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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