Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1890-02-19
From the N. T. Commercial Advertiser
WILSON of Vest Virginia.

New Workers ought to take seriously 70
heart the conspicuous absence OF poiiticai
leaders among the congressman who repre-
sent or misrepresent this city. Holmes once
said that the brains of all New England was
within watershed whose currents set toward
Boston. With as much truth it might now De
said that the brains of the whole country Is
within watershed whose currents set toward
New York. This is true for the legal brains oil
the country qaite rs much As for It's business
brains. From the west and the south the
greatest LAWYERS drift naturally to the CITY
where cases involving the greatest interests
are litigated. Yet in spite of the intellectual
leadership, which our city thus secures, the
intellectual leaders in congress, as we pointed
out the other day come from such places as
Covington, Kentucky, Corsicana, Texas and
Americas, Georgia
On Monday of this week. another OF these
men, who two years ago made his position as
a leader of thought, established it as leader
of men. In the fight over Speaker Reeds
rulings. the laurels rest upon Wilson, of West
Virginia In the great tariff debate Mr.. Lodge
was hardly more discounted by Mr.. Wilson's
exposure of his absurd disqualification as a
historian than was Mr.. Reed by The West Vir-
ginian's exposure of his absurd selfnhation as
parliamentarian.
William Lyme Wilson, who has distinguish
ed himself as a scholar, a wit, and parliament
tartan, comes not only from the land of " side
Killers, " the knuckle-end of old Virginia,
the region of which it used to be said that ''the
more you own oft the worse you are off,
but he comes from one of its villages. not one
of its cities-and has been most of his life
a professor of Latin in one of those brush
universities which are so often the theme OF
metropolitan ridicule.
How happens it that such places are furnish
ing the country with political leaders while
New York is doing nothing? The question is
not an easy one. There are more elements
than one entering into it, Yet the principal
element is without doubt this In the country
districts politics means the discussion of prin'
ciples. In the great cities it means the manip-
ulation Of wires and the distribution ofpatron-
age
American historians have pointed out thai
the splendor of the statesmen of the revolu
ton airy epoch disappeared with the introduc
ton of the patronage system. The exponent:
of principles gave place to the trading politi
clans. The states which had the most patron
age to dispose ofwere the firstin which manip
ulators took the place of statesman. Small
states like Vermont and Delaware, in which
patronage was the least, came in the end Il
send the strongest men to the senate. The
existence of vast spoils means the existence
of vast political machine conducted in the
interest of the spoilsmen. Here in New forE
the machine is everything, political principles
are almost nothing. In Jefferson county
West Virginia, the machine is almost nothing
political principles are almost everything. /
we are again to have statesmen it must be by
abolishing the patronage system which pu
machine tools in the place of political leaders