Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1894-01-31
The Congressional Race.

overwhelming Republican major.
ity in this District gives to the action
OF the convention which nominates the
party standard bearer the interest at.
taching to the formal cost of the ballots
in other Districts. This is not unnat.
ural, for with our eight thousand Re-
publican majority, the Republican nom
inee is certain to be elected.
As is usual where the nomination is
equivalent to an election, there are
many gentlemen who are willing and
anxious for the opportunity the Repub-
lican nomination in this District will
give, to have Hon. written at one end
of their names and NJ. C. at the other.
or those already avowedly anxious for
the honor and salary of a Congressman an
for this District, we will mention, John
M. Brabson, w. E. F. Milburn, A. B.
Bowman, w. c. Anderson, DR.. r. C.
Smith and Walter P. Bsownlow. Be.
sides these it is rumored that several
dark horses" are hid out in the bushes
who are hoping and praying that Con-
gressional lightning will strike them as
Presidential lightning struck "Old
Granny Harrison" in 1910, when Henry
Clay should have been the nominee of
his party, and whose defeat for the
nomination really caused the downfall
of the Wing party, as the division and
ruin of the Democratic party in 1860,
resulted from the defeat of Douglass in
1859, by that other dark horse" little
Frank Pierce.
The ambition to go to Congress is
honorable and legitimate and any Re-
publican in this District who thinks he
can be nominated has perfect right to
become candidate. And it is also
but natural that the warm personal
friends and next door neighbors of each
candidate and his brothers, his cousins
his uncles, his aunts and his mother in
law should be anxious for friendships
and kinships sake, to aid in his nomi-
nation. But the great mass of the Re-
publican party, ''the plain people" as
Abraham Lincoln called them, are not
governed in their selection of a Con-
gresham by the desire to tickle the
fancy or crafty the personal ambition
Of individuals.
The question which the Republican
voters Of this District are asking them
selves is not whom we can serve in this
matter but who, of all the candidates,
is best fitted by training and experience
to serve US? There are no Congressional
Districts in the United States whose
people have as much Of business inter.
ests at stake in the selection of a Con-
gressman as have the people Of, the
First, Second and Third Districts of
Tennessee, and of these the people of
the First District have most at stake.
Our District furnished more men to the
Union army than any in the United
States and is, therefore, more interest.
ed in pensions legislation. The Union
armies took hundreds of thousands of
dollars in Quartermaster and Com
missary supplies from our people, much
of which has never been paid for by
the United States as it long ago should
have been. 1t is, therefore, especially
important to the people of this District
to have at Washington, for the next
two years, a live, energetic, capable,
experienced man who will fight the bat
ties of the people before the Depart
ments where money is due them for
horses, mules, corn, oats, hay, wheat,
timber and fence rails, used for fuel
and other supplies. And it is of the
utmost Importance to the thousands of
Union soldiers Of this District to have
a man in the next Congress who will
look after their interest before the Pen
sion office. Already ten thousand Union
veterans have had their pensions sus.
pended, as many as 90 having been sus-
pended, at one post Office.
In consideration of these facts and
the hard times, in money matters, which
now afflict the people and which are
likely to continue during the present
Democratic administration there has
never been time in our entire history,
except during the late war wi hen it was
as important to the people to have in
Congress man experienced in political
life and hard worker as it is now.
All the gentlemen we have named as
candidates are good Republicans and
worthy men, and we will cordially sup
port which ever one of them is nomi.
mated. But in the interest of the people
and of the District we unhositatingly
express our preference for the nomina.
tion of Walter P. Brownlow. We don't
do this because we want to grind Mr.
Brownlow's axe or confer five thous.
and dollar salary ON him. We do it be-
cause we want the man at Washington
best fitted to grind the axes of the peo-
pie, of the soldiers who wish to keep the
pensions they have or get an increase
Of them, or of those whose applications
for pension have not yet been allowed.
And We do it because we want man
in Congress who can grind the axes of
our farmers whose claims for supplies
furnished the Union armies have never
been paid.
1t is no reflection upon or disparage.