The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1910-07-14

hereafter act with the Democratic
party.
l have always regarded you as
Democrat of the Jeffersonian type. l
never. for a moment, thought that
your abandonment of the Democratic
organization changed your political
convictions. To me, you were still
Democrat under another name.
It is a pleasure for me now to re-
call that during the unhappy and un-
fortunate division of the white people
of Georgia. in the ninetieS, | gave
you full credit in the more than one
hundred speeches I made canvassing
the State, for sincerity and patriot
ism. While l had reason to believe
that some of the Populist leaders in
the United States were seeking for
spoils, it never occurred to me, for a
moment, that you were actuated by a
like motive.
Have you forgotten? If so, I beg
to recall a conversation we had
twenty years ago in the old Union
Depot at Atlanta. 1t was the even
ing you went down to my county,
where on the following day you de-
livered at Smarrs an address on the
political situation to a large assem-
bly, of people.
You were, at that time, contem-
plating the organization of a new
party. | entreated you to remain in
side the Democratic party, basing my
entreaties upon the proposition that
you would be stronger within than
without the ranks in the fight you
we're then making, and would there
after make for the triumph of Demo-
cratic principles. [ remember that
you went wildly over the whole stu
alton, and concluded with the state
ment that you did not think that any
thing could be accomplished with the
Democratic party, as it was then or
gained; that your judgment ad-
vised the formation of new party,
and your conscience assured you that
this was the proper course. After
combating as best [ could your OBJ
jections to the Democratic party, l
yielded everything when you stated
that you thought that your course
was right. I remember distinctly
telling you then, that if you thought
it was your conscientious duty to do
this, I had nothing more to say.
I was impressed then with the fact
that you felt a solemn obligation up
on yourself to establish a new party,
not for personal aggrandizement, but
solely in the interest of good govern
ment and the welfare of the people.
The sequel is a matter of history. of
which, you, like Caesar, can we'll say,
you are great part.
During the twenty years which
have elapsed you have greatly suf-
fered, but it is also true you have
greatly triumphed. You have done a
great uplifting work for your coun-
try. 1t has been wrought out in a
field of endeavOr where few have
achieved a parallel success. Indeed,
so far as the South is concerned, you
are the first man that has consecrated
literature to the political uplifting of
the people. All that I have ever read
from your pen has been devoted in
the main to the great purpose of re-
storing to the people their own, and
teaching them the true principles Of
free government
It is the most peculiar anomaly in
modern history that a people once
so free as we once so imbued with
the principles of free government,
should within century, after the es-
adjustment of the republic, have to
be retaught the elementary principles
of republican government. Of course,
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