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PAGE TWELVE Parting Word to Watson By Bishop Candler Editor Constitution: With refer ence to Mr. Thomas E. Watson’s card in your issue of July 22, I beg to say a few things. 1. lam glad to see he is in such an amiable frame of mind; it well be comes him, and I hope he may ac quire the habit of amiability. But he should also cultivate the habit of accuracy of statement. In his “Weekly Jeffersonian” he said of me “the open saloon received the benefit of his powerful influence in that campaign” (the campaign of 1896). My card first printed in the summer of 1896, and reprinted in your issue of July 21, shows that the open saloon received no benefit of my influence, but on the contrary, that I publicly and emphatically declared myself in favor of local option, state prohibition, a constitutional amend ment or any other method which would effectually close the saloons. Mr. Watson knows that neither in 1896, nor at any other time, did the open saloon ever receive the benefit of my influence. If he desired to be accurate he should have said that his party could not secure the benefit of my influence, and that he and his party associates could not use me for their partisan ends. That is the point of his grievance against me. 2. I am delighted to be assured by Mr. Watson that he voted the “dry” ticket when his own county McDuffie was carried for prohibition some twenty years ago. Although 1 was very actively and continuously engaged in that campaign,’ from its beginning to its end, I never knew before how Mr. Watson voted. In those days prohibition was not as popular as it is now, and when some of us. without political hopes or fears to move us, were fighting for it on the naked issue of its right eousness, so far as I now remember Mr. Watson did not help us with one speech in public nor one line in the press. Like Brer Fox, “he lay low and kept on saying nothing.” But I am glad to have his assurance now that he voted “dry,” and I believe he did. I feel a little like making a prayer for him like one I heard a pious old negro make in a revival meeting for his fickle young master. For months before the meeting his “Marse John” was very lukewarm, not to say badly backslidden, but in the revival he warmed up to the shouting point. The old negro watch ed from a rear seat, in the church the exultant movements of the re turning prodigal until at last, unable to restrain himself, he arose anti went forward, exclaiming as he grasped the shouter’s hand, “God bless you, Marse John! I is so glad de good Lord dene gib you dis big blessin. I do shore hope it will last you clean past next Christmas!” I do hope Mr. Watson may continue in the grace of temperance, and then that he may cultivate also all the Christian graces, such as kindness to the poor, benevo lence, gentleness, meekness, etc. He is a man of marked gifts and might be very useful if he would undertake to serve faithfully and unselfishly his generation according to the will of God. As official duties force me to start tomorrow on a long journey to the WATSON'S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. west, let me say while I am writing a parting word to the prohibitionists in the legislature. It is this: Watch, as the issue comes to the close, the tricks of the anti-prohibitionists. They will, when it is evident that they cannot prevent the passage of the bill, seek to mar and maim it. Do not allow them to amend it so as to make it too lax to be of any value. On the other hand, do not allow them to tack on to it any extreme fea tures that will render it impractica ble and unpopular when the law is put in operation. If they are as skill ful as they generally are, they will try both these tricks, when they see all attempts to defeat the bill out right are vain. Give Georgia a good, safe and sane prohibition law, de formed neither by compromise nor fanaticism, but sober and sound in its own provisions and well adapted to make all the people who live un der it sober, healthy, prosperous and pious. God bless dear old Georgia and all her people! W. A. CANDLER. Atlanta, Ga., July 22, 1907. P. S. —Since the foregoing was written I have received a letter from a friend well acquainted with the history of political events in McDuffie county since I w»as engaged in the prohibition campaign there. From that letter I make the following extract: “In 1881 Mr. George P. Stovall ran for the legislature in McDuffie county. Mr. Stovall was a popular gentleman and it was thought he %ould have no opposition, but he came out in a card announcing his intention to procure the repeal of tlie prohibition law of McDuffie county if elected. This aroused the prohibitionists and they put Dr. E. C. Hawes in the race on an avowed pro hibition platform. Mr. Watson did not vote for Dr. Hawes, and in no way lent him aid in the campaign. So if Mr. Watson refers to the cam paign of 1884 when he says, ‘and at the grand round-up on election day there I was among the sheep and not among the goats,’ then he is in error. I cannot say Mr. Watson voted for Mr. Stovall, but he did not vote for Dr. Hawes, although he was in town that day.” So it appears that if Mr. Watson has not been “among the goats” he has been just a little bit “sheep ish” about prohibition in his own home county. I do not quote this to tease Mr. Watson, nor to cast a doubt on his profession of devotion to the prohibition cause now. If he says he is “dry,” I shall accept his statement —at least as long as the present “dry spell” lasts, and until I have good reason to believe his po litical humidity is unquestionably es tablished. W. A. C. HON. THOMAS E. WATSON TO BISHOP W. A. CANDLER. “Editor Constitution:— When a bishop gets a kink in his record, it is natural that he should worry over it. Bishops, after