The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-26
A BUCOLIC STATESMAN
By SAW NyARD

Vash.ngton October 25.-(Special.) )-Tne Hon. William Jasper Talbert of Edgefield county, has announced his candidature for United States senator from South Carolina Those of us who, when boys, devoured Parson Weems Life of Gen. Francis Marion, and who know the Hon. Jasper, will ever regret that the Hon. Talbert was not named Newton Jasper Talbert. MT. Talbert is not stranger in this town, where he soloized with pa triotc zeal for a full decade, begin ming with the Fifty-second Congress and closing with the Fifty-seventh. He IS the farmer in statesmanship, and was one of the leaders in the alliance move ment that set old South Carolina upside down and turned her inside out in the convulsion that made Benjamin R. Till man master of the situation and every man himself"
 Mr. Talbert beat George Tillman for Congress in 1892. George was Ben's older brother, and a very fine old man he was. He was in Congress many years, and al ways distinctively representative Of the old regime. He was a very candid man, nearly as blunt as his turbulent and more famous brother One day he gave a rather lurid opinion of Kentucky, whose resolutions of 'sS he declared taught the eouth secession, and when the test came instead of seceding, Kentucky sent 100000 white soldiers to whip the south back into the union.
 Talbert made his first appearance in Congress when the coinage question thrust the tariff question aside and as cended to the paramountcy. There were ether farmers in Congress-Lon Livings- ton, Jerry Simpson, Edward Funston, T. ]. Hudson, John Davis, William H. Hatch and so on and so on The farm CTS had just gained great victory in the election of Grover Cleveland to the presidency, and the people had ordered a thorough and honest revision of the tariff, an order they had given in 1882, 1884, 1886, and 1890. They gave the. order again In 1910. It has never been obeyed.
 But the farmer, the price of whose products is fixed in the gold markets abroad, insisted on establishing silver market at home in which to buy what merchandise he needed, about as wretched piece of husbandry as the mind of man ever conceived. So tariff reform was sac rsficed and a debased currency demanded But panic was on nduuSr anu IL Wiou6h' ! frightful ruin That panic was due to the increased and increasing volume of full legal tender silver money at the ratio of Is to 1, which had put every establish ment in the United States on the silver basis except the treasury Of the United States, that had to go into the market and borrow gold in order to maintain the purity of the two metals.
 But tariff reform was sacrificed, as 1t had been before, and as likely 1t will be again. During the seven years of Roose- welt we had the Philippine question, sue ceeded by the octopus chase, each of which served in turn to subordinate, if not to extinguish, the tariff issue. That is all your tariff ring wants-anythng to displace the tariff as the paramount. Is the democratic party going to play the donkey again? If not, let it begin right now to howl tariff and keep it up until Morrisonism is triumphant in the revenue law. Let us fix the tariff before we go out after other things to fix
 Jasper Talbert was very diligent in his task of solonism. He had been soldier Of the line in the Confederate army, and good one. He condemned your "cof- fee cooler and he hated your deserter He was always in evidence Friday nights when private pension bills. were consid- cred, when it was practically impossible to secure a quorum, and he never failed Go block a bill by demanding the pres- once of a quorum if the beneficiary was marked desertera as a great many of them were. Many republican members believed as he did; but they took advan- tage of his action to make political cap-