The advocate. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1901-1913, 1908-12-24

Washington, D. G. December ga
What shall the harvest beg" Not
least among the thousand and one,
difficult problems that will confront
President Taft early I'm. his admin
strationl. Wilt be the task of trying
to distribute the patronage SO as to
give the greatest number and at the
same time secure the best rasults
to the government itself. The color
ed brother Ike his neighbor OF light
er complexion, will have his "mitt"
extended for "pie" and there will be
a mighty howl If he fails to land the
fat and Juicy slice he thinks his in
dispensable services to the party en-
title him to claim. Emulating Dfc-
ken's we'll known poor house boy,
oliver, Twist the colored brother
Of aspiration arldnerve will not hesi-
tate to ask voiclferousy and often
for "more.'' .;E. 80. ...... \ .
That the Negro leaders and their
followers in the trenches rendered
yeoman service throughout the cam
paigni goes without the saying. For
reasons patent to all without dis
cussing the Justice Of contention.
Judge Taft had an up hill fight, as
far as the Negro vote was concerned,
There',was, Yrom the beginning, dis
affection! Of an apparently wide
spread character. The seeds of dis
sension had been thickly and most
adroitly sown by experienced dis
senters." Preachers, teachers, doc
tors. lawyers and egen federal Office
holders, were lined UP side by side
with the business man, mechanic and
the day-laborer Threatening awful
things if Taft should be, Nominated
and worse II he asked their support
at the polls. TO be sure, Inb bge% Taft
had q host AID influential,
friends among the coiored people,;
but uiifort tunately fat that time, they
were not organized. They were not
OF the demonstpative type, to whom
, the methods ,,of. the noisy agitator
found favor; they had no grievances,
real or imaginarys to nurse; there,
fore to the INITIATED, it looked as If
the Anti-Taft operators were to have
everything their own way
Not so however, as subsequent de-
velopments showed The friends Of
Judge Taft kept their own counsel
and worked quietly to bring out the
truth as to iscattitude on the race
question and to acqnit him Of respon-
sibility for the Brownsville episode.
The wisdom of the plan of battle,
inaugurated and carried out by the
Tylers, Dancys, ,Vernons, Terrells,
Cobbs, Andersons, Pinchbacks, Cob
ems, Banks, Napters, Marshalls, Boo
zes, Braschers, Gilmers, Crums, Rue
kers and others is handsomely vim
dicated by the results. These clever
managers a flowed their opponents
to fire off. all OF their ammunition
early In the: ngagement. They per-
mitted the excited Warriors to shout
themselves hoarse and to wear tbc.1-
selves out chasing, rainbows and
knocking down men, Of straw"
They listened in silence to the abuse
and vituperation heaped indiscrimi-
nately upon those who felt 1t to be
their duty and privilege to stand by
stalwart republicanism, as represent
ed by Roosevelt, Taft, and Hitch
cock, in preference to bourbon dem
ocracy and sublifnated populism, as
represented by Tillman, Vardaman,
Haskell ana Bryan. Then h. when the
signal was given to t~Charge!"-the
Taft army, drilled In mastery fash
ion for the fray, rose up in their
midst, and shifting them hip and
thigh, literally wiped them off the
map 50 complete was the. victory
that since November Sd, no one has
been able to locate so much as
remnant Of the '"hower" Of the Wal
dron-Trotter-Ca gladiators,
to give it decent burial.