The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1916-10-23

To near him tell II, you d
think that walking 1000 miles on
Q rough trail across the bleak Ca
madam Rockies, or chopping a
homestead farm out of a Mt. Ia
coma wilderness before mountain
roads were built wasn't nearly so
hard a job as running for Pierce
county office.
But even the stiff job of cam
paigning on the democratic ticket
isn't enough to strike terror into
the heart of John Griffith. Pierce
county pioneer and candidate for
county sheriff.
1t has been some 30-odd years
now that the democrats have
been trying to get John to put
his name on the county ticket;
and now that they have finally
dragged him out and roped him,
there is no stopping him.
He hauls them at all sorts of
unearthly hours to out-of-the-way
places to tell the good voters of
Pierce why there's nothing left
for them to do but to vote for
Griffiths.
It's an Adventure.
Now that he's out at last, he's
out to win!
It's a fine adventure with him
this race for office-the same
kind of boyish adventure that
called him, lad scarcely out of
his teens, to leave his Ontario
home and try his fortune in the
unbroken northwest.
1t is the kind of sparkling-eyed
adventure that entertains no
thought of defeat, that is ready
to 60 the whole road to the last
gasp, and to take whatever comes.
Griffith is the sort of an ad-
venturer who delights in standing
on his own feet, who wants no.
body to haul him around by a
string.
He's as hard as nails.
When he says that he intends
to enforce the laws-that oil say
ing that has been worn thread
bare by SO many job seekers
you have a pretty good bunch
that if elected he won't wait for
anybody else to enforce the laws
for him.
At All Conventions.
Griffith has the reputation for
being the same kind of a demo-
crat. No amount of pulling and
hauling could make him anything
else but democrat.
Being a democrat is a part of
his existence, and it is pretty GER
tain that he'd starve before he'd
vote any other ticket.
He hasn't missed a democratic
county convention in the last 80
years.
Sometimes he has hoofed 1t 40
miles along rough trails with
pack on his back to get there;
other times he has spent his last
cent to be on hand for the roll
call.
He's working for Woodrow VIII
son and the whole democratic
ticket from top to bottom and he
doesn't care who knows it!
Lived Pioneer Life.
John Griffith has been too busy
carving living out of Pierce
county to run for political office
before.
There have been lean years on
HIS mountain homestead when he
has made his clothes out of gun
ny sacks, when he has Whitfield
the soles of his shoes out of noun
tain timber.
Some of them wouldn't fit
when he got them made, but he
kept them anyway.
81 have seen the time" he
says, when things were so quiet
in Tacoma that you could shoot
off a cannon down the length of
Pacific avenue and you wouldn't
hit a person.
In the early SOS, when Grif-
fifth picked out his homestead in
the Upper Muck country, now
known as the mountain road dis
trict, the only human beings who
broke in on the wilderness were
half breeds from the prairie who
occasionally went in to hunt and
trap.
He had heard OF the rich valley
land in the district from the lips
of a half breed in Tacoma and
had determined to go in for him
self and chop out his fortune:
Not Even a Horse.
There we're no roads when he
built his cabin and began to hew
a farm out of the forests. An
Indian trail from Indian Henry's
passed through his homestead to
Roy and Steilacoom. 1t was Is
miles by foot to Roy. the nearest
settlement, and 80 miles to Ia
coma.
He brought young girl wife
from the east to share his for
tunes.
When they needed supplies and
provisions, they had to hoof it the