Newspaper Page Text
tW6ou Stop seasons getting out cross
ties. We used to get thirty cents
apiece for heart oak then, from the
railroad. Jim had to haul them for
a long way and he had a team of ox
en not much bigger than rabbits,
and he couldn’t travel very fast.
“About this time he took a no
tion he wanted to study law, and he
got hold of some old law books some
where, and many’s the day I have
passfed him on the road sitting up on
his load of ties, reading his law book
while those little old oxen tuged
away to Scobey or THillatoba, where
the ties were to be delivered.’
At Tillatoba, Capt. J. H. Dame
tells the same facts about the heavy
load of responsibility placed upon
Jim Vardaman as a child; of his
struggles to make a living, his pov
erty, his scanty schooling, and h’s
grim determination to succeed. Capt.
Dame knows of his work in getting
out cross ties, and corroborates i”
every particular the story as related
by Mr. Wilburn.
In a few years Will Vardaman
was old enough to take Jim’s place,
and believing he could do better and
earn more in town, Jim got a place
to work in Carrollton. There he
studied law between whiles and was
Ba?
< Al 1
r > ' ■BRI
John Milburn of Scobey, Miss., who
was in School With J. K.
Vardaman.
admitted to the bar, and later he
moved to Winona, in Montgomery
county. There, while waiting for
clients, he did some newspaper work.
After living in Winona three or
four years, young Lawyer Vardaman
moved to Greenwood, then a wild
and wooly town, with nineteen sa
loons and about five hundred inhabi
tants. He took his stand with the
law abiding element, in an effort to
make Greenwood a decent place to
live in.
The saloon crowd was in the sad
dle, gambling dens and vice was ram
pant. The prohibition element start
ed in to carry the county dry. Young
Mr. Vardaman was one of the most
active workers in the cause, so much
so that he was picked to be gotten
rid of, and two desperate characters
opened fire on him with pistols from
behind cover as he was crossing the
street. He stood his ground, return
ing shot for shot, and got several
bullet holes in his clothes. His cous
in, Col. J. D. Money, came to his as
sistance and was shot through the
knee. One of Vardaman ’■ aaeail-
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
ants was killed. That was the turn
ing point in the fight, and law, order
and prohibition were victorious,
largely through his efforts.
Soon after he was elected by a
grateful people to the legislature,
where he served with distinction.
He was re-elected and became Speak
er of the House, making one of the
best the State ever had. Twice he
was presidential elector. In the war
with Spain, which he had advocated
in his paper, he backed up what he
said by enlisting as a private and
shouldered his gun with the rest of
the boys. He was elected captain of
his company and Governor McLau
rin refused to commission him unless
he apologized for some severe cri
cisms he had made in his paper of
McLaurin. He refused to apologize,
and was deprived of fighting under
the flag of Mississippi. Determined
to go to the front, however, he en
listed in the sth Immunes, and was
sent Cuba, where he saw service
and was promoted rapidly until he
reached the rank of Major. He re
turned home after hostilities ceased
and made the race for Governor, but
was defeated by a political combina
tion. Four years later he again
made the race and was elected over
great odds and has made good every
pledge. He recommended in his in
augural message the change in the
distribution of the school fund. The
Legislature, not in sympathy with
him on that question, refused to act.
Meanwhile he cleaned out the peni
tentiary, stopped the leasing of com
victs to work the princely plantations
of pets of former administrations,
put the convicts on the State farms,
so the Slate gets the benefit of their
labor.
He appointed an incorruptible
School Book Commission, and broke
the back of the American Book
Company, a trust which has made
more high priced lobbyists in the
State of Mississippi, and has robbed
the plain people out of more money
on the price of school books than
can lie well calculated. And some of
the loudest defamers and howlers
against Vardaman are these now job
less lobbyists and agents, who have
been separated from their tai* t-ul
trust money for shady work, and find
themselves with their occupation
gone.
Up at Holly Springs there was a
negro “Slate Normal School”
where negro teachers were taught
“Pedagogy,” “Ethics,” “Interna
tional Law and Civics,” “Astron-
THE HOUSE WHERE J. K. VARDAMAN LIVED UNTIL HE WAS
It YEARS OF AGE.
omy, ” “Trigonometry,” “Botany,”
and such things. The Legislature
made the usual appropriation for it.
