The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1908-05-08

the Legislature instead Of the people.
The early Democratic administra-
tons, and all their successors, COM
mitted a like crime against liberty
when they clothed the Governor with
the appointment of Superintendent OF
Public Instruction, Commissioner OF
Agriculture, Commissioner OF Peni-
Tertiary. etc. Thus. according to GOV.
Patterson, the great men who framed
the Constitution of 1870, and every
succeeding Democratic Legislature,
and every Democratic Governor
from John c. Brown to John l.
Cox has engaged in the effort
to build up vast and op-
pressive machine, to enthrone polit-
ical despotism and to destroy the last
vestige of free government until as
a result of forty years of Democratic
government he declared, there has
ceased to be rule of the people In
Tennessee.
"Such was the corrupt and degraded
condition of this State when my hon
orable competitor appeared upon the
scene as the one good man in Sodom
to save it from the wrath of heaven
and a rain of fire; he came to deliver
the people from a worse than Egypt
chine-a second Moses leading Sec
ond exodus; he came as new Her
cules to turn the rivers of his rhetoric
into the Augean stables of the Demo
cratic party.
"My countrymen, what answer
could my competitor make to a Re-
publican opponent if, with this black
and bitter indictment still standing
against the record of the Democratic
party, there must be added to that
simply the record of a reformer who
has not reformed, but who has pre-
served and Intensified all the evils
which he himself declared to be ut
terIy subversive of free government
and the rights of the people?
Mr.. PATTERsoN's WAR
ON THE MACHINE.
"My competitor specified certain
great and overshadowing issues, by
the side of which all others were
dwarfed into insigniicance. No show
ing of fiscal economy, of abundant
revenues, of an overlooking treasury,
could meet such issues as these, for
they concerned the fundamental prln-
ciples of free government and the run
damental rights of the people. In
his inaugural address he declared that
the central thought of his campaign
was a restoration of power to the peo-
pie. He declared that the over
shadowing issue in this campaign
must be the one upon which all good
government depends, and that is
whether the people of Tennessee snail
rule themselves or continue to De
ruled by the merciless machine which
has subverted their will and ruth
lessly disregarded their rights
whence came the power of this
great machine? He told you that 1t
came from the enormous power OF pa
tronage lodged in the hands of the Gov
ernor that it came from his control
of the State Committe as an instru-
ment of his personal ambition; that II
came from his control of the election
machinery. He told you that so long
as these conditions existed there could
be no genuine reform and no free
government in Tennessee.
"The very method by which Gov
Patterson seeks this nomination is
mockery of the fundamental principle
upon which he appealed to the peo-
nile. This is not a personal issue be-
tween Gov. Patterson and mySelf-lt
goes to the very fundamentals of pop
ular government. In a recent ad-
dress William J. Bryan said: We
used to have politics controlled by the
bosses. but the general adoption OF
the primary system has changed the
control of the party from the boss to
the voter Every step that the pri-
mary makes is a Democratic step and
victory for popular government
"Two years ago Gov. Patterson him
self advocated a direct primary as a
sure means of delivering the party
from the rule of the bosses, and the
machine. Let me ask you, my coun-
trymen, while all the states of this
Union, Democratic and Republican,
North and South are falling into line
for a direct primary, why lags the
proud State of Tennessee? Who
holds it back from the marching col
umn of progressive states and keeps
il in subsection to the old system of
bossism and machine rule?
THE DIRECT PRIMARY
NOW sPURNED.
Gov. Patterson had bound himself
to the direct primary by an obligation
as solemn and as sacred as ever lay
upon the conscience of public man.
Although his request was without
support from the Democratic press, the
Democratic committees or even from
his own friends and leaders, when it
was denied him he denounced Gov.
Cox and the committee in terms of
unmeasured bitterness. My petition
was supported by 1906 out of 1T Dem
ocratic newspapers, by go out of 90
County Commttees-the Democratic
I'D nrnonf1nd Democracy