Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1914-10-29

tne OnafIeStOn GazeJUe, is one OF the
best pen pictures of the plight of the
standpatters in West Virginia that it
has. been our pleasure to peruse.
We commend it to the thoughtful con-
sideration of the voters Of this
county:
No forsaken graveyard under the
shadows of the silent pines on the
tsp of lonesome hill a full days
journey from the outposts of No
where ever presented a scene more
gloomy than that of the stand-pat
camp in West Virginia and in Ka-
nawha county.
No worm-eaten corps under six
feet of soggy earth was ever quite
SO dead as the liveliest hope in the
heart of the most sanguine candidate
On the standpat ticket.
No silence was ever so dumb as
shat of the standpat orator.
And no sinner was ever headed
sHaighter for eternal doom than the
political aggregation in state and
county that now takes in mockery
the name of Abraham Lincoln, Gar
field and Mckinley.
The party press is silent, too-as
silent as the harp on which the chief
masician played his Psalms before
The throne of David.
There is nothin' dom, my lord the
party's petered- petered out with its
own sinfulnes. The candidates
realize it; the spellbinders know it;
the paid editors learned it when the
exchequer went bankrupt--and the
veters know the truth that will make
them free.
But on the other hand what :?
Suppose you stroll around to the
Democratic headquarters-or to the
Progressive stamping ground-and
see.
There is every line of confidence
everywhere but in the ranks of the
standpaters. The candidates are
hustling for voters; the speakers are
out; the press is working over time;
and the voters are falling into line
behind the banner of Democratic and
the bandwagon of the Moose.
The reasons for this state of af-
fairs are too well known to need re-
statement. The people of West Vir-
ginia realize that the standpat party
has served out it's term of useful
ness; they realize that the day of the
conservation is done-that the Tory
of the present day is about to sleep
with his father of the days of nc,
and that to follow the remnant of the
old party, now given over body and
soul to graft, is to follow it down to
political humiliation.
The people of the United States re-
pudiated the Republican party be-
cause that party, having strayed from
the pathway of earlier days, had be
come the party of plumber and not of
principle. In West Virginia, through
the Vaccinations of little bunch of
reactionary politicians of whom W.
NJ o. Dawson was one, the stand
patters succeeded in putting over their
ticket in 1912 succeeded in fooling
the people for the last time, got the
jobs, and set down with their lords
n +hoi, Paleba11 faoct
The people expected something
from the officers they had elected
They were told by the g. 0. p. wind
atrsets that the platform was pro-
gressive platform, and that the can
didates stood for Progressive prin-
ciples. The believed it. They are now
waking up to the fact that the ring in
temporary control of the states af-
fairs is the Same old old ring that it
was in the palmiest days of the Daw-
son regime. The same faces are
there even Dawson's sand the new
faces are all of those men who serv-
ed their masters in the old party or
ganization
Disappointed OF course not. No
man likes being fooled,and to be fool
ed by bunch of state house politi-
Gans of the standpat variety is
sypout the worst thing of all. The
/ people of West Virginia are now real
ling that in 1912 they were played
for suckers, and that the election of
the so-called progressive ticket in
that year was ''horse on them"
Hence the silence of the stand-pat
Yand the activities on the part of
those who have set themselves to
overthrow completely the rule of the
Tory in West Virginia.
Another thing is this:
The people are satisfied with the
national administration. That admin
istration is Democratic. 1t is every
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