Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1905-11-02
For House of Delegates;
]. POWELL ROYAL,
of Tazewell County.
FRAuDl wRI1EwAsHl FALSeHOOO
RuDl ..ft'

The Democratic party in Virginia url-
der its present management, which has
been practically continuous for the past
twenty years, deserves the execration
of all honorable and;clean men. There
are some gentlemenOf the highestchar-
acter, so far as personal morality iscon-
cerned, who still give their support to
the Democratic machine, that under
the management of ]. Taylor Ellyson
and his predecessors has become notori-
Gus and Infamous. We'cannot under
stand why such men continue to do this:
1t must be that they have been de-
ceived as to the character of their par
ty management or that their sense OF
right has become blunted from the
false teachings of Democratic leaders.
The time has about come in Virginia
when any man can longer claim to be
clean and honorable and continue to fol-
low the leadership of such men as }.
Taylor Ellyson and elevate them to of
fee. The present campaign and the
Democratic primary campaign which
preceded it have laid bare the lOathsome
character of the leadership and the
political brigands" who have held Vir-
ginia by the throat for the past twenty
or more years. Fraud, whitewash, false
hood and mud have been the means en-
ployed by these people to fix and hold
their grasp upon the government of the
old Commonwealth.
No one who has an intelligent knowl-
edge of political conditions as they have
existed in Virginia for the past two de-
cades will deny that fraud has been: the
chief reliance of the Democratic party
for holding supremacy. According to
the confessions of the leaders and the
Democratic press, for many years the
negro vote was stolen and counted
against the Republican vote of the white
districts. And from their own testi-
mony we learn that the practice began
by stealing the votes of negroes JIM the
East and progressed until it became
common to rob thousands of white men
in the Ninth and in other white districts
of the State. 1t cannot be disputed
that during a certain period no Demo
crat in Virginia was elevated to high
State or National Office without accept
ing certificate tainted with fraud.
Men were selected to register voters
and conduct elections not for the fRW1
pose Of keeping the oath they took to
do their work honestly but to commit
perjury and theft in the interest of the
Democratic party. In speech deliv-
cred before the Virginia Bar Associa-
ton ID 1900, Major William A. Ander-
son, now Attorney General of Virginia
and now the candidate of the Demo-
cratic party for the same position, said:
Force and violence, in some cases
fraud, bribery of negro and other cleo
ton officers, and other more or less
equivoeal means have been resorted to.
Violation of the letter and spirit of the
election laws, Intimidation of voters,
destruction of ballot boxes, destruction
of polIbooks, these and other acts more
or less,wrongful, sometimes criminal,
sometimes feloneous, have been the
weapons with which white paramount
cy in local and State governments has
been sometimes, indeed often secured,
We heard Major Anderson say in a
speech at Tazewell that these practices
had been carried on in Virginia until
fraud had become cankering sore on
the body polite, and that they threat
ened to destroy the moral tone Of the