Letter to the Editor 1

To the Editor of The American:

The Hon. G. Newton Tillman, Republican candidate for Governor, is, doubtless, a most excellent gentleman and astute politician, but he is following a mighty cold trail when he seeks by drag-net tactics to corral the prohibition Democrats of Tennessee and gather the aforesaid and the same into his sheepfold. If there is one convincing reason why any Democrat should sulk in the bushes or go whooping around with a butcher knife up his sleeve for the party platform and nominee, it has not been dragged into notice up to date.

A microscopic examination of the editorial columns of the great moral and religious daily, the Nashville Tennessean, reveals a faint trace of psychological hysteria that finds expression in a hypocritical tendency to kick because the people got what they voted for, and this mental bias has a wonderfully striking resemblance to the predominant strain running through the gentle prattle of the Hon. G. Newton Tillman when he waves himself oratorically from the rostrum.

In other words, the Republican candidate seems to have gone to Mr. Carmack's paper as the arsenal from which to draw his weapons of attack. His second "opening speech" the other day reads like a warmed over rehash of Tennessean editorials. That Mr. Carmack should be furnishing the literary pabulum of the present Republican campaign is a dimple of deliciousness calculated to upset the gravity of a wooden Indian doing duty as a tobacco sign.

Gov. Patterson stands today as the worthy standard-bearer of his party. His administration has been most successful and illustrious. He is one of the greatest Governors of Tennessee. He is an intellectual giant&mdash;the equal of any man in Tennessee&mdash;the peer of any man in the Republican party. In the fierce blast of bitter and ungenerous criticism with which he has been assailed, he has stood unmoved, firm as Gibraltar for the right, a brave and consciencious public servant. For Democrats to desert him now would be as though an army deserted its commander on the field of battle.

A great political struggle is in progress. The people, under the splendid leadership of the magnificent Bryan, are battling to wrench the National Government from the clutch of corporate control. The light of victory is shining upon the banner of united Democracy. Borne upon every breeze are tidings of cheer that prophesy a glorious triumph for the Democracy of Jefferson. Only from the editorial sanctum of the whiskerless knight of the ruffled feather is there a discordant strain. As for Tillman, the coffin is made, the funeral arrangements are perfected and the grave yawns.