Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-08-28
POLITICAL ROMANCING.

POLITICAL ROMANCING.
Col. S. Brown Allen in his speech in
PRODUCING Mr. Taft to his audience on
last Friday at Hot Springs, made the
remarkable statement, according to the
newspapers, that $4,000 exConfederate
soldiers in Virginia would vote for Mr..
Taft. Had he said Is, or $50, OF l, 500,
no denial would have come from us.
But when he went into the thousands
then the statement should be denied
as reflection on that class of Virginia
citizens. 1t is not slanderous to say
such a thing possibly, of the men who
| fought under the stars and bars, but it
is unjust ia them to intimate, m uch
less assert with so much posiSN eneSn
as Col Allen is said to have done, that
SO many of them are deserters from the
Democratic party. We are sure that
our individual association with ex-
Confederates is equal to that of Col.
Allen in this part of Virginia, and we
know of no fresh recruits to the Taft
forces. If any Confederate soldier is
now supporting him he supported Mr..
Mckinley twelve years ago, and it is
idle to think that Mr.. Taft can gather
about him more eX-Confederate soldiers
than Mr.. Mckinley or Mr.. Roosevelt
for that matter, and nobody will claim
with reason that either got SO many
votes of that character in Virginia in
any previous election.
In the first place what has Mr.. Taft
done to draw around him the men who
the Republican party has for forty
years called Rebels and Traitors? Are
ex-Confederates dogs that they should
do such thing, as lush over their enc
mics and caluminators, or lick dust
from Republican shoes especially
when those shoes have been filled with
hobnails, and put on to trample the
South. and especially the ex-Confeder-
ate under foot, as suits the wearer
Has Mr.. Taft been seen to show any
more kindly feeling toward ex-Confed-
crates than Mr.. Mckinley If so,
when and where? Is there anything
in any speech he has made which prom
ises such thing? True, he told his
hearers at Hot Springs to break away
from tradition, and vote for him. But
did Mckinley or Roosevelt honor the
South with cabinent position Have
they shown any love for 1T, or conf
dence in it's great men? A few medi-
ocres and possibly licksplittless have
gotten high place or two, but the
very ones chosen have tended more to
cement the South than to break its
solidity. Before Mr.. Taft can hope to
break the solid South or rally $1,000
"unpurchased and unpurchasable" ex-
Contederates to his standard he must
show that he has broken from his party
on this line, by treating the South as a
part of the Union. He has had many
chances already to do this. Has he
done it? He did not have to wait till
he became president. But like all OF
his predecessors and contemporaries,
he has done nothing, and until he does
something not a single ex-Confederate
who has been loyal Democrat will
support him. His vote in Virginia will
not.:be SO large as either that of Nc
Kinley or Roosevelt, and we can but
think that Col. Allen was romancing
when he made that statement. But he
may readily be excused. When his
vision was so obscure as to see in Mr..
Taft second Robert E. Lee, and when
he detained the eulogy of Senator
Lamar over that great chieftain, SO
beautifully and tried to fit it to Taft,
it is not at all remarkable that his
mind should have wandered, his inn
agination became faulty, and his state
ments vague, uncertain and florid.
When Mr.. Taft looks over the election
returns from Virginia he will wonder
at the mortality of Confederate soldiers
since he heard that speech, and the
lurid prophesies of the master of cere-
monies on the memorable 21st of Au-
gust, 1908, at the Hot Springs-he will
certainly want to know of Col. Allen
where they were on election day.