all, are but human. That Dr. Candler is sadly vexed because of my good-hu mored reference to the mistake he made in 1896, is apparent to every body. His vexation is just as evi- dent in the laborious gayety of his card, as it was in the somewhat gruff tone of his interview. A prohibition Democrat was a can didate for governor in 1896, and the main feature of his platform was the anti-barroom plank. Many pro hibition Democrats in Georgia gave their hearty support to the candidate and the platform; Dr. Candler did not. When the newspapers announc ed that he, like Walter B. Hill, and so many other prohibitionists, was going to support the Hon. Seaborn Wright, Dr. Candler hastened into print to deny the charge, and to de cry the effort to get prohibition in that way. Not only was the card which Bishop Candler published a positive repu diation of the statement that he would support the prohibition candidate for governor, but it was a condemna tion of the campaign itself. Not content with refusing his sup port, Dr. Candler strongly expressed his opposition. Not satisfied with a negative, he took a positive position, and that po sition was antagonistic to the prohi-, bition candidate for governor. The bishop in the innocence of h's heart, actually republishes the card of 1896, in which he dealt the prohi bition candidate and campaign such a staggering blow. From one end of the line to the other, Seaborn Wright’s supporters felt the hurtful influence of Dr. Candler’s antag onism. To this all will agree. Now, when The Jeffersonian stat ed that in the campaign of 1896, “the open saloon got the benefit of Dr. Candler’s influence,” the bishop squirms. But, if the open saloon did not get the benefit of Dr. Candler’s influ ence in the campaign of 1896, who did! The anti-saloon element was back ing Seab Wright; the saloon element was fighting him, and Dr. Cand’er came out with a card dealing Seab Wright a smashing blow; yet the bishop is nettled when The Jeffer sonian says that the saloons got the benefit of influence. If the saloons did not get it, what went with it! When a good, honest prohibition ist, Bishop Candler, cannot see his way to voting the prohibition ticket, just because the populists in dorse the candidacy of a prohibition Democrat, he must not become ruf fled when that mistake afterwards bobs up and pesters him. Mistakes are aggravating scamps and they have not that respect f bishops which well-bred errors ought to have. One of these irreverent mis takes will tease and fret a bishop, just as though he were no better than anybody else. And it sometimes hap pens that a bishop, teas d and both ered by one of these little kinks in the record, becomes ineffective and unhappy even in his selection of an anecdote about that hard-worked brother, “the pious old negro.” When a lusty Caucasian bishop has to unload his*Vrouble and embarrass ment on the overworked “pious old negro,” all of us recognize the signal of distress and respect it. *4l* —• * . t To “rub it in” would be cruel. Therefore, we must not press the bishop further than to remind him that in any campaign, where prohibi tion is the issue, the barrooms get the benefit of the influence of those who repudiate the prohibition can didate. No matter how pure may be the motive, nor how forcible the reasons of those good, honest prohibitionists who cannot see their way to voting the prohibition ticket, in that elec tion, the fact remains—and it is for ever a sact —that the barrooms get the benefit of the influence of those prohibitionists in that election. If the bishop and his pious old negro can get around that clincher they will have to “get up early in the morning.” And when bishops, who are algo prohibitionists, cannot see their way to voting the prohibition ticket, they must expect to be smiled at when they write such sentences as “I do hope Mr. Watson may con-, tinue in the grace of temperance. He might be very useful if he would undertake to serve faithfully and un selfishly his generation according to the will of God.” -Amen. Being a somewhat older man than Bishop Candler, I can lis ten to his good counsel with appre ciative urbanity. Nevertheless, J was mighty sorry, in 1896, that a good, honest prohibitionist, like Dr. Candler, could not get his consent to help me and Seab Wright and Walter Hill fight'the barrooms. In spite of his fatherly interest i i me, evidenced by his card, the bish p could not take my word for my own record. His postscript, indeed, al most backslides from the friendly tone of the card itself. Somebody from Thomson, it seems, has been giving the bishop “inside dots.” There is a prematurely gray-head ed man living in Macon who could have told Bishop Candler to bev how he used these “inside dots” from Thomson. Before you do anv thing of the kind again, bishop, con fer with Pendleton, of The Tele graph. The well-meaning, but woefully misled bishop refers to the Hawes- Stovall campaign of 1884. Why, my dear bishop, the big fight for prohi bition in McDuffie county was made in 1878. Hon. H. C. Roney was* thi prohibition candidate. That was the first election at which I was old enough to vote, and I voted the pro hibition ticket. Never have I voted any other. In the campaign of 1896, I heartily sup ported Dr. Hawes and voted ftfr him. We were not only together in that campaign, but to the day of his death Dr. Hawes was my friend. If Dr. Candler had consult d his brother Methodist, the Rev. M. J. Cofer, that veteran of the prohibi tion war would have told him that I was making speeches for temper ance from the same platform with Dr. Cofer long before I was -of agp, and long before Warren Candler had been heard of. As to newspaper writing, I can show the bishop some articles, con troversial and otherwise—yellow with age—reaching back to the daya when