Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1910-04-22

sion Of the Mississippi Legislature
last Friday:
"But, fellow Mississippians,
while the great papers have flash
ed this glad intelligence abroad to
buoy up the hopes Of the Demo
cracy of our free country, those
same great papers have carried an
intelligence which has saddened
the heart and caused the flush of
shame to mantle the brow of every
Mississippian. The shameless
story has been spread abroadcast
over the land that a Mississippi
Legislature had been debauched
and corrupted by son of Miss
issippi. Among strangers, seek
ing as best [ could to uphold the
dignity of the State whose com
mission I bore, knowing that that
commission hat been won as fair
ly and honorably as any ever held
by a son of Mississippi; knowing
that I had entered this political
struggle through no desire to
gratify a personal ambition; that
/ had cast my lot in it with those
who fought because they believed
that Mississippi was threatened
with a grave disaster in the elec-
tiOn of J. K. Vardaman; knowing
that | had forbidden those who
loved me at home to bear one cent
of the expense of the campaign
here, and had said to them that
there is no expense except the
legitimate expenses that attend a
prolonged stay in the capital
thank God no money has to be
spent on a Mississippi Legislature
knowing that no cent of my mon
ey nor of anybody else for my
benefit has been used to influence
the reSult-it seemed that the cup
was a bitter one for me. | had
come from no race of office seekers
(applauses), but from men who
always held honor above life,
country above self; an untarnish-
ed name had been handed to me
by my fOrefathers, and it was my
pride and my prayer that untarn'
ished still that name should go
from me to those who should bear
it hereafter.
"But the Indignation that
sprung from personal feelings was
swallowed up in the intention
that arose in me when | realized
that the name of the State of
Mississippi was to be dragged in
the mire of degradation for pOliti-
ch aggrandizement. The tele-
grams grew thicker, and the air
was full of rumOrs of foul deeds
done: lies and Slanders, and worse
than that, the intimatiOns, the
suggestions, the innuendOeS, the
unfathered questions for which no
man would stand, by which it
was sought to drag down the
names of those that Mississippi
has held in reverence-AndersOn,
Alexander, Byrd, Kyle, Critz and
Street as pure and able patriots
as the State has ever produced.
Their past characters were to be
no shield to the darts of calumny;
nay, how could the living hope to
go unscratched when the new
flied grave afforded no shield to
the character of one who has gone
from you to his reward since l
last was here with you. When
the name of Hoslip, who but late
ly filled a place here and for
whom you dug a grave in the
cemetery, was to be beSmlrched
by the foul charges that, because
through honest effort he had been
able to lift a mortgage that press
ed down upon his home, the
means to do it with must have
come into his hands from polluted
sources, and honest men looked
into each others faces and their
heart grew heavy and the stain of
shame mounted to their cheeks as
they asked each other in wonder,
can it be that sons of Mississippi
have stained, for political gain,
the name of Mississippi. Then
came your investigation, the most
searching that a Legislature has
ever made, where neither time nor
expense were spared, and then at
the end of it, there is left stand
ing on the stage a mark for the
scorn and contempt of all honest
men (applause) only one figure, a
characterless man, a self confessed
liar. self confessed accused bribe-
taker, and for his only ally, a
poor broken down shameless Wo-
man of the streets. Every repu
table witness named in cOrrObOra-
tion had shrunk back atfrighted
as if from contamination by touch