Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-10-30
Northern Virginia Sentiment
Letter to the Baltimore Sun Which
That Paper Refused to Publish.

To The Baltimore Sun
You invite and publish 'Letters from
the people" As reader of your paper
for twenty-five years, | ask a little
space in the columns thus allowed to
express in some degree the prevailing
sentiment of our section and | believe
of the overwhelming majority of Vir-
ginians everywhere in regard to your
recent flop into the Republican camp.
A few days since visitor stated here
that you would lose two hundred sub
scribers in small section of the Shen-
andoah Valley not very far from here.
This is but just. You deserve the same
treatment all over our State and richly
merit the resentment and contempt of
a vast majority of the white people of
Maryland. You have ever posed as the
especial friend and champion of s'The
South" The South And yet now in
the hour Of her hope, when you might
tighten her cause, when you could join
in her struggle for political freedom,
you cravenly desert in the face of the
foe treacherously abandoning all those
who had come to rely on your honesty
and believe in your teachings. Is not
this the same Republican party that so
shamelessly used money, much of it
stolen from the policy hol .ers of life
insurance to secure the election of
Roosevelt Godfather to Taft and the
defeat OF Parker your candidate? Re
fer to your files of 1904. Has some of
this same gold allured you? 1t looks
SO. Is it not the same party that tried
to fasten on us the wicked "Force Bill"
which you characterized SO severely at
the time? And they would possibly
have succeeded but for the faithfulness,
energy, and ability of that matchless
son OF Maryland whose name will be
spoken, and his memory revered, long
after you are forgotten, your name bur-
led in obloquy, and the ruins of your
boasted building have moulded into
mother earth. What guarantee have
we that this same party and this same
TAFT will not again try to disgrace and
humiliate the South And if we had
guarantee from them what would it
be worth? Have they not already
threatened many times since in Con-
gress and out to decrease the member
ship in Congress from the Southern
States
Your political vision has undergone a
most peculiar change, and you have
lowered the value of your principles as
well as the price of your paper. Where
formerly you saw on two cent basis
now you are satisfied with a penny
view. And let me tell right here, s'The
Sun of the past' was better worth
$500 than your present publication is
$500. For while '9The Old Sum- was
reliable and conservative newspaper
and justly deserved its large circulation,
you are largely mere catalogue for de-
partment stores and whiskey firms, fill
ing your pages with glaring advertise
ments, and also devoting large part
OF your space to prize fighting, base
ball, horse racing, and other subjects in
no way conducive to public morals.
But all this is very filling, and it is es-
pecially proper that you apper in your
new role Of faithless turncoat, and DO
lltlcal traitor, arrayed in such gaudy
and disreputable apparel. And now,
not satisfied with renouncing your
friends and patrons, but glorying in
your shame, and filled with an apostate
zeal, you are striving by every means
IN your power and with all the hired
talent you can command to belittle and
defeat that party which you have held
up as the only hope and savior of the
great body of the American people
from the evils of monopoly, fraud in
justice, and sectional and class legisla
ton, with all of which we have been
cursed under Republican rule. You
even go so far as to misrepresent condi-
tions in Virginia giving unfair and BIZ
ased reports of happenings in the State.
You say in your account of the Hot
Springs meeting, "Mr. Taft greeted by
great throng," &C., &c, trying to Gre
ate the impression that Virginians
were rushing by the wholesale into his
capacious arms. Your candidate stated
In opening his speech that he had yield
ed TO TO solicitations of the local Re
publican leaders to meet the Republi-
cans of the neighboring sections. No
doubt, these same Republican polite
ians with whom that part of the State
is infested, made every effort by excur-
sions and otherwise to draw together
a crowd to hear their candidate for
President make his first speech of the
mpaign-and after all what did he
say?
3 Let any fairminded man compare
it with Mr.. Bryan's address of the same
date-aud with it all you only publish
ed an attendance of 5000. It is not
likely you understated the number.
Why, we have twice that many at a
horse show in this county. And many
of those who went to Hot Springs did
so out OF curiosity and not because they
intend to vote for Taft or wish him sue
cess, as he will find out later. Of course
there will be a few renegades but they
generally add strength to the party
they leave and weakness to the one
they join. You say in certain num-
Der, Mr.. Taft says, "The Suns support
makes Maryland safe and will help
him in Virginia." after while he will
know the right meaning Of those two
words ''safe" and "help' SO far as his
candidacy is concerned. Be not deceiv-
ed. Don't oNerNalue your infiuence