The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-10-20
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1sOA.
A vAGARIous cANp1pATE.

To the best of our limited recollec- tion Tom Watson is about the out screamingest statesman now on the boards. He tries to make up in noisy expletives what he lacks in size. He is as bad as Ben Tillman, probably with less brains to back him up. In a re- cent speech at Kansas City he is thus reported by a local paper:
 Why doesn't Parker get out of my way? I'm the only Jeffersonian Demo- crat--why stop me? Give me the pa- pers and the money and the 6,500,O00 who followed Bryan and let me get at lem. The way to whip is to fight. I'd make Mrs. Roosevelt at least ask and Parker won't. Somebody has got to do the work I'm willing. My first consideration is to do my duty. The seli-out in St. Louis was disgusting. out to Wall Street, While others were doing this the call came 10 me to save the Democracy. l didn't butt in. De- mocracy was suffering with tears in her eyes-where were her defenders? The call came to me to fight for Jeff fersonian Democrats and ! laid down my pen and took up the worK and J m going to stay in 1t. They didn't pay much attention to me for awhile. but now the paragraphists, the editorial guns and the caricaturists are finding me out. Let 'em come--I welcome it. They are afraid of me now. This had to start and We started it.
 Is not that very near the limit? The idea of an ox-team screaming to q fast trotter to get out of his way is almost funny. And the idea of Tom Watson posing as the exponent of Jeftersnnian Democracy is rich. We mus. admit that we don't know what Tommy does represent, but it isn't Democracy. He may have some Democratic ideas hid den away in the back recesses cf his thinking apparatus. but he cant get them to the light. As a country hoo- sIer once said of a noted Alabama at- torney: "He knows the law, all right, but he can't siperrate it." So of Tom Watson; he may know something of Democracy, but he can't separate 1t from the mass of Populistic cob-webs and other trash that holds the fort where his brain does business.
 Tom struck 1t fairly well in one part of the extract we have quoted. If he had all the money and newspapers wlth 5 him, and could get the support of all who voted for Bryan, we believe ue could beat Roosevelt. But while we are dealing in ifs we might say that if he had no opposition. he might be elected. It is the only way he could succeed, for while 1t is true that there are dissatisfied voters, Democratic. Re- publican and independent, here dre not many who will try to satisfy them selves by voting for him.
 Doubtless it is source of some satis- faction to some men to pose as Presi- dential candidates, even if they get no electoral votes. A man of this kind "struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more." He gets himself in the delight of politi- cal notoriety, invites the people to gaze on him as an object we'll worth seeing, and when the election is over he falls back into oDscurity and there's an end. Sometimes one will try for something else, but usually one fall kills them off. But they have had some fun and enjoyed some notice while they are at it. That is all the reason one can see for the candidacy of Watson and Swallow, and Debs, and their kind. Let them enjoy it, for the time is short. and they will be called Dn to Rtve way for other eranks.