAN
Every member of Congress ought to be at
his post!
Every member of Congress is at his post,
so far as I know of the Southern delegation—•
one man excepted.
That man is T. W. Hardwick, who was the
only member of the Georgia delegation to
vote an addition of $2,500 a year to his own
salary.
Although, it is a most critical and anxious
time in Administration circles at Washing
ton, member from Georgia has deserted
his post, and has been running around, from
court-house to court-house, begging the peo
ple to elect Am in Bacon's place.
Nobody ever saw A. (). Bacon desert his
post, during a session of Congress, and gal
lop all over the State, pleading for votes.
It is a strange thing that Hardwick’s
audiences do not rise against him and ask —
“117??/ are you not in Washington, doing
your duty, and earning your pay?
His record in Congress is as barren of fruit
as the fig tree that Christ ordered cut down.
He. has accomplished absolutely nothing for
the people. And when Speaker Champ Clark
gave him a splendid opportunity to expose
the Sugar Trust, the lobbyists of the Trust
wined him, dined him, and got him to make
a Report that did not recommend Congress
to do a thing against the Trust.
The price of sugar was then advanced, and
one of the men who rushed' into print to
defend the Trust, 7IL4N T. IP. HARDWICK.
When the new Money Trust bill was pre
sented to Congress, who denounced it, as the
worst of all Trusts, one'that would ruin the
country?
T. IF. HARDWICK!
Did he then vote against it? No: he did
not. lie voted for it.
He said that although the new law would
create the worst of all Trusts, and would
ruin the country, he would vote for it— why?
Because it got a majority in the secret
Democratic caucus.
In other words, he went into a Star Cham
ber meeting where he knew the Northern and
Eastern so-called Democrats would tie his
hands, and put a collar round his neck.
He meekly wore this Northern and Eastern
plutocratic collar; and voted for a bill which
he himself declared would be the ruin of his
own people.
Does he st ill believe that the Wilson-Bryan-
Aldrich-Al organ Currency Act will create the
most gigantic of all Trusts?
Does he still believe that it will be the ruin
of the country ?
Hon. G. R. Hutchens is the fourth entry
into the race for the Bacon term.
Ills platform appeared in the papers last
week.
Note his stand " for those fundamental
principles on which our Government is
founded.
Note his firm declaration for five speech,
free press, religious liberty, and our Public
School system.
Note his stand on the Immigration ques
tion.
Those are all live issues, growing more
important every day.
As the Hardwick campaign was launched
by Dan Fogarty and other Knights of Colum
bus of Augusta—who are proud to cable the
Italian Pope that they are “prostrate at your
feet”—Air. Hutchens' platform becomes par
ticularly significant.
How does Governor Slaton stand on those
robust American principles, which popery is
trying to undermine?
Where does Air. Felder stand?
This is no time for trifling and for side
stepping.
Self-appointed Senator Smith will be
measured by the American yard-stick.
The people have a right to know who is
for popery, and who is against it.
THOSE WHO ARE AGAINST IT,
MUST HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY
SO.
<■.■■■
The County Unit Principle, the
Self-Detense of Small States
and Small Counties.
IN the Augusta Chronicle, Air. I). L. Gibson
argues in favor of the plausible theory that
a man's vote should be the equal of any other
man's vote, regardless of the place of resi
dence.
Alany an honest and fainninded citizen has
deceived himself with that argument. But it
is misleading, so far as our system of Govern
ment is concerned.
Would Air. Gibson, or any other Georgian,
lie willing to see every vote in New York, Ohio
and Pennsylvania, the equal, in national poli
tics, of every vote in Georgia, Alabama and
Florida ?
If so, the big States of the North would
overwhelm the South, in the U. S. Senate.
Would Air. Gibson be willing to surrender
Georgia to Illinois? Would lie welcome a
change in the fundamental law which would
enable the millions of recently naturalized
immigrants from Europe to dictate laws to us
native Southerners of the small States?
I have no idea that he would; and am quite
sure that he would find himself in a hopeless
minority, were he to advocate such a change.
In the IT. S. Senate, the State unit is equal
to any other State unit, no matter what the
difference may be in population. Thus
'Nevada, New Alexico and Arizona had two
Senators each; when the voters of those States
were not equal in numbers to one Congres
sional District in Illinois.
Nothing but the equality of State units
saved the South from another tragedy of
Reconstruction, when Henry Cabot Lodge
came so near to passing the “Force bill'’ of
the Eighties.
(It was this New England Senator that Air.
Gibson's hero, the Self-appointed Senator
Smith of Georgia, paired with, to kill the
Parcels Post— by the assassin stab of amend
ment- — on Feb. 27, 1914, as shown by the Con
gressional Record of that date.)
Air. Gibson may be willing to have his
county of Taliaferro lose her constitutional
rights.; and sink to where Fulton County
could exercise 40 times more power.
Taliaferro is given one-third the power of
Fulton: that proportion is hers by law: would
she.be willing to surrender it?
I don't think so. Why should she?
In the Nineties, Taliaferro was virtually
disfranchised by the stuffed ballot-boxes of
Augusta; and she did not like it very much.
Would she now like to be practically dis
franchised by the stuffed boxes of Atlanta?
.General Robert Toombs. Ex-Governor
Charles J. Jenkins. Judge William Al. Reese,
Judge Augustus Reese, General A. R. Law
ton and the many other wise Democrats who
framed our State Constitution of 1877, under
stood the sound principles of good govern
ment fully as well as Jack Slaton. William
J. Harris, Hardy Ulm, Self-appointed Sena
tor Smith —and Air. I). L. Gibson.
The county unit plan worked finely for 30
years, until it got to be an obstacle to the bal
lot-box staffers of the big cities.
Let the counties stand for their lawful
rights, just as the States stand for theirs.
Let us keep what the law gives us, paying
no attention to those who honestly misunder
stand the principle involved, or who speak in
the selfish interests of greedy office-seekers.
.Won’t you send us one new subscriber?
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