Governor Vardaman vetoed the bill
and mashed the life out of it; had
it turned into a State Agricultural
Experiment Station which shows the
farmers of the hill section how large
ly to increase their returns from
their poor lands.
The great lumber trust had a long
cherished scheme. It wanted per
mission for every corporation to be
allowed to hold ten million dollars
worth of land. The lumber trust is
7
Mandy Woodward, who picked and
Chopped Cotton with Jim
Vardaman Many a Day.
composed of about thirty companies.
To buy and hold $300,000,000 worth
of timber lands, freezing out the
small mill owners, forcing the own
ers of small tracts to sell at the
trust figures, and then holding the
land, neither improving, opening to
settlement nor paying adequate tax
es, was what they wanted. A bill
was lobbied through the Legislature,
giving the right. Every trust law
yer and manager was on hand work
ing for it. When it went through
there was much rejoicing among
them.
Governor Vardaman mashed that
flat also; he vetoed it promptly.
There was wailing and gnashing of
teeth among the lumber kings. They
are all fighting him with their mil
lions now.
The Southern Railroad, one of the
greatest and most conscienceless cor
porations in America, tried to gobble
the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, so the
people along the line could be de
prived of competing rates. The bill
passed and Governor Vardaman ve
toed that. A great howl went up
from the railroad lawyers and inter
ested bankers, but Vardaman forced
the Mobile & Ohio to remain a com-
peting line, giving the people the
benfit of competing rates. Needless
to say, a disappointed lot of rail
road magnates and hirelings are do
ing what they can to compass his
defeat.
The Legislature met again. The
Governor again tried to get them to
divide the school fund as he desired.
They would not do it. But today
every candidate for Governor is
standing right on the platform Vard
aman originated.
He employed agents and uncov
ered an astonishing amount of graft
and corruption and penitentiary af
fairs. That was put an end to.
The Blind Institute was enlarged;
the Deaf and Dumb Institute was
trebled in capacity; the Insane Asy
lum was enlarged and a new hospital
erected; the consumptives were seg
regated in a separate hospital and
the treatment of all the inmates im
proved; the Girls’ school at Colum
bus was enlarged and improved as
was the A. & M. at Starkville, and
the negro A. & M. school at Alcorn
was turned into an agricultural
school.
Not a bit of graft; honesty, open
and above board dealing in all things,
wise economy and good common
horse sense have characterized the
administration of James K. Varda
man.
He has been the Governor. Nei
ther friend nor foe could sway or
swerve him. He has used his own
judgment, as he did when a lad on
the poor hills of old Yalobusha.
And he will make a better Senator
than he was Governor —he is rip
ened, matured, experienced and broad
ened in every way.
Dewberry’s Delight.
If you are not enjoying good health
it Is your own fault, as “Dewberry’s
Delight” is within the reach of every
one, as those who are really not able
to buy a bottle can get a trial bottle
free of charge by calling or writing
to the office, 231-2 Whitehall street,
Atlanta, Ga.
“Dewberry’s Delight” is just what
you need at this season of the year
to remove that foul waste matter from
the system, so you can sleep and
rest, which is the only way you ca*
restore the nerve force, by good sound
sleep. So you see how essential it
is to keep the liver, bowels and kid
neys right, to keep the system dear
of waste matter which obstructs the
nerve force and paves the way for all
diseases.
All druggists sell It
jx Tsupkrjqr roALk .
Because it is 30 per cent briefer,
more legible, and can be learned in
one-half the time. We will prove
these claims or give you a course free
in any of the old systems. All com
mercial branches taught by experts.
Write for catalogu. WAYCROSS BUS
INESS COLLEGE, Waycross, Ga.
WANTED—Young men and young wo-
men to prepare for positions paying
from SSO to $l5O per month. Posi
tions guaranteed; railroad fare paid.
WHEELER BUSINESS COLLEGE,
Birmingham, Ala.
PAGE THIRTEEN