The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-06
HAVING FUN WITH, HIM.

The Portland Oregonian is having some fun with Senator George Turner our George, sho was once United States Marshal and District Attorney in Ala bama. Incidentally The Oregonian rings in Mir. Bryan but only as a sort of side issue. Its main theme is Turner, and 1t opens an editorial in a recent issue thus:
 The recent interview with Senator Turner illustrates nothing so much as the fact that with all his intelligence and intellect he Is q most indomitable demasogue. It is not dini- cult to believe that Turner's political hero, Bryan really is the dupe of his free-silver faliacy and Populistic blathersitke, but 1t Is not easy to believe that an able, weii-trained lawyer like Senator Turner. Is sincere when he pronounces Bryan to be "a very great man." or believes that the silver doctrines. if adopted today, would mot only improve pres ent conditions, but preclude the certainty of future disaster
 Doubtless some of our readers are sur- prised to know that George has lately been one of the upholders and defenders of free coinage, the divine ratio and other forms of financial lunacy. but that such | is the fact may be gathered from the above extract. Down here we remember him as a courteous gentleman and about | the shrewdest and slickest Repubhcan manipulator of the whole bunch in the | glorious days of carpet-baggery and ne- gro domination. He could get together | a few scores of noisy. ill-smelling ne- l gro delegates and give them the nigh | est old time any menagerie keeper the white people of Alabama ever bucked | against. l When George got his niggers corrailed | in the Hall at the Capitol. they were ms meat, and they were expected to do his Il will. He would at times assume the po' | sition of door keeper, if any of his colorcd brethren showed a disposition to take | sneak for fresh air, for even the negro | stomach wasn't always proof against tht effect of putting several hundred oi them into a hall on a hot day and Keeping them there. They were helpless, how l ever, and with George at the door, 1T | the chair or on the floor there was lit tie chance for characterization. The con dition of the hall after they left Is prop erly left to the imagination. There ar some things beyond ordinary edftorin
 English.
 But George evidently sucked the Ala
 bapna orange dry and left for the Stat of Washington, where Federal honor
 were showered on him and where he be came wealthy--two things dear to hi
 heart. Now and lately he has become
 proseiyte to the dogma of free coinag
 and devoted follower of Bryan and Bry
 anism.
 The Oregonian rakes the Senator u
 one side and down the other, with an oc
 casional cross-hitch. Then it turns mir
 loose with this final word:
 S.nator Turner knows all this as well as doe
 The Oregonian. but St nator Turner is alway
 and ever a mere politician. He was a dems
 gogue when he was a radical Republican car
 pet -bagSer and Federal office-holder down
 Alabama from l7s6 to 1880; he a Re
 publican demagogue who in spite of his lish
 became a Bryanit3 in 1896. and he Is dema gogue enough today to pretend to believe tha
 Bryan is a great man and that free silvs
 is sound finance.
 It is unnecessary, perhaps. but we ca
 assure The Ore gonian that pouring wa
 ter on a ducks back is much more liRbl
 to penetrate the birds skin than l
 newspaper criticism to parforate the DC
 litical cuticule which surrounds Senate
 George Turner. That was tried to tn full extent of Alabama types and print
 ing presses and he fattened on 1t.