Birmingham state herald., 1896-03-28
oLARKR,s HEADERS KNOW TT.

the calculating Clarke leaders have en- tertained any hope for their man since the election in Morgan county.
 It is a matter of political history in Ala bama that in the race between Oates and Johnston the former secured his nomina- tion by a majority of only thirty-three Hence a change of seventeen votes from Oates to Johnston would have given Johnston the nomination. It is also well known that Johnston's strength in that race came from the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Congression- al districts. The counties have this year the same number of delegates that they had in the convention of 1894 If John ston should gain nothing in the six dis tricts named above and Clarke should prove to be as strong in the First, Sec ond and Third districts as Oates was then the vote would stand this year in the convention as it stood in 1S94 But that has already been changed, because Johnston has now the eight delegates from Morgan county, whereas in 1894 he had only four of them. That Clarke is not as strong in the last three districts named as Oates was is already demon strated beyond peradVenture, and that Johnston is not only going to hold his own in the counties from which he drew strength two years ago, but is stronger than he was then, has also been clearly demonstrated by the result in Morgan county. It is freely and frankly con- ceded by the Clarke men in the counties of Bullock and Russell, two counties in the Third district, that Johnston will carry them this time. Oates carried them before The vote of these two counties in the convention is seventeen-enough to nominate Johnston were he simply to hold his own in the other counties-and he has already done more than that by securing four more votes in Morgan county than he had in 1894. Unless they can show where Johnston is going to lose delegates that he got in 1894 the Clarke men have already conceded their man out of the race.
 They cry out in their death agony that Clarke is going to be nominated, but they dare not tell how. They do not point to single county which went for Johnston in 1894 that he will not get this time They say Johnston is weaker than he was but they bring forth nothing but bare assertions.
 They say Clarke is as strong as Oates and yet they concede to Johnston enough votes in the Third district, to say nothing of the concessions in the Second district, to defeat Clarke. They sought to prove their assertion that Johnston had lost strength by making a desperate effort to swing Morgan county into the Clarke column. In that effort they made miserable failure actually losing the county by a vote of more than two to one, and with it four delegates that went to help make up Oates small majority in 1894 With all these facts and figures the Clarke leaders are perfectly familiar, and they therefore know that Clarke is de- feated man. They know even more than this. They know that there are only about six counties In this state that are dead certain to go for Clarke, and neither of them is Mobile county.
 They know that it is in only a few of the remaining sixty counties that Clarke has fighting chance They also know now of enough counties that are virtual ly conceded to Johnston by all hands to give him handsome majority in the state convention. These facts are not by any means news to the Montgomery Ad- vertiser. It knew from the beginning of this race that unless Johnston could be beaten in the counties carried by him in 1894 he would be the nominee, and be- cause of this the desperate effort was made to stem the tide in Morgan county. When that effcrt fan,ad- so signally it be- gan to Jay its plans to secure the defeat e the democratic nominee-greatly pre- ferring to see the party go down in defeat to seeing Joe Johnston nominated and elected. What was the first step? Why to cry fraud. This it did and has con tnued to do daily since the primary in Morgan county,
 There is no man who has carefully watched the course of the Advertiser since the Morgan county election but must confess that that paper is entirely reckless as to the future success of the party in this state. Then is that not proof as strong as holy writ that the Ad- vertiser does not expect its favorite to be the nominee? Now let's look at it in another light for a moment. Doesn't anybody know that If Clarke had carried Morgan county and there had actually been grounds for alleging fraud against Johnston men in their effort to prevent 1t that the Advertiser would not nave said one word about fraud? It would then have thought that its man was a dead sure winner and it would have be- fore this time been shedding harmony all about If Clarke had carried that coun- ty it would have indicated that Johnston was not as strong as he was in 1894, and therefore must lose On the other hand, after concentrating his entire force in that county, canvassing it twice, making ten speeches in the county and then los ing by vote of mere then two to one, iS was proof positive that the people are for Johnston and against Clarke, and therefore Johnston must necessarily prove to be winner in the end
 Clarke started out against a rising Johnston tide and he can't stem it. He is simply not in the race. He is losing every day He will wind up the worst defeated man that ever ran for the dem ocratic nomination for governor in Ala bama and the Advertiser will wind up an open bolter or it will perform in the same role that the Courier-Journal per- formed in the Kentucky campaign