Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1909-01-15
THE SOLID s0TTH.

most f1imsy and inane reasoning yet
advanced for proving any theory.
What has the South to gain by becom-
ing Republican ? Will it get any spec
ial protection, will it be better taken
care of then than now by the dominant
party? If so, this government is dis
grace to civilization. If a section must
vote with the dominent party or suffer
persecution, injury or loss, then the
sooner we abandon our form of gov
eminent the better. Those who tell us
as Hannis Taylor has done in the
North American Review, that "The
Solid South is national calamity"
must think the people of the South,
indeed of the whole country, are fools
of the first water. He says:
He would emancipate the South from
''the deadly one-party system, which,
while excluding her from political
communion with the rest of the Union,
at the same time strangles the politl-
cal genius that was once the basis of
her power.D He believes that "every
w ltl1OuO OOlAAS
by the banished specter of the negro
question, must be permitted to be in
the South, as is every man in the
North, a Democrat or a Republican,
according as his real convictions lead
him one way or the other"
What is the North but ONE PARTY
SYSTEM? For fifty years it has voted
one way, and one way only, and is by
far more bound to those principles
which would injure or destroy the
South. than the South is to those prin-
ciples we are told are destroying her.
1t has been so partisan in every
thing that taxation has been framed
as far as possible to bear heaviest on
the South. The tariff has been especi-
ally framed with this view, and as
result the South in thousands OF arti-
cles, especially such as machinery, cot
ton, ties, ETC., has poured money into
hostile North by millions. There is
no niger question in this, there is en-
nifty, rancor, loot and the same spirit
of love which prompted Sheridan to
devastate this Valley and reconstruc-
tionists to pillage, humiliate and sub
due, if possible, a chivalrous people.
If the laws made by Congress are the
same for all where is there an ass so
stupid as to believe that the wheels of
his factory will turn more smoothly If
he votes for Taft than if he votes for
Bryan? What has the South got to do
to be favored? Vote the Republican
ticket of course. The people are told
that the Industrial South is pulling
one way and the Political South an
other. What diabolical rot. Let those
who undertake to tell us how to vote
and who tell US, of course, to vote the
Republican ticket, remember that
| Protection is not the policy OF the
South, nor to the emergency currency
policy, nor many other policies of the
Republican party. 1t looks on them
as blights and curses. The eusre and
the wrong of protection have just been
shown by admissions of those who
have fattened on protection to steel.
A few men have grown rich, whilst
many millions have been robbed to
make them SO. Thus we see the bale
fitness of protection, thus we see in its
enormity the criminality Of a policy
which such men as Hannis Taylor tell
us we should endorse by. voting the
Republican ticket, 1t is possible the
South will go with the Republicans in
the near future. Its chivalry is grow
ing sordid, the spirit of our fathers is
being corrupted. There are lots Of peo-
pie in the South who worship money
only, and are willing to lick the dust
from the shoes of any who have it.
They think that those they see living
in wealth, and touring the country In
automobiles are enjoying these luxu-
ries because they vote the Republican
ticket, and that those who plow the
soil and hew the wood are slaves be-
cause they vote the Democratic ticket
There are others who have grown rich
regardless of the fact that they have
been voting the Democratic ticket, but
are looked on with contempt when
they go North and their integrity is
doubted, and their business ability
ridiculed. Then, too, poor people are
becoming stencil in their nostrils.
They want so much to be like those
they elbow in Wall street, like those
millionaires who condescend to notice
them even though they vote the DEM
ocratic ticket that they have begun to
squeeze out of their old environment.
They were Taft Democrats, possibly,
in the last election. Soon they Will
become more bold and throw off their
masks and come out in the blaze of day
full fledged Republicans, great, glorl-
Gus and good men, surprised that they
had not seen the light earlier, and ear
lier taken the place in the Republican
party from which the Niger has just
been kicked, possibly it may be to
make room for them.
Why there should be any more
wealth flowing into Republican pock-
ct than Democratic under the same
flag and same laws, unless the Repub-
lican should be better business man,
is difficult to see, and how his business
ability could be improved by change
in politics we also fail to see. Why
political communion with the rest OF
the union" will make any of us happi-
er, we fail also to see, especially when
that political communion would be