The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-11-01
CAMPAIGNING WITH ESTEE
BY WALTER G. SAITH.

OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
made the cid campaigner wakeful and
sad. The people were the same that
you would find anywhere in the rural
West, roughly CARRIED, industrious, in
tensely curious and jealous of their
dignity, always on the lookout for the
dressed up city feller'' Among
these people Mr.. Estee circulated,
shaking hands and being reasonably
cordial but never OVERRIDING the mat
ter. In fact his danger, especially in
cities, was in under-doing the small
courtesies of life: but the mountain
people, men of independent character,
liked him all the better for his own
independence and at the election gave
him great vote. AS the leader of
the party and the chief figure at every
political occasion, he might have put
on side but it was not in him to do
so. Attired in rusty black suit,
wearing a SLOUGH hat which came we'll
down over his grizzled locks and
smoking ten cent cigar, Mr.. Estee
was a democrat among democrats
not speaking in a party sense-and the
heart of the average man warmed to
him. His were the ways of Lincoln
in all his campaign work.
ON THE PLATFORM.
AS a speaker Mr.. Estee struck people
as being deeply sincere and unaffected.
His manner on the platform was that
of an elder brother reasoning upon
family affair You felt that his heart
was in the right place all the time;
that he was seeking the common good.
One never heard him abuse the other
side, though he had an edge to his
tongue when off the stump. How
keen one will be shown by a story of
four years later. I met him then on
Montgomery street, San Francisco,
and asked what he thought of Gage,
the Republican nominee for Governor?
Mr.. Gage" said Estee, lis the small
est public man in California except a
notary public" But one never heard
Estee say such things in the hustings.
There his discourse was one of pure
reason, dealing lightly with persons,
broadly and deeply with principles
He was the orator OF thinking men.
His opponent for Governor in 1894,
who won by fraud committed south of
Market street after the proportions
of Estee's victory outside the city had
been measured, had more catchy ways
on the platform. His talk was full of
epigrammatic point and sparkle: but
1t only flashed where Estee illumina-
ted
CLOSE TO THE CANDIDATE.
But to return to the mountain ex-
periences. Being a correspondent
wanted some anecdotes OF Estee-
something about good things that hal
happened since the campaign began.
asked Lee FairchiId and a news
paper man named Phillips who was
one of the party, but they would not
talk unless Estee gave consent. =
well remember how the candidate
growled when / mentioned the matter
to him. He would not stand for an
interview with anybody on his staff
as for anecdotes he hadn't any. If
wanted his views on the tariff well
and good, but they must come from
him, not from Others
A bit nettled I told him I didn't care
rap for his views on the tariff and
neither did anybody else; after which
he cut some more bologna and our
good feeling was rapidly restored.
Various stories cropped out soon
enough and Mr.. Estee when he saw
them in manuscript, dug up some
more bottled ginger ale. Or--let me
see? Was it ginger ale? Perhaps it
was Napa soda, the drink of the
country whence he came.
When I got down to a studied inter-
view with the candidate he wanted \
and typewriter and sent
for one. Things had gone wrong that
day and 1.-The Governor" was not in
good humor. Soon the stenographer
got ratified and the sarcasm of the Re-
publican leader did not tend to restore
his poise. 1 put my questions, Mr.
Estee replied to them as he chose or