Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1912-06-13
WATSON on H0kE SMITH AND
THE JOURNAL.

Tom Watson recently wrote a very
entertaining letter to the Atlanta
Journal, telling how Hoke Smith Sc
cured his support in his first guber-
Material race, and how he afterwards
discredfted the assistance that Wat
son had given him and fell down on
his promises. 1t is an interesting
contribution to the Georgia political
history of recent years
Watson was supporting Pope
Brown, who had adopted the doctrine
of negro ACKNOWLEDGMENT, of which
Watson claims to have been the orig
inator in Georgia, with Tom Hardwick
as a weak me-too. Hoke Smith was
"butting in" but with no assurance OF
appealing to popular support. Hoke
Smith, Watson says, had previously
been opposed to negro disfranchise-
ment, had been a staunch advocate of
the higher education of the negro and
was much in favor with the Northern
elements endorsing Booker Washing
/ ton. This sort of thing did not tend
! TO make him a popular candidate.
| Pope Brown was not sufficiently
steadfast to suit Watson, and in an
incidental conversation with Hard
wick he expressed the hope that
Brown would keep quiet and sit steady
! in the boat.
Hardwick, Watson says, took ad-
vantage of this casual remark, rushed
to Pope Brown, urged him to quit the
race as Watson was opposed to him,
and frightened the genial gentleman
| from Pulaski out of the field. Hard
wick then saw his friend Hoke Smith.
and carried from him to Watson the
1ews that Hoke was willing and eager
to take up the Watsonian doctrines.
Hoke Smith, Watson says, confirmed
| this, had an editorial inserted in the
Atlanta Journal praising Watson and
welcoming him, as it were, back into
the Democratic fold, and, by request
of Watson, followed this up with a
eulogy of Watson in a public speech
in Watson's bailiwick.
This brought the support of Watson
and his old populistic followers to
Hoke Smith. Watson says it was only
by this conversion to Watsons views
ON negro Acknowledgement and other
public questions that Smith won the
governorship.
Smith had hardly been assured of
his election as governor Watson says,
before he turned coat, the Journal be-
gan to minimize the work the inf1u-
ence of Watson and his followers, and
then, to cap it all, Smith turned
against the county unit system. This
proved his undoing in the next cleo g.
ton, as Watson sees it,
Watson closes his letter with a
condensed summary of his views as
to the Atlanta Journal They are
retty severe. but that there is 2
solid measure of truth in them no one
who has followed the political course
of the Journal in the Smith-Brown
fights, and other state political bal
ties, can deny. Here is Watson's pic
ture of the Journal:
You and your man Smith are in q
pretty bad way, but you yourselves
are to blame for it.
You do not keep faith with the
! reoDle-you do not even try to keep
faith with them.
You indulge in too much hypocrisy.
| you indulge in too much mean.
ness.
you won't give fair treatment tc
your opponent.
you indulge in too much vilifca-
ton.
You make too many accusations
that you cannot sustain.
"You accuse your antagonist of all
sorts of deals, and after the cam
paigns are over, the conventions held
and adjourned, your accusations turn
out to be mere malicious fbrications.
You have done this so often no
one will believe you when you are
attacking some one who opposes your
man Smith.
you even stoop to the infamy of
putting false headlines over commun-
ications which you do not dare to re-
fuse to print.
Let me suggest you take a trip to
Hot Springs, Ark, and have some of
the virus of unmitigated, monotonous
AMI comprehensive meanness stewed
cut of your system"