Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1912-03-19

each limited to its allotted territory in the
west and the other in the east, just the campaign
for Mr. Underwood himself is confined to portions OF
the south. And so, in the approaching presidential
primary the people of this state must choose in the
main, between Wilson and Underwood.
OF these two, which is the more entitled to Geor-
gia's support?
If southern sentiment is to be the measure of our
choice, as Mr.. Underwood's promoters insist then
there can be no doubt that Woodrow Wilson has the
stronger, indeed, the only claim upon our loyalty
and suffrage. If desire the nomination ana
election of Democrat 10ho is southern bred and
born and lCho by all the intimate bonds of preside
and kindred linked to southern sympdthies, there
is but one man among all the candidates in the field
to t0hom zoe can turn-and that is Woodrow Wilson
Measured by such standard, Congressman I'm
derwood has no valid claim whatsoever upon the
people of this and other southern states yet curious
y enough, the interests back of his candidacy are
making this very test the burden of their appeal to
Georgians Surely, if they had looked a bit more
closely into this particular phase of their case they
would not have ventured upon ground treacherous
to their client.
1t is no sense personal discredit to Congressman
Underwood that by birth he is a Kentuckian of
Unionist family that his father clave to the north
in the strife of the sixties and Immediately after the
war moved his family far into Minnesota; or that
bama soil until 1884, when, like many ambitious
young men from the north, he was attracted by the
commercial developments at Birmingham
These circumstances, we repeat, in no wise dis
parage Congressman Underwood the man, lessen
our admiration of the success he has earned but by
the simple logic of history they do eliminate him
from the presidential contest in Georgia it, as his
own promoters insist, we should support a truly
southern for the nomination. And so it turns
out that every claim of this character 1ohich Mr. IN
deriOoodS friends advanced is in point of fact
fatal argument against their candidate and an
irresistible one for Woodrow Wilson, who by every
tie of family and tradition and temperament is not
only a southerner but Georgian we'll
In the February issue of McClures magazine there
appears a highly interesting sketch of Congressman
Underwood, written by Burton j. Hendrick. In tone
and purpose, it is thoroughly friendly to the con-
gresham, pointing out the many esrmabe qualities
of his character The writer speaks of Mr. Underwood
"a leader from the SOUTH, but he is evidently
pains to show that there are certain very marked
qualifications to Mr.. Underwoods "southernism." He
declares, for insance-and it is to be presumed that
he got his biographical facts from the subject of the
article
1t indeed by the narro'Oest margin that
Underwood became a southerer at ALL He barely
escaped being nOrtberner, Republican, and a
prOtectiORist. All his ancestral tendencies in
cIined in this direction His grandfather and his
father a0ere KentHckiGns, bat Kentuckians of
decided anionist Jennings. His grandfather, yo-
seph Rogers Underwood, oId-Iine Wing,
colleague Of Henry Clay in the United States SEN
ate, aud naturally a protectionist
All during the Underi0ood's grandfather
S0Gs leader of the unionist forces in Kentucky,
and he t0dS constantly consulted By Lincoln
questions of policy in the border states. Under
goods father, Eugene Underwood, prominent
Kentucky Idaoger, and one of the promoters Of the
Louisville and NdshvtIIe railroad, 10as also
northern sympdthizer. In the fan of 1865 he
moved his family, of Which the present chairman
of the t0ays and means committee toas the
youngest member, to the frontier state of Min
nesotd.
This change probably explains the fact that
moo Mr. Underwood speaks I0ith very slight
traces of the southern accent.
Now, if Congressman Underwood were seeking
Georga's vote the National Convention simply as
a candidate from the country at large or purely on
his inherent qualifications for leadership these facts
would have logical bearing the situation. We
should then be called upon to judge him a basis
of his individual merit alone, and by the likelihood
or the unlikelihood of his winning the election if
he were nominated. But since we are asked to sup
port him primarily a matter of sectional senti-
ment, compelled to measure him by just this
standard and, thus measured, his chief and indeed
only claim upon Georgians melts into thinnest air
If we really want a southener, and if we want a
real southerner for the Democratic nominee and for
the next president of the United States Woodrow
Wilson is the one and only candidate whom
consistently support.
He is root and fibre of both the Old South and
the New.
His parents shared the husks and the gloom
well as the abundance and the brighter days of his
native land.
He was southerner in 1866 as well as twenty
years later.
He is no less Georgian than Virginian.
In our own state, his father labored for the bet
torment of mankind and there Georgians still
living who remember the kindness of his ministry
In our own state, Woodrow Wilson himself spent
the formative years of his life and laid the ground
work of those splendid achievements which share
in pride today with the common country.
1t was in Georgia that he married the daughter