The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-03-25
"WHAT POWER DIVINE SHALL
TIENCEFORTH WASH THE
RIVER RHINE?"

III ASAS
The purpose generally understood of
the Tar Heel Club of Republicans or
ganized at Greensboro is to build up
"a respectable Republican party in
North Carolina"-a confession that
there is now no such Republican par
ty in this State. The voters have long
recorded it as their view that the Re-
publican party was not fit to trust.
Therefore this tremendous effort to
put some veneering upon the old hulk
in order to deceive the people and
make it look respectable long enough
to get in power in this State.
who will wash the River Rhine?"
AS the leader, selected or self
chosen and acquiesced in, to bring
about this respectable Republican
party Spencer Blackburn looms up.
Is he the sort of man to lead a move
North Carolina except the doodles and
the pap-suckers Let US see what Hon.
Charles Price, the brainiest of the
older Republican lawyers in North
Carolina, said last year about Black
burn:
THE fatal thing to Blackburn is his
being in Chicago, a prominent member
of the North Carolina delegation, and
NOT SAYING ONE WORD IN OPI'O-
SIITON TO THE NEGRO PLANK IN
THE PLATFORM, proposing to make
the negro an issue in the campaign"
what power divine
"Shall henceforth wash the River
Rhine?"
When Spencer Blackburn was Read
ing Clerk OF the House, in the dark
days of fusion, he secured the election
of himself as a Code Commissioner.
leading Republicans learned that
Blackburn would be a Code Commits
sioner they secured the repeal of the
act creating the Commission and Gov
ernor Russell using some very lurid
language gave his estimate of Black
burns unfitness in way that met
with general approval, and the Code
Commission "died a bornin'." Is
Blackburn the sort of man to lead
in organizing "a respectable Republic
can party?"
what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the River
Rhine?"
The Republican State Convention
was controlled by the very men who
have organized the Tar Heel Club and
who are debating its policy. Are they
the sort of men to organize "a respec-
table Republican party in North Car
olina?" Here is what Judge Bynum,
the ablest of the younger Republican
lawyers in North Carolina, said of the
men who ran the Republican State
Convention:
1.-THE time has come in the tide of
Republican politics in North Carolina
when one of two things must be done.
Either the Federal officeholders must
own, control and managae the affairs
of the party absolutely, as they seem
to be doing ct this convention, or
they must abdicate and allow the par
~ to be managed and Its policy shaped
by. those whose policies and principles
are governed by other considerations
than office-getting, greed, grab and
graft If the Federal officeholders
continue in control then no self-re-
specting man can or will be induced
to take part in Republican politics in
this State. If they are forced to alb
dictate. as should be done, then there
is q future for the party. This may
as well be said here and now.
1.-THE party seems to be adrifting
without a leader or any one who has
the courage to speak above a whis-
per. Everything is subrogated to the
change of being a delegate or getting
an officer. The thoughtful, prudent
people of North Carolina never will
and never ought to consent to the
management of the affairs of this great
State by such an irresponsible cabal
as now controls the affairs of the Re-
publican party of this State.
what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the River
Rhine?"
Blackburn dominated the Republi-
can Congressional Convention at
Wilkesboro, Hon. r. u. Linney ar
raigns the revenue officers who con-
trolled that convention, one of them
having Uniformed DR.. Carson that if
the Committee on Credentials reported
no quorum, and he, as chairman adj
journed the convention, he would be
thrown from the window of the court
house and a hundred men killed.
At the close of Mr.. Ashbury's final
address, decidedly the best speech
made in the convention at ALL he was
insulted by an internal revenue Off
GER" They are the sort of cattle, who,
under Blackburns leadership, have set
out to build up "a respectable Repub-
lican party in North Carolina"
what power divine
"Shall henceforth wash the River
Rhine?"
The day may come when there will
be "a respectable Republican party in
North Carolina" but THAI party will not
materialize under the leadership of
Spencer Blackburn or any of the 9TH
-1t Afkas