The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-10-23

4
into the Republican party by giving them
nominations and promising "to take care
| of them" with Federal offices if they
"fall outside the breastworks." Accord
and retarded terribly" the success of the
| decoy independent movement According
also to the daddy of Independentism,
| Pritchard does not know the temper Of
Eastern Democrats, and Butler thus de-
fines it: AN Eastern Democrat has TO
go through fire and hell before he is
willing to be called a Republican" But
Ter is slightly in error. He should have
said he is willing to bring fire and hell
in the shape of bad government if he is
a Republican"
Buffers plan, minus the deception he
proposed of standing lin the background
| carried out by Pritchard to the
letter. He traces the evolution of the
independent politician accurately when he
names the successive names by which he
must be brought into the Republican
party by easy stages
| l. They like to be called Independent
Democrats. Look around you and read
the organ at Asheville and Charlotte
The Asheville organ took four years and
chance to sell out before it quit calling
itself Independent Demo- rat," the name
the Charlotte organ now claims.
! g Next Independents. They are
free from any party. so they say, while
they are backed up" by Butler and
Pritchard There are such men now try
/ ing to fool honest voters in North Caro-
| lima.
5. Next, Anything to Beat the Demo
Gratis That is the third stage. They
still fear the fire and hell too much to
| call themselves Republicans.
4. But last of all would they be called
Republicans" They don't get TO that
low plane until they prefer office to re-
form"
Butler here tells his own experience in
this letter. 1t was by such methods he
and his associates carried 10000 men out
of the Democratic party in 1892 and in
1894 If it had been suggested in 1892
to the men who are now Republican
leaders in Chatham and Sampson counties
that they would call themselves Repub-
lcans they would have sworn that it
would never happen. But they didn't like
something about the Democratic party
they were taught to be Independents,
then Independentism carried them into
the Pcpulist party, then they got mad
and were anything to beat the Demo-
Gratis. and by easy stages a number of
them have come TO be Radicals of the
deepest dye. But thousands of them re-
fused to follow Butler &c Co, into the
Republican party, but still the easy
stages has made hundreds of them Re-
publicans
The conditions that made Radical sue
cess by easy stages" does not exist to-
day as it did in 1892 and 1894 Then
there was a secret organization that
could be manipulated There will not be
another in the life of this generation.
Low price of cotton, hard times that fell
heavily upon agriculture and general dis
! satisfaction were the three things that
made the easy stage" route successful.
But there are no such conditions now,
though Butler strongly urged Pritchard
men just like he went after the farmers.
And Pritchard after some delay, is try
ing to do it. He is succeeding with the
trust folks for they have a community of
interest that makes them as close to-
gethcr as an oath-bound organiza ton.
But he is succeeding nowhere else and
with no other class The manufacturers
and business men of the State are not to
be fooled by the outworn and exposed
trick that was used on the Populists.
And so Buffers scheme adopted after
! hesitation by Pritchard, is going to prove
! a failure.
There are good men in North Carolina
upon whom party ties rest lightly. They
| have been 50 Disguised by the transparent
humbug of the Pritchard- Butler policy
| that nearly all of them viii vote the
straight Democratic ticket, not because
they approve altogether of the Demo
| rebuke the stigma which Butler, Prit-
chard the Charlotte Observer and Bill
Day have put upon independentism. Tho