The Brookhaven leader., 1889-10-24
The mistakes of watts.

Inv N"tStahCS Va w @teos
In 1886, pending the opening Of the
Local Option campaign, when the
forces were forming for the mighty
and decisive struggle that was to rid
Lincoln county If the curse of the IL
quor traffic, DIR. Watts halted and
equivocated for time, unable to de-
terninc on which side to cast his lot.
lie was advised and importuned by
his truest and best friends to make
common cause with the morality and
intelligence of the county, and cast
his influence against the saloon, but
as the burning issue grew, he finally
resolved, for reasons satisfactory
to- himself, to espOuse the cause
of whisky, and soon became one
of its boldest and bitterest partisans.
He took the stump for the saloon and
went about villifying the merchants
of Brookhaven, all the preachers of
the county, and even the good Christ
ian women of BroOkhaven for all that
was mean and disreputable. Indeed he
carried his aspersions on the members
of the W. E. T. L. to such length
that only cool heads and timely coun-
sci saved him from the penalty that is
usually visited in the South upon
those who reflect TOO freely upon the
names of pure women.
The result of that campaign is a
matter of history. Not only was the
saloon cause beaten and overwhelm-
ed, but Watts came out of the con-
test thoroughly despised by both
sides, including the men whose dupe
he had allowed himself to be made,
and he was heard to say Oh the street
the day after the election that he had
made the mistake of his life and
didn't have friend in town on either
side.
His late moral reformation has con-
doned for the odious part he bore in
that campaign, and we hope no one
now bears him any III will on account
of it. 1t is recalled here by reason of
the fact that he has Sc en- fit to again
disregard the counsel of his best
friends, thrust himself into the
present campaign, and undertake to
rally the negroes and the lowest white
element in the county against the
man the farmers and Democrats have
decided that they want for their Rep
resentative. Hitherto the Doctor has
posed as the special friend and cham
pion of the farmers and abused the
merchants without rhyme or reason
as robbers, thieves and extOrtioners;
but now that the farmers have seen
fit to nominate one of their own men
in the primary, he is attacking the
Alliance and the farmer candidate
and would fain make fair weather
with the merchants he slandered so
outrageously 8 years ago. In short,
for the greed of office, he is aligning
himself with the Republicans and
coons and all the odds and ends in
the county, to defeat the Democratic
nominee and farmers choice, and
wants the merchants to help him. He
hopes in this way not only to go to
the Legislature again, but as he has
SAID, to become the Republican stand
ard-bearer next year for Congress,
and the recognized leader of the most
infamous party that ever figured in
Mississippi politics.
! 1t is needless to say that such a
man will be repudiated at the polls
by all right thinking people, whether
merchants or farmers, and before the
canvass closes he will realize, if he
has not already done so, that he has
made the second blunder of his life.
In fact, that the mistakes ascribed by
Bob lngersoll to Moses are as nothing
compared to the mistakes of Watts.
He will be too dead after November
5th to ever make another rifle on the
surface of Lincoln county politics,
and he will have no one to blame for
it but himself. He has chosen his own
bed let him lie OH it, fleas or no
| fleas.