The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1916-09-17
OFFICIAL ORGAN CRISP COUNT
LIGHTING THE FIRES.

"A
n letter out of north Georgia that
brought with it the information that
Judge George had been eliminated
world without end from the race for
the Court of Appeals because he was
a Catholic! And so the returns In
dictate. Take your map of the state
and run down the list. Point out the
remote districts and then look where
Judee George didn't make a good
showing. You may be able to pu'
YOUR finger on them. If you know
the hill counties of north Georglr
where reside the people who love the
term "Hil Billies" you know how to
locate the remote districts.
This letter is not frame up. Il
ia authoritative and trustworthy ant
II not only advised that Judge
Georges doom is sealed in that sec
ton. but it also advised that the Cor
dele citizen who tried to helt
Judge George is a marked man.
buried politically,-friendships terml
nated,-the gate off the hinges, the
bucket in the we'll, and Old Tige dead!
This grave injustice, this dangerous
method of selecting public servants
came through an announcement from
Hickory Hill that Graham was Cath
Ole. When the news was heraldet
over the hills and down the valleys
in the great excitement the cOuriers
who handed the elecCon edicts from
mouth to mouth to be passed on, con
fused the name of George with Ora
ham. If Judge George, the best mai
of them all, is defeated, it will be due
largely to this bungling of the mes
sage which bore the orders of the
head of the clans
George is not a Catholic. And what's
more than all this, there have doubt
less been less than a dozen Catholics
through all the foot hills of the Blue
Ridge since Ferdinand De Soto hunted
gold there in the fifteenth century
The mountain trout plays in the blue
waters of north Georgia just as he
did the first day nature put him there
The great oaks lord it over the hill
sides just the same. The mountain
eer plies his trade as his forefathers
did when the first cabin was shaped
on the little clearing and still to this
good hour no Catholic has gone there
to modest civilization.
But the clansman's call went out
The fires were lighted. And on every
hill tie signal was sure and unmis
taxable George must be defeated!
Even the shadow of this native wire
grass cracker jurist, the best of them
all, 1--WE say it again. looks thin and
gaunt on the map where we have our
finger now.
If that message to the heads of the
clans in middle and south Georgia
had been garbed and enormously
translated from the code of Hickor!
Hill, results would have been the
same. Walter George would not have
had one in ten thousand of the votes
controlled in the printshop at Thomp-
son. 1t is a safe bet that he would
have gone back home in ignominious
defeat
1t is not our concern about what
becomes of the Catholic that brings
us to this dissertation. Their religi-
Gus entity is a thing apart. 1t is the
strange new yard stick that has been
used in measuring the man for pub
lie office that is now looming up lar
ger and larger People in this sec,
ton of the state know Judge George
and they know the man who asked
help for him in north Georgia. The
people here, most of them. know that
the Court of Appeals could not be
trusted to a better man of the four
teen who asked for place than Judge
George.