The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1910-06-24
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I THE TUG BOAT CAPTAIN
f FOR u. S. SENATOR. }
New York SUM
New York SUM

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The voters of Florida seem TO have
believed the Hon. Napoleon Broward,
and not his political opponents who
charged him with acquiring 81, 900 acres
of land in the Everglades venally while
serving the people as governor. The
primary returns indicate that he will re-
place the Hon. James Piper Taliaferro
as senator at Washington. In the cam
paign that closed on Monday the land
deal OF the retainer of the camping
ground of the Seminoles was the great
personal issue; the tariff, the trusts, high
cost of living dwindled before it. The
Hon. Napoleon Broward pleaded that
the tract of swamp, saw grass, scrub pine
and ragged palmetto was legitimate
business commission which he had a
right to accept as a citizen who happened
10 be governor. The primary has de-
cided. The verdict is not guilty. A
closed incident
The name of the Hon. James Piper
Taliaferro has not been conspicuous in
reports of senate debates recently. The
court of commerce bill was pushed
through without him. He has been
absent in the Peninsula looking after his
fences and contending with the rising
Broward tide. Merely banker and
man of business with good education,
his case was probably hopeless in a
popular contest with the tugboat cap
tain, the battle SCARED commander of
the Three Friends. There was nothing
in the career of Senator Taliaferro that
stirred the Imagination. He could hard
ly expect to measure two industrious
and respectable terms in the senate
against the romantic struggle upward
from obscurity of the Hon. Napoleon
Broward. Besides, Mr.. Taliaferro was
not a son OF Florida. He had never
whitfield wateroak pins for the raftsmen,
or driven razorback hogs through the
scrub, or shipped as cook and fireman
on a ST. Johns River paddle steamboat,
OF fished on the Great Banks, or done
his turn as roustabout, or run the
Spanish blockade with Cubans and
Rcmingtons on an ocean going tug.
Napoleon Broward had done all these
things, this big, iron listed native son. "
Towboat captain, filibuster, wrecker, he
had already tested the opportunities the
primary system affords. No orator he;
Juot pldih nolHeSpuh, pine "oou Iioii-
dian; against the trusts, of course, and
the tariff barons, and for state rights
every time, giving the people what they
wanted in straight talk" A candidate
for governor. ''I'm going to stump
every crossroads village between Fer
nandina and Pensacola" he said, land
talk TO the farmers and the Crackers and
show them that their top ends were
meant to be used for something better
than hat racks"
And so he became governor, and be-
gan to reclaim the Everglades, towering
up as the great conServator who would
make cotton grow in the home of the
alligators, doubling the tillable soil OF
Florida Tallahassee was too confined
for such a genius. Washington was his
appointed field. The writing was on
the wall Captain Broward had tested
the primary and ii was indicated in his
person. Really it was only a question
of time when the Hon. James Piper
Taliaferro, who was evidently not made
of the best primary timber, would have
to retire in his favor.