The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1911-11-02
SEN. HOUK FLAYS
TRADERS IN OFFICES
FOR LIMITED CLASSES
Independents Want Senatorship
and to Get it Will Give Repub-
licans the Govefnorship.

"Trade has been made by the fusion
lists giving the next United States SEN
ator to the independent democrats and
the next governor to the republicans, y
said State Senator and ex-Congressman
John g. Houk yesterday in the lobby
of the Hermitage Hotel, while discuss
ing the Tennessee political situation to
some progressive republicans.
"Not only that, but the fusion lead
ers have agreed to practice hoax, by
which the state is to be turned over to
Taft" continued the senator. "In turn
the fusion management in Tennessee is
to receive money from the north, which,
added to the home fund contributed by
the corporations and the civil service
law-violating officeholders combine,
will enable the fusionists to block off
and 'boodleize' our state as it was nev.
er 'boodleized' before"
Senator Houk has just returned to
Nashville from Washington. He says
the national republican leaders at
Washington have been planning for
eighteen months to carry Tennessee
next year. He says they are not only
after Tennessee in an effert to break
the "Solid South" but that they are
preparing for inroads into other states.
They have their eyes OH Kentucky, &C.
cording to Senator Houk.
The great majority of Tennessee in
dependent democrats are willing to
bury factionalism and return to the
party, but it is said that certain of the
fusion leaders, obligated to Hooper and
the national republican organization
for material aid in former campaigns,
continue to persist in stirring up strife
by trying to force the rank and file to
alignments odious to them, when the
divided party is willing to bury the
hatchet and smoke the pipe of peace.
When Senator Houk was heard to
make the same remarks that had been
heard in Nashville for the past several
weeks that certain fusion leaders had
bargained with the national republi-
cans, he was asked for detailed state
ment of what he knew about it.
Senator Houk Tells of Fusionists'
Trade.
At the request of the reporter he
went to the public stenographer in the
hotel and dictated the following state
ment:
at appears the fusion leaders have
made an agreement with the joint fed
eral and state officeholders' ring, in
volving downright treachery to both
the democratic and republican parties.
1t is amazing so many intelligent peo.
pie of both parties can not see that the
fusion leade,s can not agree to harmo
ny in the democratic party, or the self.
control of the republican party, because
their outstanding contract forbids
They are tied and can not free them
selves from the understanding for the
time to demoralize the democratic par
ty, and bring the republican organiza-
tion under their dominion and control,
for tie personal ends and the benefit of
the officeholders' oligarchy, linked up
with the corporations which have
firrner grip on the courts and govern
ment of Tennessee than they have in
any state in the union. incidentally
shall remark that in days gone by the
whisky people of Tennessee refused to
accept temperate regulation and they
got radical legislation. They attempt
ed to run everything political. The
corporations are following the course
of the whisky people to the same re-
suit. They refuse to agree to temper
ate fellow-servant law and regulation;
want to control everything political,
and in the days to come they will find
themselves regulated by radical laws.
eyes, the fusion leaders by a misuse
of the federal and state offices and the
judicial power of the state, aided by
the corporations, are seeking deliber-
ately to temporarily cripple both the
old party organizations for the benefit
of limited Glasses. A trade has been
made by the fusionists, giving the next
United States senator TO the independ-
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