The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-04

Washington, July 3.-(Special.)-The Eighth district of Tennessee is in the west, It is a famous constituency, hls- toric for even the old Volunteer state, where politics was ever fervid, strenuous, and we may say more or less patriotic.
 Before the war the Eighth was pro- nouncedly whig In political sentiment, in- clined to Clay rather than to Jackson and its vote carried Tennessee against James K Polk in 1S44. It consists of lo counties, five of which are now repuo- lican due, no doubt, to the old Whis- gerry of that elder day when one of that party would support any measure that embraced the protective principle, such as the wool bill of the current democratic House of Representatives, that meets the approval of so many republicans and IS disappointing to so many democrats.
 The father of John Sharp Williams was democrat who repeatedly represented this constituency in Congress and in lsof J. D. c. Atkins, democrat, subseduent- ly of the Randall ik, however, represent ed it. beating Emerson Etheridge, the bulldog of Tennessee politics for many
 
 a genius in fact, whom James G. Blaine held to be the most dangerous adversary in a rough and tumble parliamentary me- | lee of his day. He was several times elected to Congress, and was in turn whig kuow-nothing and union man. In | 1861, or it might have been in 1863, he | was elected clerk of the republican na- | tional House of Representatives. He was | not as strong a man as Andy Johnson, | or William C.. Brownlow, not so able as Horace Maynard, not so eloquent as Thomas A. R. Nelson, but he lent enor- nous aid to these in conserving the union sentiment in Tennessee that worked | so disastrously to the Confederate gov- ernment As much as to Ben Hardin him. self did John Randolph's haracterization- | "a kitchen knife whetted on brickbat'- apply to Emerson Etheridge. But we cannot estimate him now, for there is | none such as he left in public life. It Is
 not certain that his like would be tol-
 parts, biting wit. cruel invective, a great
 CT David Crockett.
 4
 consecutive term in Congress from the Eighth district, the only doubtful con
 stituency in Tennessee. He is native of
 the state. A farm boy. he managed to
 acquire an excellent academic education. Then he attended the famous law school of Cumberland university and was grad
 uatcd thence That was in 1876. when
 he was "A years old He located at the
 small town of Linden, and practiced his | profession with success, as all children
 of plain common sense ever must. A
 marked man from the start, he was chosen to several responsible official posi-
 tions. In 1899 he was the successfui pres-
 idential elector on the democratic ticke'' and four years later he was returheu
 to Congress of which body he mas pee" 1 member ever since.
 r don't see how Congress could well get
 along without numerous members hNe
 Sims. great deal of its work-mos. oi IF in fact-is non-political and requires men of respectable talents and inveterate industry. Sims has these. and they nave
 .tood him in excellent stead every ses- 1 s,on. He ais pre-eminently wise coun-
 sellor. Of course he is not the brilliant ren,us the late E. w. CRrmack was; but ,f, carmack had had the patience to ac'
 upon the advice Sims urged upon him. Carmack would be living and the first
 men in the United States Senate Th'