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PAGE SIX
Jeffersrtniatt
Issued Every Thursday.
Office of Publication: THOMSON, GA.
Entered as second-class matter, Dec. 8, 1910,
at the post office at Thomson, Georgia,
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IIENEVV NOW.
THOMSON, GA., AUGUST 31, 1916.
Had Slaton desired to disqualify himself,
he had the best ground in the world. All he
need to have said was, that his firm had re
ceived fees from the defendant, and that the
law gave him a share of the money.
Everybody would have appproved his
course, had lie, on that legal ground, respited
1 rank say for GO days—just as he is said to
have respited a negro convicted of murder.
AV hat will be your amazement, therefore,
when you learn that Slaton now blames Dor
sey for letting the Frank case get to him?
In a letter written in May of this year, Sla
ton uses this astounding language:
‘"Dorsey had it in his power to place this
case before Governor Harris”
Suppose we forget that Frank's lawyers did
the forcing, both as to the handing down of
the decision and the precedence given by the
Prison Commission, how can we forget that
the Governor had the best possible reason for
excusing himself? How can anyone doubt
that the people would have praised him, had
he frankly said—
’’The condemned man is the client of my
law-firm, and therefore it would. be a gross
impropriety (if not a violation of law) for
me to retry the case, and upset the decisions
of (he jury and all the judges.”
In this remarkably stupid letter, John M.
Slaton further says:
“lie (Dorsey) forced the case before me
without making any point (of disqualifica
tion) and if I had postponed the case for
Governor Harris, he knew that I would be
justly attacked for cowardice.
His conduct on the whole was so perfidious
and false that I have no respect for him, and
I cannot see how the people of Georgia can
elect such a pigmy.
“I am firmly convinced that Dorsey has
practically no chance.”
Does your mind go back to last Summer,
when the North and West greeted John M.
Slaton as the Hero, the one Great Man of
Georgia, the man who had redeemed his State,
the man whose Sublime Courage was the toast
of banquets, and the text of sermons?
Did Slaton then complain that the false
and perfidious Dorsey had “forced” all those
honors upon him?
Did he, in New York, Chicago, Los Ange
les, or San Francisco, tell bis jubilant Jeru
salemites, Hearst lies, and South-haters that
all the glory belonged to the perfidious Dor
sey ?
Did Slaton disclaim the ovations, the puffs
the receptions?
Did he ask them to send for Dorsey, the
man who could have forced those glories upon
Harris, but who forced them upon Slaton?
Mv .’ my ! what a change I
Last August, it was Slaton who was Cock
robin, Big Chief, Lion-tamer, Strong Man
THE JEFFERSONIAN
from Borneo, Slaughterer of wild animals,
Suppresser of Mob-law.
Last August, it was Slaton who rode in the
Northern chariot of triumph, his path strewn,
with flowers, his' head crowned with laurel,
his smile blossoming on the front page of the
metropolitan dailies.
Hearst blew bugles in his great chain of
papers: Ochs, and Abel], and Pulitzer, and
Ajonidab, and Ahab— they blew bugles.
But Slaton now says it was all a mistake.
lie didn’t go to do it. He preferred to get
out of it. The false and perfidious Dorsey
forced him to become a hero, in spite of him
self; and now he hates Dorsey, calls him a
pigmy, and doesn’t sec how the people can
elect such a man, although Dorsey is the man
who forced John Slaton to become a hero.
Cousin Joe Pottle is still asking questions,
but not answering any.
When you can't answer, it is just as well
not to try.
1 here was Broadus, shot in the back in
Jasper County, and Benton on trial for the
murder. Cousin Joe was Solicitor-General,
and his conduct of the case excited surprise
and suspicion. Benton was not convicted, as
Leo Frank was.
Benton had rich relatives, just as Leo
Frank had.
L. O. Benton, the brother of the accused,
owns a string of banks, just as some of
Frank's backers owned banks.
If Hugh Dorsey had acted in the Frank
case with the same evident leaning to the de
fendant, Frank would have got off, just as
Broadus did.
Governor Harris, at Fort Gaines, more
than hinted that the L. & N. Railroad had
bought Dorsey, and that Dorsey favored the
County-unit plan because the L. & N.
wanted it.
Dorsey will never again have such a
chance to sell out as he had in the long, hard
fight to convict the Jew Criminal, to save
whose life more money was poured into
Georgia—from Maine to California—than
the L. & N. Railroad will ever pay for any
one man.
