The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-10-29
A SHATTERED DREAM.

As the election draws near it is admitted that,
In addition to the concededly great Democratic
gains throughout the country, there will be an
other failure of the dream of ''breaking the solid
South. This hallucination fostered and
Rugged by both Mr.. Taft and Mr.. Hitchcock. 1t
results in the usual awakening. On the approach
Of election day the sleeper turns and wakes TO a
solid sense of realities. The South is az solid
~ Of yore.
With comparatively little noise the admins
tration attack has been directed chiefly at North
Carolina The Tar Heel State has post re-
sconstruction tradition. Popnlsm took toll of it
in 1894. and for four years put ii under hybrid
rule of thinly disguised Repnblicanism. Al
though Mckinley failed of the States electoral
vote, AS lately as 1908 North Carolina was rep
resented in the Senate by Republican,. These
facts have largely passed from the memory of
the South; they were carefully canvassed by Mr..
Taft and his lieutenant in his ambitious policy.
North Carolina in fact, looked ripe for polit-
ica change lis manufacturing interests were
restless OF "Bryanism'' Its young men felt the
spirit of change upon them. State convulsion
on the question of liquor left political wounds be-
hind it. Factions preparing to spring at
I one another's throats Seeing this condition, Mr..
Taft is to be excused for harborng what has turn
I'd out to BIO fatuous hope.
The administration mistake was ia encourag-
ing the temperance in North Carolina of Mar
ION Butler ex-senator, ex-Democrat, ex-Populist,
I now the most greedy of Republicans His re-
cord of success not weighed. lie was put up to
\ "do it again without reflection upon the rea-
sons governing his loss of one-,ilne political
prestige in his State. 4 political outcast, he was
L Il l. l. HI
banished to attempt the impossible.
Butler smells in North Carolina Of The fraud,
ulent repudaed bonds of the State. He stands
in the popular mind as the survival of the condi-
lions Of reconstruction. He is suspected of hav-
ing turned politics to the business of betrayal.
While vet member Of the United States Senate,
he engaged TO sue his own State. and devised the
method whereby this done. Making cats
paw Of South Dakota, he established the principle
gof law putting the State IN jeopardy Of having to
pay millions on millions of bonds issued in time
4 Of debauchery and distributed among the horde,
Ut reconstruction carpet-baggers Such action
marked him as a man without either a sense OF
I ethics or honesty. It was plotting against his
employment and his bread 1t was prostitution
@Df q high trust. Had he attempted similar at
storneyship against the interest of the Govern
/ ment, he would have gone to Federal prison.
Net Butler defends this act, claiming that the
Niaeue of bonds concerned was not Of those re-
kyadiated. lie has scattered the 'ie' with all
4 the prolific gusto Of Roosevelt at all who have
axged him with connection with an attempt to
#Sp3Iect fraudulent bonds. He has stated with a
ns show Of patriotism !Sn the stump that he
FL not and would not under any circumstances
20 III the re-establishment of reconstruction
~ It WAS only when he was thoroughly com
111ed that that Tar Heel Nemesis, Josephus
3Gls, sprang his mine. In full page in his
Dpaper he blazons forth Butler advertise
Gt printed in the New York Evening Post in
II which he solicits repudiated bonds upon
1fA t. she, and boasts himself Is the author of
ans whereby they could Be collected from
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