The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-09-18
THE BREEZY NINTH.
A Hot Fight Between Plowboy
and Preacher.
Gamblers Steady Lick and Strong Hacking
Pickett in the Pulpit at Night
and on Rostrum in the Day.

respondence Constitution. The congressional
race between Hon. Allen D. Candlef
and Rev. Thad Pickett, in the ninth dis.rict, is
developing all the interesting features of the
old time contests between independents and
democratic nominees.
1t has tho UNCONVENTIONAL enthusiasm that
Dr. FELTON, stirred with his hallelujah lick, and
it has the rough and ready mountain freedom
that used to rally in the campaigns of Speer,
Between Yonah and Cohutta, where the Blue
Ridge breaks up and makes Switzerland in
Georgia, where peaks rise o mile high and
mountain streams leap from precipice to preci-
pice, clearing four hundred feet in two or
three cascades; where Shooting creek PUSHES
down its steep incline at the rate OF fif-
teen miles an hour, or the slower waters Of
Long Swamp wash over marble beds that are
red, white and blue where the blue noun
tains rise in the fantastic FORMS of gneiss,
or the granaer domes of granite, and the
.Eolian song of the winds is almost the only
music OF the Inountaineer, there are valleys of
corn, wheat and rye, with here and there
little cotton, titled by people hardy and con-
tent knowing little of the outside world and
caring less, and clad in homespun and indie
pendence.
"Going down steep mountain into one of
these Valleys" said Mr.. Pickett, in q speech,
II saw cribs of corn and gamers of wheat, and
plenty of all kinds OF provender. Arriving at
the little village | saw men with bloody faces,
as if they had been fighting.
"'Go on, stranger they said, we don't want
to harm YOU
"'But L want dinner said I.
Light, stranger, come in said one of the
men with bloody face. l asked MIN at din
ner how they got all the produce out of those
valleys to market.
"Well, stranger said he, we still it up and
fight it out"
This is a sample Of the anecdotes by which
Mr.. Pickett gets close to an audience in the
moonshners' region. He is an anti-prohibi-
zionist, and announces himself in favor of the
abolition of the internal revenue system. He
was one of the anti-prohibition speakers in At
lanta last fall.
lie is a Baptist preacher and as that denom-
ination very largely outnumbers any other in
the mountains, it is reckoned one of the
strongest elements of his support.
"There is q good deal Of religion in this
race said q gentleman ON the train coming
up to Jasper. land religion viii smash politics
every time"
/ asked Colonel Gambler if there was not
some religion in tho race and he said
Eyes, and that's the trouble about it, can
fight an independent or almost anything
else, but I don't know how to fight apreacher."
Mr.. Pickett seems to accept the gauge on
the question, for he said in n speech few
days ago: "Mr. Gambler says, / am trying to
preach my way into congress. would like to
know if haven't as much right to preach my
way to congress as he has TO curse his way
there?"
Mr.. Pickett, who declares himself a protec-
zionist, charges Colonel Gambler with incon-
sistency in his tariff views, and says that he
is for taking the tax off everything outside the
district and for putting it on everything in the
district.
He says that Colonel Candlernot only wants
to tax people while they live, but he tries to
tax them after they are dead by putting duty
of forty cents a cubic foot on marble.
Mr.. Gambler meets this by saying that he
voted To take the uutV off cotton md wool
both of which are manufactured in his dis
trict, because they didn't need any protection,
and also because they were necessities of life.
Mr.. Pickett has another charge to the effect
that Mr.. Gambler tried to get pensions for
whole regiment Of bushwhackers
Mr. Gambler in replying to this begins by
saying that he was shot five times in the war,
and the first shot was fred by bushwhacker,
and he hasn't any use for bush whacker8.
Here he brings in parepthesis, which gives
the audience to understand that he don't like
bushwhackers in politics any better
than any other sort, and that the independents
are the bushwhackers he refers to-.
In regard to the bushwbackers, Mr.. Gambler
read letter from the secretary of war to show
that the regiment in question was regularly
mustered into service in 1874 as tho First
Georgia Federal regiment, under the orders of
General Thomas, armed and equipped under tho
command Of James G. Brown, and put to guard
the country along the Western and Atlantic
railroad. Mr.. Gambler says THAT they were
afterwards captured by General Woiford, and
were treated by him as organized troops and
not as bushwhackers
Mr.. Gambler goes round speaking in cool
way, meeting charges as they come up and
pressing the idea that an independent in poll
tics is Of no 20 either party, for neither can
count on him and his patronage Is about as IT.
regular as his votes
Here Mr. Gambler alIudes to Judge Speer as
a man Of splendid ability who was elected by
the negro vote, the republican vote and good
deal OF the democratic vote and says that when
he got TO congress he was not worth anything
to his party because 1t could never tell
how he would vote, and that he
gave tho Athens postoffce to negro, the
Gainesville postoffice to carpet-bagger and
position in the Atlanta custoTnhouse to u mn
latto, because he had promised his patronage
TO the men who supported him, and these wero
his supporters.
Mr.. Pickett has war record, and at Canton,
the other day, he had half his audience In tears
while he described his mother with her face in
the dust, praying for him while he was in the
trenches at Chickamauga.
Mr.. Gamblers opponent Is described by those
who have seen him as a man remarkably like
Sam Jones in face and form, wearing q black
suit and SLOUGH hat rather silent man,
except when he gets up to speak, when he
will talk two hours without hesitatlng for
word, breaking up his audience with his ready
wit or bringing them TO tears with his pathos,
violent in his sarcasm and accustomed in his
preaching 10 make NftT on OJL6E dSHOHluhllOuSp
particularly the Methodist.
Mr.. j. e. Moseley Of Marietta, told me that
he heard Mr.. Pickett preach there TO Bap-
tist congregation once, and tuat in speaking Of
Baptist church which stands between Pres
byterian church on one side and an Episcopal
on the other he said that it was dead, and he
could say as IL had been said OF Christ, that il
died between two thieves.
Mr.. Candler's stronghold Is IN Han, Gwinnett
Jackson, Banks and White counties. The
vote Ia large in these counties and the MAORI
ties there will be hard for Mr. Pickett 10 over
come in the majorities he will get in the more
sparsely settled mountain counties on the other
sIdo Of the Chattahoochee river.
On the other hand, he Is carrying the war
into the eneny's country. He is now in Jack
son county and his friends say that ne has
done big missionary work In Gwinnett already.
Mr.. Gambler 80 far, has only spoken In
seven counties Of the seventeen, and he, too,
is in the enemy's country. In his speech ut
Jasper he told the crowd that II the democrats
all voted he would beat Mr., Pickett by five
thousand votes, and that IL his friends were
indifferent, and did not 90 TO the polls in force,
Mr.. Pickett might beat him.
/ asked man from Elliiay who had been
sheriff and knew the mountain boys, what he
thought OF the race
~ reckon Gambler will get IT," said he,
0pieketi W iii Hava a good DIAL ~ finn ont ~