Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-02-16
THE Mud SINGING stage
REACHED IN THE FIGHT BE-
TWEEN CONGRESSMAN FREER
AND COLLECTOR WHITE.
A BATTLE AGAINST THE RING.
EVERY OFFICE HOLDER,
FEDERAL AND STATE,
While Freer represents the Outs
Who Hope to Become, the Ins.
Talk of a Compromise Spurned
by Both Sides-The Fight is
Against the Ring and All 1t Rep
r~eSents.
Special to the Register.
CHARIESTON w.

Special to the Register.
CHARLESTON, w. Va. February
15.-Although the supporters of Mr..
A. B. White for the Republican NOM
ination for Governor are making
strenuous efforts to cry down the boom
recently started for Congressman
Freer, it is evident that the strength
he is developing both surprises and
troubles them, and they have already
begun to hurl approbious epithets at
his devoted head and ~bes2atter his
linen with mud. Many crimes and
misdemeanors are charged up by them
to the account OF Judge Freer, some
of the most heinous being that at one
time in his life while in a fit of men
tai alteration. he signed the Murphy
pledge, and at another time he will
fully Joined the order of Good Temp
lars, and still at another time he sub
mitted to the Kelley Cure. And now
they appear to be in mortal dread lest
he be nominated, and, occupying the
first place on the Republican State
ticket, that he might be seized with
the insane desire to sign another
temperance pledge. This would be a
catastrophe that might result in the
defeat of the Republican ticket. A
Republican candidate for Governor,
under a solemn pledge not to indulge
in any intoxicating liquors, such as
whisky cocktails, spiked lemonade, ap-
pie jack, wine, porter, ale. beer and
drinks of like nature, would be inca
pacitated for rushing the GROWER
and otherwise creating enthusiasm
among Republican voters during the
campaign. Mr.. White, they say, is not
laboring under any temperance pledge,
but Is free to go out and give the
boys a good time whenever it is neces-
sary. The White men regard this
as a knock down argument against
the nomination of Mr.. Freer.
Another serious charge they have
lodged against Mr.. Freer is that he
is a very eloquent speaker, and there
fore could
Talk on Both Sides
of the money question, trusts, or i'm
perialism; that he might at some crit
ical time during the campaign take
another temperance pledge and make
a rabid Bryan speech. The support
ers of Mr.. White mention these things
as possibilities, and produce facts in
history to show that there is some
ground for their fears. They refer to
a campaign twenty years or more back
when Mr., Freer, then a young strip
ling, spoke on both sides of the Ka-
nawha river in n evening and on
both sides of the political question at
issue. He spoke on the south side of
the river early in the evening, defend
ing the principles of the Republican
party and tearing the Greenback plat
form into shreds. He then came over
on the Charleston side, where the
~Greenbackers had gathered to hear the
late Henry S. Walker demolish the
Republican party in his own artistic
and unique style. But Mr.. Walker was
indisposed and could not appear. The
predicament in which the leaders of
the Greenback movement was placed
was communicated to Mr.. Freer, when
he generously consented to fill Mr..
Walkers place for that occasion. He
assembled the platform and proceeded
to wade into the Republican party,
and the way he ripped up the party of
Lincoln and Seward and Grant set the
G~reenbackers wild with enthusiasm,
and they carried Kanawha county thai
fall with a whoop and hurrah.
But the friends of Mr.. Freer about
Charleston pronounce this as a base
campaign lie, and say that it is being
circulated for the sole purpose of in
juring Mr.. Freer's chances for the
gubernatorial nomination. However,
that may be, Whites friends are using
1t with telling effect.
Mr.. White is the recognized candi-
date of the Republican machine in
West Virginia, while Mr.. Freer repre-
sents the entire opposition to the ma
chine. This opposition is a tangible
thing. 1t is full of breathing, pulsing
life. 1t would be just as strong If Mr..
Freer were not its candidate. It is
self-assertive and aggressive. Some
body must represent it-must stand as
its leader; if not Freer, then some one
else. 1t has been growing. taking
form and crystalinzing for a year, and
1t has been casting about for a leader
for many months. General Geo. w.
Curtin was agreed upon last summer
among a few apathy leaders of the OPP
position, as the proper standard bearer,
but after studying over the question
for a month or more General Curtin
decided it would be too great a sacri-
fee to his business interest for him
to become a candidate for Governor,
and SO he declined to be a candidate,
but his sympathy was with the move
ment.
Hon. Thos. e. Davis
was next asked to be a candidate for
Governor, but remembering his former
experience in that role, he wisely de-
clined to permit the use of his name.
Lastly, Freer was sought as the oppo-
sition candidate and he accepted the
trust. He will lead the fight against
the Elkins ring, but it must not be I'M
derstood that this is merely Mr.. Freer's
fight. 1t is a battle royal between