Newport weekly independent., 1902-04-25
Harvesting H. A. RIDLEY

the race, MT. Vandeventer hanging on until the close of the campaign, carry ing only one county out of seventy five, Davis capturing all the others. Davis first gets the issue, then satis- fies himself that he is right, and woe unto the man who is self-poised and self -conceited enough to undertake a battle of words with him. It is dol lars to doughnuts said person will be worsted. In debate the governors mind moves with the celerity of an electric current; he is like a cyclone. His intuition and readiness of repartee, his phenomenal powers of generaliza- tion dazzle the minimizing. To the ordinary campaign orator he is won der, a perplexing prodigy.
 Governor Davis made his late cam paign on his recent reforms of the state charitable institutions and on Senator Jones' "Round-Lap Bale Trust" He carried seventy out of the seventy five counties in the state
 The governor has been pictured as a dictator and tyrant, but such is not the case. To those who know him best he seems right the opposite. People often wonder how this man of work and worry can be so hopeful. sympathetic and forgiving, so slow to speak words of bitterness and resent ment, so ready to help and to cheer the sad hearted, the unfortunate and the erring. "Boys, you did it all and you deserve all the credit for doing it. Nothing is due to me-" These words the writer has heard many times from the governors lips to his friends after political victory.
 Contrary to all precedent, MT. Davis made personal investigation into the Arkansas penitentiary man. agement. This investigation showed that the most startling cruelties had been meted out to the poor convicts; these unfortunate wretches in some of the camps were half fed and were worked until many of them fell dead in the field from eXaustiOn. The governor learned this by walking, in his shirt sleeves through the fields in which the condemned men labored. On one occasion he suddenly appeared at the dinner table of the convicts in side the penitentiary walls just as they were being fed; the governor was so enraged at the management his temper get the better of him; "Boys," he exclaimed, eff they don't feed you better than this I'll pardon the last d-n one of you"
 On the following day it is said, in stead of rotten cabbage, bulk pork and corn cake, the usual fare, these unwilling penitents were fed beef, beans, light bread and coffee.
 The entire management of the pen itentiary has been changed and the convicts are now treated humanely. On last Christmas day the governor feasted the convicts on a turkey dinner, thing unheard of before his administration. Replying to the if nancial agents statement that such dinner would cost the state more than the state would get out of it, the gov ernor said: "Maybe it will, MT. Cook in this world, but it will not in the next. God will give us credit for helping these poor creatures who are unable to help themselves. Buy the turkeys Cook, and if the state doesn't pay for them I will"
 Davis is friend to the poor; he be- lieves that the hut of the humble should be as sacred as the castle of the great. He believes in the burden of government resting equally on all citizens, irrespective of birth, fortune or previous condition. He wins men to him by the thousands because he makes them feel and see what he feels and sees, and when he wins them he holds them as if they were fastened by hooks of steel. He is true to them.
 No man of modern times ever had the confidence of so large a majority of his people as that enjoyed by the youthful governor of Arkansas, and whatever prophecy may be offered by his enemies, the writer cannot but bespeak for him future radiant with promise and filled with glorious achievements.
 JOHN H. KEEL,
 Newport, Ark.