Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1905-09-21

candidates and speakers and press by
condescending(?) to recognize them as
respectable that they would be silent
about the corruption of the Virginia
Democracy and its leadership. But the
Republicans are too intelligent and
brave to be swerved from the perform
ance of duty by the inane flattery Of
the Democratic press. Judge Lewis
has said nothing and the Republican
press has said nothing about graft and
scandal that cannot be sustained by
abundant Democratic authority. We
will quote from the Virginian-Pilot.
Speaking about the school book scandal
it said:
cit happens to be matter within
the knowledge of the Virginian-Pilot,
and it speaks by authority that is unim-
peachable, that when it became clear
as it did weeks before the State Board
of Education decided in favor Of the
multiple list, steps were Immediately
taken by the book companies to capture
all the counties of the State, and that
the fight in most of them was made
= Certainly we have seen the list and
know whereof we speak when we say
that the multiple system thrust upon
the State by the Board of Education
amounted to a public scandal and cost
the State thousands of dollars in the
price of books used by the children.
And the Virginian-Pilot also said:
''There has been enough shame and
scandal attached to this matter OF
school book adoption. Let US have an
end of it."
Our Norfolk contemporary was
equally as outspoken about the school
register graft. 1t seems now that our
contemporary meant that it should be
brought to an end by Democrats re-
naming silent and by fiattering the Re
publicans into silence.
On the Corporation Commission scan
dial we will quote few sentences from
the Virginian-Pilot. On May 30, 1905
It said:
'The Virginia Corporation Commiss-
ion has become involved in an affair
that does not smell exactly like bed of
roses.
On June 18th, after publishing an
elaborate and earnest defense of Judge
Crump, President of the Commission,
made by the Richmond News-Leader,
the Virginian-Pilot said of the scandal:
''In this case, however, we are con-
fronted with a condition-and very lit
tie with theory-and that condition as
we see it, is one that calls for an inves-
tigation. = But if the News-Leader
imagines that nothing of scandal has
attached to this there is further re-
Election coming to it. We know it to be
a fact that the lawyers of this COM
munity have been flooded with circulars
of this corporation, and that in the
majority of cases the members OF the
bar so favored look upon the circulars
as nothing less than hold-up."
Again, on the 18th of June, the Vir-
ginian-Pilot had an editorial comment
ing upon the desperate and labored eff
ort of Mr.. Braxton to defend and clear
the Corporation Commission from the
scandal. The Pilot said:
'Mr. Braxton's article fails to show
satisfactorily why the same rule which
applies to clerks of the Corporation
Commission in this matter does not ap-
ply equally to the President of the Com
mission. Will not sauce for the goose
serve as sauce for the gander?"
Some of our Democratic contempOr7
aries were more severe in their criti-
cisms of the scandals in connection with
the Department of Education and the
! CORPORATION Commission than was the
Virginian-Pilot.
Is it consistent and honest for our
Norfolk contemporary to criticise Judge
Lewis for for speaking less harshly Of
these Democratic scandals than it has
done?
At the risk of making this article too
long we must quote further from the
bitter editorial of the Virginian-Pilot OF
the 9th inst. 1t said:
"Republicanism of the Virginia brand
sank to such low level that it seems
impossible for it to raise itself or to be
raised above that level. 1t has herded
with the outcast and the rabble so long
that it seems to have acquired the char
acteristics of its associates.
For the Democratic party to attempt to
treat it in its present state with the
courtesy which it would extend to an
equal seems to be labor lost.
Despite the presence of some good
men in it's ranks, the party as whole
was an outcast in Virginia, despised for
its deeds and its associations, with the
weight of the negro around its neck,
when the Democrats by the adoption OF
the new constitution relieved it to q
great extent Of the negro burden and
gave it an opportunity to regenerate it
self and develop into an opposition that