The Southern herald., 1911-05-19
POINTERS IN SENATORIAL HISTORY

-AAS11sSlPPiS members Have All Been
chossa BY SO-called Secret caueuses.
Editor Daily News: As a Democrat
who has never scratched a DemOeratie
ticket or voted for a man or candidate
that was not a Democrat, for more than
a tAird OF a century, beg to say some
thing OF the later Democratic caucus and
Of our senior senator, the Hon. Leroy
Percy. Born in the empire county Of
Washington beside the great Father OF
Waters, he is a native to the manner
born, and Mississippi has not more de-
voted son. Every conception OF his brain,
every impulse of his veing, his every
heart thrOb is eOnseerated to the welfare
OF bis native state, and there is not in
the broad confines of this commonwealth
man more capable and better equipped,
physically, morally and mentally, and
who esteems it a higher privilege to up
hold her dignity and defend her honor on
any field and in any forum. As he him
self has said, he comes from no stock of
office seekers or offceholders, none of his
forsbears ever earned the title of per-
Petual candidate. 1t is within my own
knowledge that when that great Amer
iean, the one and only inaugurated Dem
Oeratie president of these United States
since 1857, Grover Cleveland, called to
his cabinet that great Mississippian, L.
Q. c. Lamar, that the then governor of
this state, Robert Lowry, than whom
Mississippi never had a governor nor
a son whose ideals were higher, and who
held to loftier standard the states dig
nifty and honor, was called upon to fill
the vacancy in the United States senate
caused by the going of Mr.. Lamar into
the cabinet, that he first rendered the
appointment to the "Grey Eagle of the
Delta, the father of our present SEN
ator, a worthy son of a noble sire"
While not unmindful of the confidence
reposed in him by the governor and to
the great honor which was sought to be
conferred, for a seat in the highest de-
Lucrative body in the worlu is not short
of the ambition or deserts of any Amer
lean that ever lived, he was constrained
to decline the appointment for the rea-
son that to have then accepted it would
have interfered with his domestic and
professional affairs and interrupted the
great work that he was then engaged in,
the rebuilding of the Mississippi levees
-nd with the promotion of the building
of that grand trunk line of railroad from
Memphis to Vicksburg and on through
the western borders of the state to New
Orleans, the metropolis of the South, and
with the promotion of the building of
of the then Georgia Pacific Railroad, now
the Southern Railroad, the charters of
both of which he had procured, and to-
day that magnificent system of leVees,
which is alike the pride and protection
of the valley, and that network of rail
roads which gridiron the delta and has
made it the garden spot of the world,
are perpetual monuments to the creative
genius, the forceful energy and the in
dOmitable will of William A. Percy.
Mississippi has ever been careful in
the selection of the men that she sent to
the United States senate, and in the long
list of illustrious names that represented
her from the advent of the state into the
union to the civil war, her senators were
men Of probity, honor patriotism, and
some of them of transcendant ability.
She never sent weakling or freak.
There was the great George Poindex-
ter, who stood the peer of his colleague
in the days when they were giants, and
who was made president pro TEN of the
senate. There was Robert ]. Walker,
that gifted son Of Pennsylvania, who lat
terly lost the love Of this people because
during the civil war he sided with the
country of his nativity, but who pos
sessed great ability and when he was
GreenvilIe Democrat; Mr.. Jas. X. Var
daman has apparently absolutely surren-