Los Angeles herald., 1907-06-09
T|LLMAN SAYS NO
GRAFT IN SOUTH
POINTS With CONTEMPT TO
SAN FRANCISCO
OPltchfork" Senator Is on His First
Trip to Southern California
and Visits Points of
Interest

GOS AHSeieo.' lHe SeHdlOr, dCCOIn-
panied by his wife and daughters. ar
rived here yesterday morning and
passed the day in sightseeing, visiting,
among other points of interest, Mount
Lowe. Today they will go to Catalina
and tonight will leave for the Yosemite.
The senator, however, expects to re-
turn here in September. This is his
first visit to Southern California and
he wants to see more of it.
Nowadays when the name of Ben r.
Tillman appears upon a hotel register
the clerk does not consider it necessary
to send out for a pitchfork. The SEN
ator's pitchfork days are over. The
joke followed him from his first cam
paign in his own state of South Caro-
lima to Washington and for a time it
thrived there. Today it has been prac-
tically forgotten The senator's COL
leagues in the upper house of congress
have been compelled to realize his
ability as a statesman as we'll as his
skill as a politician They no longer
delight in stirring him up because the
stirring up usually results unpleasantly
for the man who does the stirring.
The Tlllman knack in debate is not
thing to be despised and they know it.
Appears Mild
Personally the senator does not look
like q fire eater He is rather above
the medium height, but so sturdily
built that he gives the impression of
being short. His hair is turning gray.
His features are clean cut and rather
of an Irish type. Perhaps that middle
name of Ryan has some significance
and perhaps the senator comes racially
by his love for a shindig.
The senator, as men who do not
know him may not be aware, has but
one eye. Though by no means a mat
inee idol he has acquired the John
Drew habit of keeping his good side
toward the camera and toward his
audiences. Moreover. he has a trick
of keeping one hand over the bad eye
until he becomes excited in his talk,
when he uses both hands in an almost
Hebraic facility of gesticulation. This
however, is the result of haHit, not of
vanity.
In many respects Tillman is one of
the most interesting personages in pub
lie life. He has been termed the most
maligned man in politics, and that is
a large order. 1t is certain. however,
that he had to make himself felt twice
before his opponents would admit he
was in their vicinity. In the beginning
of his Washington career it was the
thing to laugh at Tillman. He was
regarded as the funniest joke since
Jerry Simpson, who had a grudge
against the hosiery trade. But that day
is past Tillman is no longer joke.
He is a power that must be reckoned
with, as the Republican senators and
some few on the Democratic side as
we'll have been taught, to their cost.
Talks NervousIy
For a man of his build Senator Till
man is remarkably nervous. He is
nervous speaker. He is nervous even
in his conversation. He gives the i'm
preston of a man who never tempor-
ICES. 1t is doubtful whether the word
perhaps" appears in his lexicon. When
The senator makes statement ne
makes it positively. If he is wrong
and later events convince MIN that ne
is wrong he may admit it, but he won't
dodge.
Last night at the Rosslyn hotel the
senator spoke of the San Francisco
graft exposure, and from tha topic
drifted gradually into a discussion of
graft generally. Said he:
.Stealing is national disease, not
a party disease. Democratic New" York
used to be byword throughout the
country until Republican Philadelphia
proved that she was ever deeper in
San Francisco rotten to the core; hope
less. beyond reclamation. Why, if this
thing goes on they will have to or
ganiZe another vigilance committee
there as they did in the old days and
string a few of those scoundrels to the
trees.
TT is a pitiful spectacle Fan Fran
cisco is presenting to the world. Mil
lionaires brlbing public officials; Off
cials extorting money from whomeVer
they could get it; the whole body pol
itic rotten, rotten to the core.
No Graft in the South
"In the south we do not have such
things. We are too American. Thank
God we are not yet cosmopolitan
enough for that. Look at Alabama and
Georgia Those two states had been
rather dangerously under railroad DOM
ination for the past few years. What
happened? The railroad influence was
wiped out absolutely at the last pri-
mary eleotion. In Alabama 80 per cent
of the counties went against the corpo-
ration ticket, and Hoke Smith carried
Georgia on the same kind of plat
form.
1.-THE remedy? That must come from
the people. They must pay closer at
tention to their own business. They
cannot afford to do otherwise. They
must hold their servants to stricter ac-
count and kick them out when they
misbehaVe.
''That is what should be done and
what must be done. AS matters are
now, some one must pay for these pal
aces in which mayors live, for these
automobiles in which mayors ride.
Who is it? The people.
"In San Francisco, as l conceive 1t,
this thing has see-sawed steadily up
ward, the laboring organizations on one
end, the grafters on the other. Higher
wages has meant more graft. Now the
limit has been reached and there must
come an adjustment
Not Talking Politics
The senator is on pleasure trip and
is not talking politics. He says that
he has been asked 600 times in the past
three months who will be Democracy S
next candidate for the presidency, and
he threatens to heave rock In the d1-
rection of the next man who has the
temerity-or foolhardiness-to repeat
that query.
Senator Tillman is first a southerner,
next a Democrat, then South Caro-
Imam, and lastly teetotaler. The his
toric remark once made by the governor
~ 4. h l.