Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1908-03-27
Lest We Forget"

TAR forgot the past and who are so
devoid of political gratitude as to unite
In the effort to condemn the gallant,
militant Democracy of the Ninth dis
trict that has striven to wrest control
of that district from Republican mis-
rule. Only few have become so politi-
cally sanctified as to affiliate with the
Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Staunton
Dispatch and the Richmond Journal,
which have recently made strenuous,
though vain, attempt to discredit and
besmirch Hon. William F. Rhea and
the Governor who appointed him Cor
poration Commissioner. Behold what
strange bed-fellows politics doth make!
Republicans, boilers, distributors of the
Palmer and Buckner campaign corrup-
tion fund in 1896, all worshipping to-
gether in the Holy of Holes of the
Political Temple and drawing their
robes about them lest they be contami-
mated by contact with simon-pure Demo
Gratis who have won their spurs in many
a battle.
Alas, for the consistency of some of
these sanctifed Democrats who were
denouncing the Richmond Times in 1896
and hurting anathemas upon all who
stood with them! The lion and the lamb
have lain together, but the lamb turns
out to be wolf in sleeps clothing, and
the lions ears betray him, through his
disguise, even if his voice had not al
ready done so.
But there are some innocent, mis-
guided Democrats, we regret to say.
who are now assuming such an air of
rigid political virtue that they would
even condemn loyal Democrat because
Republican charges him with political
trickery and utterly fails to prove it,
though given every opportunity afforded
the Republicans to sustain their charges,
yet not one single man of the twenty
six Democrats who refused to vote for
confirmation has ever asserted that any
single charge was sustained. Do these
few local Democrats forget so easily
when they themselves resorted to every
trick, artifice and pretext known to
political craft to defeat Republican
nominees in Pittsylvania and Danville?
Or, IL they were not themselves par
ticipants in this trickery, did not they
applaud it and rejoice over the result
and share in the benefits of it? Hardly
twenty years ago, it will be recalled,
the Democrats of Danville, engaged in
the throes of life and death struggle
for Democracy, assembled and drafted
an urgent appeal to the valiant Democ-
racy of the Ninth district to Come
over and help u.s. And the men who
loyalty followed Rhea in later years
needed this Macedonian cry and came.
and Pittsylvania and Danville were re-
lieved of the body of that political death
by their aid. Great was our gratitude:
certainly loud were our protestations of
it.
Behold: The scene is changed. The
redeemed Fifth district and the city of |
Danviile, no longer in jeopardy from
Republican misrule and lulled into re-
pose by the security attained by the aid |
of Ninth district Democrats, have for
gotten the past. The price of our de-
iiverance was paid by the Ninth district, |
which the new constitution bound hand |
and foot as the condition of having the
enemy's heel removed from our necks |
and for seven years the same Democ-
racy of the Ninth district to which we
were once so grateful has been engaged |
IN a life and death struggle; a fight
for Democratic local self-government
against the Republican national admin
istration's entire power. Accustomed
to fighting as they had been ever since
they won their mountain land from the
wilderness and the savage, the Ninth
district Democrats sought to work out
their own salvation alone. No call for
aid came from them to us. But instead /
OF volunteering our aid, some of our
purified Democrats would step in and
say: stop; you must not defeat Re-
publican, by fair means or by foul.
You must not resort to the means that |
we used and justified. 1t is wrong. /"
What spectacle!
Twenty years ago the gentlemen who |
are now condemning Rhea, regardless of |
the evidence, were guilty of taking |
political advantages, seized TECHNICAL |
ties and secured majority by what
ever means it was necessary to use. The |
Ninth district Democrats have never
sounded the gamut of political artifice
and craftas we of the Fifth district did.
Oh hut thew will fall nc. GfUIJa xx,oxo
facing an emergency then; we were
struggling for Anglo-Saxon rule" Wei
were facing conditions analogous to
those which confront the Ninth district
today, which confronted it when Will
liam F. Rhea was Democracy's candi-
date for Congress in 1893, in 1900 and
in 1902. 1t is vain to say that we only
retarded negroes in voting, for with
every negro vote thrown out we can
celled white, Republican ballot in Floyd,
in Grayson, in Patrick, in Henry and in
Pittsylvania. We were fighting Repub-
licans. There was never any danger of
negro control of Congress or of the
State Legislature, even though negro
representatives might have been elected
here. We did these things to elect our
party's candidate. And they did the
same and worse in self-righteous Rich
mond and in honest, humane Henrico-
to elect Democratic candidates over
white Republican candidates. 1t is USE
less to squirm and to twist and to evade
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