Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1903-09-02
THE VOICE OF MISSISSIPPI.

- N1%@ &AA1A
In twenty years the state has no
used the ballot box, except in a nomi
nal, Indifferent way when thirty o.
forty thousand people have beer
driven to the polls to confirm the act o
convention, which in some instances
they would much rather have con-
demned.
The plan in the past, under the ole
convention, has been for the polite
ians to meet In convention and name
9 set of candidates for the various po-
sitions that were to be filled, and the
people have not cared whether they
voted for them at the general election
or not. 1t is ever this way where
there is but one political party. The
debauchery of the last four years, has,
however, awakened the masses, and
when the primary law came TO them,
they were enLhused with the pros
poets of cleaning up the state, and
that enthusiasm has lever waned I'M
til the the thing was done.
Mississippi has turned over a new
leaf and the nesters who have domi-
mated it's business affairs and disgrace
ed its name for the past four years
will be relegsted to the rear, to OBJ
livion so far as their connection with
its affairs are concerned.
The people can always be relied up
on when they are informed and when
their honest viii may be expressed at
the polls.
They were reliable under the cruel
cal test put to them 10 this great con-
test.
Two very prominent questions have
been thoroughly settled by the people
OF Mlssississippi in this primary: The
first is that this state is not ready to
concede one foot of ground to the
crazy advocates of %mulatoizing this
nation through any legal process of
social equality. The second is that
the standard of manhood in Missis-
sippi shall be on the basis Of his
character and not on the size of his
bank account. In other words, the
franchise OF Mississippi is not for sale,
That man who imagines that he can
introduce commercialism in politics
in this state will have the satisfaction
probably Of getting rid of his coin, but
he can have no assurance that it will
land him in high place, no matter
what may be his aspiration to attain
it.
Nor should the lessons of the cam
paign be lightly passed by. Other
features which have entered into the
canvass, now proclaimed'to have been
the warmest, and most bitter expert
eneed in many years, may well be
remembered. Paramount among
these is the fact that Mississippians
are not swerved from the path of
duty as they 9 it through any viii
lainous arraults made by one side of
q cpntest as against the other.
40 p%articularize: 1t has been con-
@picuous that all the supporters of the
successful candidate for Governor,
the gallant Major Vardaman, have at
all times couched their criticisms of
the opposition in the most gentleman
ly and parliamentary language, and in
no instance has a single supporter of
Major Vardaman assailed q supporter
of his opponent in an undignihed
manner, in speech or print. It has
been equally as conspicuous a fact
that Judge Ortiz himself and many of
his supporters, have raked to the
bottomless pit the lore of the black
guard, the slanderer, the libeler, and
the assassins of private character, in
the endeavar to belittle and to dis
credit not only Major Vardaman him
self but every one who has declined
to accept the Critz gold and support
him. In other words. to Judge from
the lore of the paid Ortiz strikers,
every man who favored Vardaman
wal q s%coundrel and villain.
Il is safe to conclude that the think
ing people of the state resisted and
spurned this attitude of the Ortiz
forces 81 much as any other feature
Of their campaign.
Until the closing days of the cam
paign many honest men In the state,
not thoroughly acquainted with
Major Vardaman, and induced to
believe him more radical than they
desired to see a Governor, lined up 10
the Ortiz column. They very reluct-
antly read and heard OF the manner
Of campaign waged by this so-called
and often boosted Christian gen.
tlemsn. But, as the day approached
Tor the decision and the evidence be-
came more and more apparent that
undue Influences were being enlisted
IN his behalf. they onaned their avaa