The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1910-04-20
WAR CRIES ring in
NEEDHAM'S EARS
Militant Democrats After His
Scalp, With Jim Holohan
as Head Scalper
Secretary j. F. Murray Writes
Soothing Thoughts on Birth,
Death and Politics

"A militant democracy purposes TO
avenge the tariff outrage by cutting.
slashing and otherwise manning Con-
gresham James Carson Needham. Cali
fornia's guardian and sponsor on the
ways and means committee.
Militant democracy would scalp
James Carson Needham If James Carson
wore his hair that way, which he does
not. Needham has been marked for
the slaughter. Democracy has chosen
Senator Jim Holohan as the executioner
of It's sentence upon the sixth district
statesman who prevented a ravenous
east from squeezing the California
lemon
The decree has been signed and the
preliminary details for the death march
are virtually agreed upon. The Payne
Aldrich atrocity is to be avenged, even
II at the expense of the democratic
state ticket. Rather than permit the
tariff crime to go unpublished Senator
A. E. Campbell of San Luis Obispo will
abandon the job of beating Attorney
General Webb and dedicate his voice to
the service of Holohan and the undoing
of Needham
The seers of the democratic state
central committee have charted an easy
route to the realm of political obscur
ity for Needham. Their observa lions
peradventure of a democratic doubt,
that 1t will be even easier to wipe out
the tariff insult by defeating Needham
than to avenge the Taft triumph by
canning Duncan McKinlay.
Needham may be expected to resist,
but democracy is prepared to prove the
utility of his efforts by showing that
the good republicans responsible for
Needham's continued hold on his con-
gressional job are clamoring for a
chance to get in behind Holohan. Ches-
ter III. Rowell, president of the Lin
coin Roosevelt league, is expressly ex-
cepted as one of the few good repub-
licans who will permit friendship for
Needham to blind them to the benificent
purposes of the state democracy.
Needham may find some consolation
in the thought that If he is to be Of
fered up as an atonement for the al
legged crimes of his party, the demo-
Gratis could not pick better man than
Holohan to conduct the exercises. His
experience as a statesman began with
his election to the senate from the
twenty ninth district by fusion of
democrats and independent republicans
in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties,
who were out to bend the Stats of
Lieutenant Governor Warren Porter.
He is a big, clean, strong, honest cit
izen. His legislative record is one in
which democracy may take a genuine
pride.
DIFFERENT MATTERS
Beating a republican congressman in
the sixth district and trouncing an or
ganization candidate for the senate in
the twenty-ninth are two very differ
ent matters. However, the congress
successful will not deprive the people
of his services. His term as senator
will not end until 1913. In his quest
for congressional laurels and the vindi-
cation of California's honor Holohan
stands to lose nothing but his time.
According to reports from Los An
geles the feathers ruff1ed in the demo-
cratic state conference have been
smoothed and all is quiet south of the
Tehachapi. Albert M Norton, who
threatened to run off the reservation,
and Tom Gibbons, the editor who apollo
gized for the belligerent attitude of his
paper by declaring that anything he
had said in print went double in per-
son. sat down to a love feast after the
conferees had departed.
Norton's leadership of the Los An
geles democracy was approved and the
two agreed that there should be no
factionalism in the fight for the nomi-
nation and election of Theodore A. Bell.
Tim Spellacy, oil magnate and former
chairman of the state central commit
tee, participated in the good cheer and
agreed to run for lieutenant governor.
Senator Campbell, who was carded for
the nomination for attorney general,
pulled out to help Senator Jim Holo-
han fight Congressman Needham, and
Joe Call was almost persuaded to run
for railroad commissioner In any
event 1t was agreed that If he did not
run for railroad commissioner he would
not run for the nomination for COVER
nor and his boosters agreed that the
man for governor was Bell.
POLITICAL CLASSIC
Secretary John +. Murray of the
democratic state central committee is
good man and kindly. He harbors
unkind suspicious of no man-that is
to say, no democrat. Murrays faith
In democrats, however, is not superior
to his knowledge of the weakness of
the flesh. He believes in the efficacy
of gentle admonition. Wherefore Muir
ray has issued a monograph entitled
Democratic Committeemens Respon-
sibility," which inevitably will claim
an imperishable place in the annals of
political classics.
BY way of breaking it gently to
his committeeman, Murray introduces
his monograph with these soothing
thoughts:
Man can not reason beyond birth
or death, yet he feels such a longing
for better things that we believe in
the Immortality OF the soul. Hence
time is but a segment In the circle of
our development or redemption
Murray has labored long In the cause
of democracy. The sorrows of his
service ring generously in the follow
ing chaste tip to the slothful:
1.-The man who accepts position of
trust in political organization accepts
an awful responsibility. Should clean
government fail for lack of effort on his
part will not the desolation of the null
titudes and filth Of government smear
his soul in the day Of judgment7 If
there be one member of the democratic
state central committee who is not do
ing the full measure of his duty to his
party I beg him to consider the des-
tiny of man."