Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1913-08-27
Can McL.aurin Come Back?

INSeG, unTepuQldLeu report LudI pun
licity bureau or political headquar
ters will be opened soon in this city
for the advocacy of former Senator
John Z. McLaurin's candidacy fol
governor indicates the tentative pur.
pose, at least, of the Marlboro states
man to get into the approaching
gubernatorial derby.
We had not seriously considered
the political gossip associating Mr..
McLaurin's name with the campaign
for governor, as we did not think
he could seriously consider it him.
self. But it seems we were mistaken
in this, and it becomes matter for
curious speculation to conjecture on
what grounds Mr.. McLaulin bases
his hopes that he can come baok'
into the major politics of South
Carolina. Can it be that Mr.. McLau-
rim imagines the memory of the
people is 80 short that they have
forgotten the unacoountable and un-
precedented episode of his political
apostasy of scarcely more than a
decade ago? The people of South
Carolina have stood for some ex-
traordinary things, but they have
never in a single instance in record
ed or traditional history forgiven
and condoned in6delity. Their fault
in this respect, if they have any, is
in the opposite direction. They have
been intoierant of political diver
gence and deviation even when this
has been clearly prompted on ex-
plicable grounds, and by high and
patriotic motive. How, then, can
Mr.. McLaurin expect them to over
look or forget his inexplicable con-
version to Republican policies and
his undisguised airtatation with
the Republican political powers on
the very threshold of his senatorial
career when he wentTo the highest
legislative body in the land holding
the commission of South Carolina
by grace of the Democratic party
of his state and pledged to uphold
the principles and policies Of that
party?
Supported by his own address
and swept along on the tide of Till
manism in the nineties, into which
he had cast his fortune, Mr.. Nc
Laurln rapidly rose through the
successive stages of state legislator,
attorney general, representative in
congress and, then, on the untimely
death of the beloved and lamented
Senator Joseph II. Earle, by ap-
pointment of Governor Ellerbe and
subsequent confirmation by the elec.
torate,he succeeded to the une1p!red
term of Greenville's first citizen and
statesman, and was entrusted with
the highest post in the gift of his
party and state.
Mr.. McLaurin's extravagant ad-
miration and fulsome laudation of
President Mckinley, who, with all
due reverence for the martyred
presidents deplorable taking off at
the hands of an assassin, was known
to be the facile instrument and tool
of Mark Hannaism, and his ready
transference of his left-handed 10y
atty and alteration to the Rough
Rider" president, Theodore Roose-
velt, are too fresh in the political
annals Of the state and nation, along
with the stirring incidents of the
time which they led up to.
Can Mr.. McLaurin imagine that
the people have forgotten how
wretchedly his political balloon col
lapsed into nothinguess when these
and other ackslidings and tergi-
versations provoked his former no
liticaI chief and sponsor, Senator
Tillman, to come to blows with him
on the floor of the United States
sena:e to the scandal of the state
and nation?
With all the advantages and
prestige of possession of the office,
Mr.. McLaurin did not have the
hardihood to come before his out
ragged constituents on the expiration
of his term and ask them to give
him another term in the senate.
And even at that, his alleged letter
of the time (since printed among
the Hearst disclosures) ito John D.
Archbold, asking, Archbold to fur
nish him .with Standard Oil money
to fight his (McLaurin's) Demo
cratic opposition in favor of the
mutual interests of himself and the
Standard Oil element, was not