The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-02-17
TILLMAN AGAIN.
He Replies Briskly to His Crit
les.
Plain Words Needed in the SEN
ate, He Says.
ABUSE DOESN'T HURT.
One Paper Calls Him "a Filthy
BabOOn,"
But He Never Shrinks From
Newspaper Lashings."

writes as follows to the editor of New
York paper:
WASHINGTON, Feb. Any uniform
rule has been to treat criticism with
silence. I break that rule now for
purpose. and that is to challenge those
who have found SO much to condemn
in my recent speech in the
senate TO a trial before the jury
of their readers in which I can
have at least a show of justice. The
New York Times editorially terms me
ga filthy babOon;" the New YORK Post,
"a political anarchist" the World has
used the word "blatherskite: the Phila-
delphia Record calls me "The chief of
anarchists" and the St. Paul Globe
says, E'This fellow brings to the senate
the unsavory record he made in his state,
character tattooed with dishonesty
These are few of the elegant phrases
employed by the polite editors of some of
the leading newspapers applied to
myself They have not read my speech,
they dare not publish it in full, and bas-
ing their criticisms upon a few garbled
extracts in which l use strong language
TO express Indignation and contempt,
they ask the people to render a verdict
against me as coarse, brutal, ignorant
blackguard.
All the words aud phrases which occur
in the speech to which they take excep-
tion do not exceed a dozen. They neith-
er add TO nor take from the arguments
and facts as presented. Not a single one
of them is nparliamentary,a and frequent
ly in the senate language as Violent,
coarse and brutal has been uttered in
the past by dozen men whose names
are written high in our country's history.
If my language was parliamentary,
why did no senator call me TO order? If
the charges were untrue, why has no
senator answered them and why do my
newspaper critics not attempt to answer
them? Is it parliamentary and inde-
cent to tell the truth? Are we sunk to
that low estate that falsehood and treAch-
cry and official dishonesty cannot be
mentioned without calling down an ava
| lanche of abuse and SANDER? What
other senators have whispered among
themselves, l have spoken aloud and in
| plain words. What d majority of the
people have thought and felt. I have ut
| tered.
This is the sum Of my offending. and
the hireling editors and reporters who
| now degrade the so-called freedom of
the press to so despica BILE level nay
| hatter themselves that they create
and control public opinion; but the
thousands of letters that have pour
ed in on me from every quarter
of the Union aud mostly from the north,
and from men in every pursuit in life,
have given me assurances that the scales
are falling from the eyes of the people,
and that the truth bravely told has
| sweet and wholesome sound.
The American people, as a whole, the
! great common people, love the truth and
love their country. They despise traitors,
thieves and towards. 1t is large mass
to move, but the leaven is at work, and
the issue is joined and the result will be
known on election day. So far as I am
| individually concerned, and as far as my
speech is concerned, l care nothing for
the abuse heaped upon me, and thank
my critics for directing attention to my
utterances. When my facts and argu-
ments have been disproved, 1 will apollo
gize. Until then decency demands that
men who abuse me for speaking the
truth should let their readers see it and
| Judge for themselves or reserve their
| epithets for men of their kind who dread
| the truth and love cowardice
| If there is no need for reform, reform
will not come. If l represent nothing
| but ignorance and anarchy, why was /
elected governor of South Carolina twice
by such overwhelming majorities? For
four years as executive 1 fought and
was abused by corporations and their
hireling newspapers Why did my state
! send me to the senate by a vote of 131
out of 160 in the General Assembly?
During these four years the state ad-
vanced in material growth and increase
of taxable values more rapidly than in
| any previous period in its history. 1t
| spent half million dollars in the erection
| and equipment of two of the largest COL
| leges for industrial, technical and nor
NAL training in the south. one for each
sex. And the constitutional convention,
with which | had great deal to do,
| fixed constitutional taxes as to double
the free school fund. The saloons have
| been banished from the state, while
three fourths of the people, if not more,
are firm supporters of the new method
of handling the liquor traffic
These facts. which are history, cannot
| be sneered at nor obliterated. An
archists don't write such history
l have never shrunk from the,
lashings of newspaper scribblers
| in the arena of state politics. and / will
not begin to do so in the broader
field to which my commission from the
| people has transferred me. If it is to be
the fate of this great Republic to sink to
the level Of Rome when the Praetorian
| Guards were won't to put the emperorship
| up to the highest bidder, if congress is
| to become or to remain the cowardly tool
| and purchasing agent of the wealthy if
| the federal judiciary are to undermine
and destroy the constitution, as foretoId
| by Jefferson, if our liberties are to be los,
through supine ignorance and venality
! l. as a sentinel on the watch tower hold
| ing a sacred trust, cannot be charged
with having assisted my country to its
| degradation by not giving note of warn
| ing. B. R. TILLMAN.