The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-01
INDEPENDENCE PARTY
 NOT OWNED BY HEARST
Graves Declares That No Party Is More One-Man Party Than the One Which Watson Represents
 and Has Long Led.

New ork. July 3l.-1n signed statement handed to the Associated Press tonight, John Temple Graves. candidate of the independence party for the vice presidency, makes reply to a recent utterance of Thomas E. Watson, in which the presidential can didate of the populist party described the independence party as owned and controlled by William R. Hearst
 In the course of his expression. which was published here yesterday. MT. Watson said:
 'In my judgment a political party owned and controlled by one man, no matter how rich and good and great, can nerver amount to much in Ameri- politics. The so-called independ- ence party is copyrighted affair, financed and steered by MT. Hearst. It's so-called leaders are his editors and employees. Almost without exception those who are prominent in the move ment are upon the Hearst payroll.
 Tn a country like ours, where the sense of individual freedom is so strong, the people will never consent
 
 tion by becoming members of a per sonally conducted and privately owned political organization.
 "The democratic party changes it's creed every four years, but the inde- pendence party has already changed it5 creed twice during this year. When ft met in Indianapolis some months ago 1t was in favor of a ship subsidy and the Wall street system of finance. In Chicago it adopted practically every one of the blanks which have so long been the platform of the populist party. If the populist principles are correct there would seem to be no good reason 1 why the populist national ticket should not receive the votes of those who be- lfeve in populism.''
 Reply of Graves.
 To the foregoing Mr. Graves takes exception in the following language: T ask the courtesy of the Associated Press to express my regret that the Hon. Thomas E. Watson should have rushed so swiftly to hostile criticism or the independence party. with which so large number of the populists are m active sympathy and with simple con- sistency he should be glad to in- dorse.
 Tt is to say the least ungracious in MT Watson to speak of the independents as one-man party. He has made the populist party more a one-man party than the independence party He has been as many times the defeated candidate of the populists as Mir. Bryan has been of the democrats. He seems to be by the official record the one man as absolute as Roosevelt, as dictatorial as Bryan-and as unsuccessful as the last
 "He prescribes its tenets. dictates it's policies in things personal and other wise, and is invariably named as its can- didate.
 No Steam Roller.
 There has not been in 50 years a con Vention freer from the boss and the steam roller than the one just adjourned. MT. Hearst was 5000 miles across the sea during all the preliminaries that led up to it. He reached the convention 24 hours before its opening. He did not lift his hand to dictate a plank in it's plat form or to name the least of its candi- dates. He went down into it's committee room on equal terms, and no more than equal terms. He wrangled for 36 hours over the platform, winning some of the things he advocated and losing others, and accepting success or defeat with equal temper, like the genuine independent that he is.
 T am perfectly sure that MT. Watson in his eager criticisms speaks for him self and not for the people. There is no discounting the character and purpose of that great old party. There was never an honester and truer political organiza- ton in America They bettered the entire tone of the present era in which they fiourished. No stronger effort was eve. made in it's history to reform the old democratic party within the ranks than ;he popuiists made. If they failed there is not a shadow of encouragement for any other organization to try"