Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-06-04
PROSPECTS IN VIRGINIA
COL. SLEMP BELIEVES ROOSEVELT
WILL CARRY THE STATE.
Declares That the Democrats Have
Greatly Weakened Themselves by
Recent Acts.

Representative Campbell Slemp, who de-
feated Representative Rhea in the ninth
Virginia district, and who is the only re-
publican in the Virginia delegation in the
the Fffty-eighth Congress, is in the city
for few days. He is full of sangune ex-
pectations as to republican pospects in
Virginia. He indicated that the President
and prominent republicans have concluded
to lend a helping hand to the republicans
of the state in thar next campaign, finan-
cially and otherwise. OF the outlook he
said:
I'VE now have one district In the state in
the republican column. and next time we
are going to have four. The trouble here
tofore has been that our people have felt
that 1t was a hopeless fight. and always laid
down their arms before the battle WAS be
gun. They proposed to do that last fail IN
my district. but did at last agree to make a
fight
1--WE made it, and we won. Encouraged
by our success in the ninth district the
party will make hard fights in the next
canvass, and-mark what l tell you've
will carry three besides the ninth. They
will be the other white districts of the
state, the TENTH the seventh and the fifth
In the last gubernatorial fight John
Hampton Hoge received many votes
Montague in the sixty white counties OF
the state. All the majority Montague got
was from the black belt. These are incon-
trOvertible facts shown by the election
returns.
Now, the negro has been eliminated,
hundreds of white men have been disfran-
chiSed, for which there other hundreds
very angry at the party which did ii, thou
sands are mad with that party because OF
the poll-tax requirement, and it has
gendered opposition on account of the
Mann liquor law. Put all these things to-
gether, and you will a large element OF
discomfort with the democratic party in
the state.
eff we can duplicate our record of tying
the democrats in the sixty counties in the
Montague-Hoge campaign, L honestly be-
lieve that will be able to give to the
state her next governor and that the four
districts l have just mentioned will be rep
resented by republicans in the Fifty-ninth
Congress.
And let tell you. I firmly believe
that the state will go for Roosevelt in the
campaign of 1904. l never saw anything
to equal the personal popularity of the
President in my life. l believe that he can
poll many votes in the white counties
as Hodge did, and more, too. for that mat
ter, and l believe that the showing In the
black belt since the Acknowledgement of the
negro will be such to give Roosevelt the
electoral vote of the state.
He will fall heir to all the advantage
gained by the republicans over the I'M
happy predcament of the democrats of the
state.
Summed up, 1t looks to me as If the day
of republican supremacy in the old domin-
ion is close at hand, and that 1t has been
brought on largely by the misdeeds and I'M
fair political methods of the democrats
themselves
Col Slemp said, too, that he had been
assured that the managers of the republi-
can national and congressional committees
were going to look more closely after Vir-
ginia and make 1t a piece of fighting
ground.