As to the County-unit plan, The Jeffer
sonian has persistently fought for it, ex
plained it, defended it, and shown how it
saves the State from the control of the big
cities where the Corporations exert the
greatest power over> the local vote.
With money, with whiskey, with the job
lash, with the influence of business connec
tions, the Corporations have immensely more
strength in Atlanta, Augusta, Macon, and
Savannah, than they have in the country
counties, where the job-lash and the inter
locked business interests have no influence at
all.
Every man of good common sense can see
this, if he wants to. Even Nat Harris saw
it, when his only hope of winning, tiro
years ago was the County-unit plan. If
he now sees things differently, it must
be on acocunt of his recent expecta
tions of getting the benefit, in the big cities,
of money, whiskey, the job-lash, and the in
terlocked business interests.
My educational campaign for the constitu
tional division of political power, began in
1907 when the State Executive Committee
suddenly broke loose from the Constitutional
county-unit, plan, and adopted the revolu
tionary popular vote plan which allows At
lanta to submerge about 30 country counties.
I was in Florida at the time, not in Hugh
Dorsey's office, and lost no time in opening
the campaign for the country counties. Did
not consult the L. & N. Railroad, nor Hamp
McWhorter, nor Judge Reagan, nor Joe Pot
tle, nor Clayt. Robson, nor yet Col. Nat Har
ris.
The Atlanta Constitution was the only
daily paper that helped me in the fight; anti,
of course, the L. & N. Railroad may have
given Clark Howell a million or so. If so,
it was mean in him not to divide with me.
Yes, Sir! It was 9 years ago, that the
Corporation interests of the big cities first
sprung their nefarious scheme to violate the
principles of the Constitution of 187 1 by
forming a political convention on exactly the
opposite principle to that which forms the
State
If Atlanta is 'entitled to 40 times more
power than a small county, in naming the
governor and all the other important state
officers, why isn’t Atlanta equally entitled
to 40 times more members of the House of
Representatives than McDuffie or Lincoln
or Grady, or Bacon, or Jenkins?
Col. Nat couldn't answer, to save his life.
Pottle never assails Harris, and Harris
never raps Cousin Joe. Yet, if Dorsey had
accepted a Populist nomination for Congress,
and had gone to campaigning with “the
arch-enemy of Democracy,” I feel it in my
bones that old Nat would have jabbed him
about it.
It was in 1892, and General James B*
Weaver was candidate for President on the
Peoples’ Party ticket and William J. Bryan
was supporting him.
So was Cousin Joe. AVith me and Joe and
Bryan all in the same boat together, we ap
ples surely did float. But 10, and behold I
Cousin Joe left the breakfast-table, one fine
morning, wearing our Populist nomination;
and when he sat dowui to supper, he was a
moss-back Democrat. It almost killed father,
because Joe had been such a brilliant, eloquent
and handsome, young leader at our Populist
conventions.
Tell the boys what it was you ate between
breakfast and supper, Joseph. This isn’t the
case of Potiphar’s wife, you know: we Pops
did not come upon you suddenly and catch
hold of your raiment where it was scant.
Somebody else did that.
Senator Dobbs of Cobb County is running
for the place of Comptroller-General; and the
first question to settle is, whether it’s sacri
legious for him to do so.
If it's no sin for the Senator to run against
an incumbent who has held the office ever
since Wheeler's Cavalry passed through, the
Senator from Cobb may make a good show
ing.
Brother Dobbs helped us mightily in get
ting the Veazey bill up. and through. Lots
of bills could go through, if somebody would
help you get them up.
Many a man who will vote “Aye”, if he
has to vote at all, will beseech the Committee
to hold a bill in its own custody, and thus
prevent a vote.
That’s what saved the Tax Inequality law,
this time.
The Jeffersonian was in error about James
A. Boykin. He w T as not a delegate to the
Macon Convention, as I was informed. At
the request of friends in Lincoln, I cheerfully
make the correction.
All the same, however, I warn Dorsey’s
friends, in all counties carried by him, of the
danger of naming delegates who are partisans
of Hardwick, Slaton, and’Smith. Those men
are for anybody to beat Dorsey.
A Roman Catholic is running for one of
the three new’ judgeships of the Court of
Appeals. This.is Mr. John M. Graham, who,
so far as I know’, has never served the State
in any judicial capacity. He has merely been
clerk to the Supreme Court. It is unusual
for clerks to demand a place on the Supreme
Bench, without some preparatory experience.
It is a bad time to be electing Boman
Catholics to the highest offices.
