Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-07-12
A FARMERS F0uRTH or JULY.
Senator TiiIman Addresses GreenviiIe Peop'e
on pifiercnt Phases OF Cotton Question.


iJohn Marshall, in News and Courier.l
Greenville, July 4.--Senator B. II.
Tillmen, who has assisted the unex-
pected to happen about as frequently
and successfully as any other living
South Carolinian, made another tally
to-day in this respect. He delivered
his much-heralded address at the
fair grounds without saying any
thing likely to tiptoe the attention of
his fellow citizens, whether they be
his enemies or his friends. l am
not prepared to believe that he
might not have troubled the political
waters vastly had be been 80 minded
] TO do, nofaam l entirely certain in
my e$%n mind what influences pre-.
: vented him from turning himself
,oose oratorically as he was wont to
};do in the days of his earlier cam
paigns. / merely record the fact
That he was under, or appeared to be
sSnnder, some restraint, and that he
contributed no skyrockets to the
celebration of the Glorious Fourth in
Greenville.
Senator Tillman's address was de-
livered in wooded ravine near the
fair grounds. Rough hewn planks
had been hastily patched together
into speakers stand. This faced
precipitous hilltide, 80 that when the
audience was assembled an amphi-
theatre of humanity rose about the
orator. 1t is noteworthy circum-
stance that of the several thousand
persons who were in the grove and
about the grounds generally, scarcely
more than 1900 took the pains to
come within hearing distance of the
speakers.
UP on the hill, about the eating
counters, picnicking under the trees,
here, there and yonder, the people
went and came-country people at
that, who ten years ago would have
walked ten miles, much less two hun.
dred yards, to have heard Ben Till
man speak. Whether they stayed
away because it was announced that
the address was not to be political,
or whether because they preferred
the lunch baskets, the music of the
band, the excitement of horse racing,
the intimate gossip of well-met
friendship, or what not, am not
prepared to say. 1t was a suggest
i've spectacle, however, to one who
followed Senator Tillman through
the stirring campaigns of the nine
ties, when he was veritable tribune
of the people, and when men strove
and fairly fought for the privilege of
being within the sound of his voice.
Those who came to hear him evinced
none of the frenzied enthusiasm
which his words and presence were
once wont to provoke. They greeted
him warmly. Now and again there
were cheers. The typically Tillman-
esque sallies of his address, whether
humorous or denunciatory, were
promptly and heartily applauded.
Men called to him in familiar ap-
proval from the crowd long before
he began the speech. Many of them
climbed up on the stand merely to
grasp his hand and hear his voice.
TO these he was unquestionably the
"Old Ben" whom the masses of the
State idolized in the bygone years.
l do not wish to be understood as
implying that there was any un-
triendliness for him in the crowd, but
TO one who could compare the two,
there seemed to be world of differ
ence between the mental attitude of
these fifteen hundred people who
faced Senator Tillman to-day and
that of those who used to face and
follow him through thick and thin
back in the campaigns of the nineties.
The Senator dealt with the South
ern cotton movement, the proposed
tariff on cotton goods, the industrial
independence which has come to the
Southern farmers in the last few
Years the boycott In China and