Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1910-07-14
AN EDITORS VAGARIES.


been wandering in the realms of fancy |
and has given itself over to freak jour
nalism. During the frequent excita-
lions accompanying its repeated convul-
sions, The Times has created and at
tempted to foist upon the public various
plans of campaign, sundry issues and
numerous political sentiments and pur-
poses; and has persistently insisted that
the Republicans of the Ninth District
accept the paternity of its own begot-
ten fancies.
The Times first sought to inject the
negro issue into the campaign in the
Ninth by asserting that the Republicans
out here were anxious to restore suf-
frage to the illiterate and vicious ne
groes of Eastern Virginia, whose bal |
lots the Democrats had stolen and |
counted against the white Republicans
for the twenty years preceding the dis
VI OAC6C uCkIOCo. W men
The Times was blocked and defeated in
this undertaking, it tried to introduce
The Great Trunk Issue" and the
Oppressed Tenantry" issue, and sad
die their paternity on the Republicans
Of this district. Being defeated in these
successive endeavors our Roanoke con-
temporary sought to make a new issue
by contrasting election methods in Re-
publican West Virginia with election
methods in Democratic Virginia; and
incidentally introduce Herewith its
time-worn negro issue. In 1.-The pro-
fuse and diffuse discretion" wherein The
Times struggled to create a novel issue
our contemporary INDUCED in the fol-
lowing reckless and absurd statement:
I'VE invite the attention of the Dem
ocrats and the people of We st Virginia
and of the Ninth and Fifth Districts es-
pecially to what Republicanism means
In Southern State. Where we have
Democratic rule we rid ourselves of
election rascalities, of fraud and trick
cry, of even the baneful and destroying
power of the negro in politics"
This statement was met and disprov-
ed with the publishing in The Tazewell
Republican of a confession made two
years ago by the editor of The Roanoke
Times, that for twenty years, from 1888
to 1908, the Democrats had controlled
Virginia by the use of perjurers, thieves,
thugs and forgers-in his confession de-
claring:
1--WE taught them how to steal bal
lots, to obstruct voters, to forge poll
lists, to alter returns, to play tricks of
low cunning. We laughed and applaud
ed secretly and joined our miserable
tools in their lies by lying for them, de-
Tending them in the courts, covering up
their offenses, accepting the results of
their work"
This was how the Democratic State
of Virginia was rid ''of election rascali-
ties, of fraud and trickery" for a twen-
ty-year period of Democratic rule.
The Times now admits that this con-
fession was made, but offers the same
old pleas of limitations and extenuatin0
conditions CT circumstances-thep pleas
that are always employed by the dis
honest and criminal when brought to
the bar of Judgment.
And The Times again offers its plea
of confession and avoidance, claiming
that the humiiating confession was
made while ''the present editor-in-chief
of the Roanoke Times, then in another
field, was very earnestly contending
for such changes in the constitution as
would make election frauds unneces-
sary."
The confession was made at no such |
time, and we have right to believe,
from the above language, with no love |
for honest politics, but only for the
sake of expediency. The confession |
was made during the Rhea-Stuart en-
broilment, when the Richmond News
Leader was expressing its horror at the
Rhea methods, and the Machine Demo-
Gratis were hurting their contempt at
Stuart for giving those methods away.
Then when the News Leader was try
ing to offer the same plea of justifica-
ton or extenuating circumstances the
plea was met with positive denial by