The St. Lucie County tribune. (Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Fla.) 1905-1920, 1910-08-19

ON PRINCIPLE:
Saturday Evening Post Pays HON.
age to FlOrida's New Senator
MAGNETIC CHARACTER
Valuable Acquisition to Body That Needs
Shaking Up-Credit Given Broward
for Increase in Land Values

The following article appears on the
editorial pages of the Saturday Even
ing Post for August Goth, and shows
the interest taken throughout the
United States in the election of Ma
pOleon B. BrOward 10 the United States
Senate:
There have been plenty of filibusters
the deed the United States Senate
and plenty of filibusters the men in
the same profound conclave, but some
how the adventure pales into sickly
mauve when one considers Senator Bill
Stone filibustering in whisper, or
Battle Bob LaFOllette performing the
same daring deed in pompadour, or
Senator Carter casting his paint-brush
whiskers to the breeze of his own ver-
bosity and declaring he will stand and
talk on that spot forever and day lest
this iniquity shall perish. Loud ap-
plause.)
We are prone-that is, we would fain
think of fiibusters as brave and hardy
men scooting on piratical ships out of
some port in some country and sailing
country bent on deeds of high emprise,
seeking to set up new government or
ser down an old one and delivering arms
munitions and patriots to the oppressed
or the Oppressor. depending on which
high contracting party Is most liberal
with the coin. Now, Senate filibuster
cannot rightfully be said to be deed
of high or even low emprise. 1t is
deed Of conversation, mostly of language
not necessarily coherent or cohesive,
but just language, and it is engaged in
for the purpose of holding up some leg
islation pending unless the filibuster
gets into that bill his particular pet
appropriation or his particular pet idea.
The rules of the Senate allow unlimited
debate. Hence. any Senator who has
a grievance or graft has no restrict
ion, save physical and tracheal, on the
amount of filibustering he may do. He
need have no thoughts! He must have
words.
So, we have seen filibuster after
filibuster, ranging in violence and fero-
city, from the one Ben Tillman conduct
ed against the naval bill in the closing
days of Congress for the purpose Of
getting something for the Charleston
Navy Yard to the noiseless one of Bill
Stone against the financial BILL / must
confess that the various filibusters,
brave and fearless though they may
have been, have not inspired any partic-
ular amount of awe or enthusiasm.
They have seemed like lot of garru-
lous men talking their venerable heads
off.
But have you heard the news from
Florida?
The United States Senate, by virtue
of the recent primaries which will be
ratified by the legislature, has acquir-
ed a sure.enough filibuster, d real
flibuster, a flibusterino, in the person
of Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, who
is to succeed Senator TaliaferrO-pro-
nounced Toliver- having defeated Tai
iaferro-nOw pronounced Mud the
second primary held in that state.
Napoleon Bonaparte Broward is no con-
versational, languagiferOus tilibuster
He is the goods, the material. He and
two others built the famous tug, The
Three Friends, and they ran in eight
cargoes of guns, powder and malarial
Cubans to aid the sacred cause Of Cuba
Lihre.
Broward and Dynamite Johnny
0 Brien made shoots at the Spanish
gunboats for the greater part of two
years, sliding across to the fair but de.
vastated land time and time again, be-
ing shot at, cha sed, held up, searched
and all but scuttled, but getting there
each time and landing their cargoes
where said cargOes were most needed
to help put a dent in Weyler. That
was fillbusterng as was filibustering,
and Napoleon Bonaparte BrOward, soon
to-be United States Senator, was the
active spirit. If no starts to run
filibuster in the Senate even the heavy
guns of Hepburn or Hale or Aldrich
will not scare him. He'll put his cargo
in the bill he wants it in. or there will
be muss that will be historic, for this
person. Broward, is set and determined
in his ways and sings the battle from
afar.
We are constantly finding in the biOg-
raphies of our statesmen records of
that should make any
boy think he has chance.
Still, doubt if any Senator came up
through so many difficulties as Broward
or made so much of small beginning.
He was born in direst poverty, in Duval
County, Florida, in 1857. After the
war his family moved back to the farm
in Duval county and found it wrecked
and ruined. Father, mother, the boys
and girls went to work to clear up some
of the land. suffered from malaria. eked
out scanty living with the help of
snch uame IN conId he shOt and anch