The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-31
Are the Populists?
BY aAvoYARD, IN NASHVILLE BANNER.

work for Populist leaders. Where are they? Where are Weaver. Allen, simp- son. Butler. Peffer? Where is Thomas B. Watson?
 Of all that impracticable and visionary squad. Tom Watson was the abIest and the strongest. He served but a single term in Congress and made a national reputation. In personal presence he was insignihcant-a small, rawboned, red headed, hatchet-faced, clean-shaven, hawk-eyed. lean man. full of individual fly and with no small endowment of in- tellect to guide strong character He was no noisy demagogue. no blatant ca- lamity howler. A strong public speaker. he had only contempt for mere oratory. hollyhock eloauence. heard today and for gotten tomorrow. Even as the mad Mo- Auiey recognizes Montrose in the dis guise of a servant. the irrational Popuiist Party in Congress saw in Tom Watson a leader.
 It was the Fifty-second Congress of which Watson was a member-the Con gress of enormous Democratic majority and the Congress which planted an enor- nous crop, the fruition of which furnished such a bounteous harvest of Democratic tribulation and disaster. There were more sorts of Democrats in that body than you could shake a stick at. There was Luther Mckinney of New Hampshire. who later moved over to Mdlne auO ran against Tom Reed. He was one sort of Dem ocrat about as much in sympathy with the Democracy of Speaker Crisp as his religion-he was an Universalist minister was in accord with the preach ments of John Calvin. There was a lot of goldbug Mugwumps from Massachu- setts elected as Democrats-a son of An drew and a son of Hoar. With them was George Fred Williams, at that time all fha 0Arf1 ,f Sf ha Mtr0 cry had in stock.
 There were the Tammany contingent Bourke Cochran, Jonn R. Fellows. Amos Cummings. E. J. Dunphy. >Ashbel P. Fitch. Timothy J. Campbell and perhaps others There were the gentry who elect cd Crisp Speaker by fiattering the vanity of Benton McMillin and feeding the ann bition of wm. M. Springer. There were John Dewitt Warner, Charles Tracey, Daniel Lockwood and W. J. Coombs- Cleveland Democrats. .-...' 2. ! :.
 From the West came W. J. Bryan, who swept the House off its feet when he quoted the Last Rose of Summer" as an argument in support of Springer's pop gun free wool bill Young Mir. Bailey came from Texas. very able man, with some very crude notions. There were two sorts of Democrats from Illinois, as there were from Ohio. Kansas sent Jerry Simp- son and a wonderful collection of Popu- lists, among them a man named Davis, the former friend and neighbor of Abra- ham Lincoln. who proposed to adopt the financial and currency system of Venice of the fifteenth century. An exhaustive discussion of the. financial and currency and banking questions between this man and Joseph Henry Walker would be the most enjoyable contribution to the liter ature of economies our race has ever dreamed of Davis was an abolitionist and held frequent disputations with the Hon. Benjamin F. Grady of North Car olina, on the question that was as dead then as the silver question ought to be now.
 Tom Watson was elected as Democrat but the Populists made him their candi- date for Speaker. The Democrats were quarrelins among themselves over Cleve- land and Hill. and about gold and silver. and the Populists put themselves under the command of the youthful Georgian. who became very intimate with Thomas B, Reed. The Democrats thought the Republican Party was dead. destfoNed by the Mckinley tariff and czarism in the chair. Springer brought In the pop-gun bills, and there is no denying that tho academic debate was very eloquent and very able. Tn March the last of the Bland bills was put to sleep forever. Silver could shake it's added head at a Demo- cratic Congress and say You done it."
 There was not room enough in Geore gia for two Populist parties, and Tom Watson took himself out of politics. He suffered himself to be nominated>for Vice. President in 1896, and there are many evidences that 1t was much to the dis comfiture of Mir, Bryan that he accepted that nomination. Maybe that Is why he did It.
 Watson had little to do with politics after his retirement from Congress. He returned to the bar and made a name as a lawyer, and doubtless his success brought him competence. He has written some excellent historical works. His fame will survive and has made him a name. He began with the reign of that consum- mate salesman. for that age. and consum- mate scoundrel, for any age-Louis XI.- and the narrative is most entertaining. Indeed, he makes a sort of gentleman of