The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1910-06-10
SENATOR PERCY'S
GREAT SPEECH
To Joint Session Of the Legisla.
ture of the State of Mis-.
sissippi April Is, 1910.

Wv 80 ~" /
"Mr. Speaker, Members of the Mississippi
Legislature, Fellow-Democrats:
Il am glad to be with you again.
Much water has flowed by the mill since
/ last stood here and looked into your
faces, and it is good to have a chance
to talk with you again.
Coming from the national capitol, l
can bring you glad tidings for the ma
tional Democracy. The great party that
scarce more than a year ago was swept
into power by an overwhelming majority,
with a chief executive entering upon the
duties of his high office under brighter
auspices than ever attended the inaugu-
ration of any previous president, today
is like a rudderless ship wallowing in an
angry tempest.
"Already from Massachusetts, has come
the triumphant note of Democracy. Cap
plause.) The Republican speaker has
been battling for his life before a Repub-
lican house; the president has abandoned
the quiet and digniied seclusion of his
great office and is now going hither and
thither pleading and imploring with the
Republicans not to destroy their party.
The leader of the Indiana wing OF the
party has already defed and taunted
the established leaders of the Repub-
lican party for their broken pledges.
'Under the curse of its broken tariff
pledge the Republican party realizes It's
~foredoomed to go down in ignomlnlous
defeat. and the reasons that make that
defeat so certain are the reasons that
give value and worth to it.
.Why the bewildered leaders OF Re-
publicanism ask, has this storm swept
down upon us out of a cloudless sky, be-
cause we have broken a pledge given to
the people in the last Republican conven-
tionY Why, in all the years gone by we
have never kept party pledges, and sueh
q visitation has never before come upon
usf Why, now, are we assalled not only
by our enemies from without but Dy
those who have hitherto rallied to the
party cry withinf
They now know that with the blight
of ~sectionalism swept from the country,
with the people viewing the acts of their
rulers with clear eyes, not dimmed by
passion nor poisoned by prejudice, the
intelligence and manhood of America Is
asserting itself politically as never be-
fore in the history of this country, ana
that this party, and that any other party
that holds the reigns Of power, Is So'hS
to be held to a ~stricter accountability
for party pledges than ever heretofore IN
our history. And that is what spells
victory. assured victory, to a triumphant
Democracy, the party that lives close t'
the people and carries out the pledges
made by it in order to secure an cleo
ton, by vindicating them when that eiec
ton has been secured.
Shameless Story.
"But, NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., while tn
great papers have flashed this GLAD III
tellieence abroad to buoy up the hopes o
the Democracy of our entire country
those same great papers have carried a
-~v
intelligence which has saddened the hear
and caused the flush of shame to ma
tie the brow of every Mississippian. In
shameless story has been spread broa'
cast over the land that a MISSISSIPPI
legislature has been debauched and co
rupted by a son of Mississippi. Anon
strangers, seeking as best could TO u
hold the dignity of the state whose COZ
mission / bore, knowing that that COZ
mission had been won as fairly and
honorably as any ever held by a son
Mississippi, knowing that | had enter
this political struggle through no desl
to crafty a personal ambition, but | HI
cast my lot in with those VINO Iough' I
cause they believed that Mississippi W
threatened with a grave disaster IN t
election of James X. Vardaman; kno
ing that 1 had forbidden those who io'
me at home to bear one cent OF the
nense except the legitimate expenses II
attend q prolonged stay IN the capt.
thank God, no money has to be sp'
on a Mississippi legislature; know
that no cent of my money nor OF a
body else for my benefit had been u
10 influence the result, it seemed that
cun was a bitter n for me. l had &C
from no race of office seekers (applau'
b,,t from men who always held no
above life, country. above self; an un
ni.hsd name had bssn handed % ms