The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1907-06-20
SENATOR McLAURlN'S REPLY
TO THE vICkSBURG
HERALD.


Senator McLaurin 8 friends are quite
content with his conclusive reply to
the charges made against him by the
editor Of the Vicksburg Herald in the
columns of that paper. The attempt
to answer il in the Herald Of Tuesday
last has fallen inevitably fat, and the
people of Mississippi must be more
than ever convinced that they were
only just when they declared their un-
abated confidence Ia the Senator by
electing him to represent their State
in the United States Senate after the
charges brought against him by vim
dictive political opponents had been
examined and discussed by the press
of Mississippi and on the stump. Two
other Governors have followed Senator
McLaurin in the Office of the Chief
Executive Of this commonwealth. The
Legislature has assembled again and
again since the close of his administra-
tion, and the courts have been open
all along Why have not those old
accusations-some of them more than
ten years old-been made in due form
and investigated by competent au-
thority? is it because Senator
McLaurin had no enemies and no
rivals in Mississippi? Or was it be-
cause his most inveterate foes possessed
no magic to give to anonymous
ISLANDERS the semblance of respectable
testimony? It is true that a great
majority of the people Of this state
admired and loved Senator McLaurin,
and that they would have been exceed
ingly 10th in any case to credit any
charge injuriously affecting his honor;
but now they could not if they would.
Let any candid and just man read ov-
er the attack made upon Senator Nc
Laurin in the editorial columns of the
Vicksburg Herald, and then let him
read with equal care the Senator's re-
ply to each and every one of the
charges made against him in that at
tack, and let him pass upon them
as he would pass upon them were he
juror under oath. Senator McLaurin
asks nothing more.
There is something pitiable in the
effort of the Herald's editor to rally
and to hide his complete discontinue.
He means at all events to have the last
word, and no one should pegrudge
him that poor consolation. He seems
to think it important, however, to
show that he did not begin the con-
troversy, that he was not the original
aggressor, and so leaves the public to
infer that no consideration of what
was due to the good people of his state,
no regard for the general interest,
would have induced him to attempt
an exposure of Senator McLaurin' g
unfaithfulness In office if the Senator
had not first attacked him. In sup.
port of that claim he reminds his
readers that 1.-THE Senator's alleged pro.
vocation was the Herald's reproduce
ton from state exchange, the South
ern Sentinel, without comment-of a
passage from the speech of Hon. E. N.
Thomas, stricturing the McLanrin
Board of Control, with a dozen lines
OF printed comment by the Sentinel. ("
Now the fact that the Senator neglect
ed to state that the passage extract
ed from the Sentinel was in part ut
tered by Mr.. Thomas on che stump is
wholly immaterial. It IS admitted
that the Sentinel made pointed COM
ments-by which the public will of
course understand comments rejecting
inJuriously upon Senator McLaurin-
and that the editor of the Herald re-
published the whole passage. including
the Sentinel's comments. Does any
one suppose that the publication of
that composite passage, part speech
and part editorial, would have been
made in the Herald if it had embodied
a complimentary or even a merely
courteous reference to Senator McLau-
rim? Does anyone doubt that the
passage was extracted and republished
in the Herald in order to aid and abet
an attack upon Senator McLaurin
Then who was the aggressor in this
instance? The Senator's first public
reference to this matter showed that
he had been deeply offended, but it is
probable that he would have remained
silent had not the honor Of dead
brother been impugned. The Senator
is q man, with the natural feelings Of
a man, and with him blood is thicker
than water, the ties Of kinship dearer
than any earthly prize. But when
the editor Of the Herald, excited to q
fury of virtuous indignation by the
Senator's reference to him, undertook