Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1907-04-18
John TEMPLE GRAVES
Wants Roosevelt Made the Candidate of
of the Democrats for President.

AT the banquet given to William Jen-
nings Bryan at Chattanooga, Tenn, on
the night of the 10th inst, John Temple
Graves, the brilliant editor of the At
lanta Georgian, threw CONSERVATION in
to the Democratic camp by suggesting
that Mr.. Bryan should nominate MIR.
Roosevelt for reelection as the Demo-
cratic candidate. Mr.. Graves spoke as
follows
IF Theodore Roosevelt should lay
down tomorrow the rein of government
which he has demonstrated beyond all
cavil or question his mighty power to
hold, is there any man at the head of a
new party, unless every branch of the
Government was solid and united behind
him, who could give to the republic the
we'll founded hope of triumphant con-
clusion of the essential reforms which
are now progressing to an inevitable
victory in Theodore Roosevelt's strenu-
Gus and undaunted hands?
1T seems to me the timple is ripe for
an expression of the reality of Demo-
cratic leadership which will startle his
tory and inspire the republic to better
life. There are opportunities which the
Almighty sends at rare intervals to par
ties and to individuals. And it seems
to me in honest and fearless frankness
that such time has come to us.
Speaking here deliberately for my
self, and in my fair judgment of the
great majority of the plain and honest
Democrats of the Empire Southern
State, from which l came, l believe
that we should put the party then below
the people, the principle above the man.
We should rebuke the spirit of spoils
and the hunger of faction.
I'VE should affirm our principles. con-
Tess our faith, recite the necessity of
the reform of corporate capital as the
supreme and transcendent issue of the
times, pay tribute to the great and typ
zeal American who has proved himself
the dauntless and cOnquering captain of
the peoples cause, and then and there
IN the great convention of our own.
William j. Bryan, the one unmatched
and Incompatible evangel of our faith.
speaking for the whole plain people of
this republic, should put in nomination
Theodore Roosevelt for one more undis-
puted term of power to finish the work
that he has so gloriously begun.
Il am prepared, Mr.. Chairman and
my fellow Democrats, for silence and
reserve in your hearing of this PROPOSE
ton. There could be no other answer
to it now.
while you accord me the great cour-
tesy of your patience for one moment
more, may tell you what l foresee as
the resultant if our great party and its
leaders could rise to this superb and
thrilling act.
1t would vindicate the spirit and the
reality of representative government
upon the earth.
1T would send a pulse of inspiration
through the ranks of freemen every
where.
''It would unite the country as il has
never been united since Hamilton and
Jefferson wrangeled over the opposing
theories of the Constitution.
''The nobility of the act would put
the partisan out of the pulses of the
President, remove the wrangle of op-
posing political theories for the time,
and free one Chief Executive for an ad-
ministration as unselfsh and as broad
as Washington
1T would vindicate and glorify De-
mocracy in an act of patriotism and of
unselfish principle that has had no
parallel in the history of parties in our
times.
In its grand unselfishness it would
enthrone the Democratic party in the
hearts of the people, and in its tenn
porary and heroic surrender would pro-
vide beyond doubt or question for its
triumphant and glorious resurrection in
the next campaign.
1T would establish our uncomfortable
leader who presented that proposition
in permanent end enduring fame as
the one Great Commoner of our times
and would place him upon pedestal in
history above that of Gladstone in Eng
land or of Bismarck beneath the Ger
man throne.
at would give this great country of
ours one millennial period in which fac
tons and partisans should be still and
the spirit of representative government
should be given new birth and a new
conservation to its great ideals-to the
glory of the people and the admiration
of the world"