Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1916-10-08

7
the district. High and low, rich and
poor. farmer and stock raiser, plains
| man ana mountainccr. merchant and
manufacturer. laborer miner. profess
s!onal man--cvery Democrat in the
| Fighting Ninth"-is behind the cam
didate 10 man. and. what is more 10
the point. voters ny the score and
/ hundred in every county are coming
/ 10 his support, who in former years
I Tor one or more OF "A hundred reasons,
have voted for G. Bascom SIemp, the
( Republican incumbent
You Democrats have been trying
for fourteen years TO spell Slemp with
! Republicans taunt.
Lee Trinkle will G.. Bascom and
raise him :o0o." reply the Democrats.
making use of the tcrmnolory of "A
wcll-known household game.
They say that when Slemp was told
/ In Washington that Trinklc had been
nominated by the Democrats to oppose
/ him In the November election, he threw
back his head and laughed.
/ 1t is Tot recorded whether Mr.
! Slemp laughed in his sleeve or why
! he laughed at all. Perhaps il was at
the sheer audacity OF the Democrats
in undertaking to depose him from n
seat sat upon by the Slemps. father
and son, continuously since Virginia
/ adopted her new Constitution. Maybe
his mirth was invoked by the idea of
young barrister from Wythcville
Nenturing to measure arms with n
seasoned campaigner from whose belt
dangled the scalps of such Democratic
chieftains as Henry G. Stuart. General
II. A. Ayers and II. Tate Irvine.
HAVE GROWN STALWART
ON 4 MILITARY DIET
Ninth District politics lends itself
| easily to the Technology Of war.
Here Democracy has grown stalwart
on military dict. Since Lee surren-
dered at Appomattox, the Ninth Dis
trict OF Virginia has only once known
the luxury of a congressional election
in which two strong political factions
were not lighting for supremacy. That
was in 1907, when Slemp the younger
waA nominated to succeed Slemp the
elder. and the Democrats kept out OF
the fight. Even then there arose
rebel in the person OF David r. Bailey.
OF Bristol who jumped the regular
Republican traces and ran as An indie
pendent Republican, poor second.
In the course of his campaign he said
| harsh things against Mr.. Slenp-said
them very seriously, too-but the
wounds are healed now and both are
fighting shoulder 10 shoulder against
TriDkle.
In this district the two major
parties have never failed to lock horns
IN Eastern virginia the democrats de-
velop excitement by intraparty contests
by building little machines and anti
machines. In the Southwest, Democ-
racy Is one family welded together by
fifty years of warfare with the enemy
And SO nicely have the parties been
balanced in strength that In the TWEEN
ty-four congressional elections which
have been held in the Ninth District
since 1870, the Democrats have elected
their man twelve times and the Repub-
lican victories have numbered an even
dozen.
NINTH DISTRICT NOT
"NATURALLY" REPUBLICAN
Here ii is meet and proper to expose
the libel, assiduously cultivated by the
Republicans that the Ninth Virginia
District is naturally" Republican. The
heresy has been so thoroughly press
ACCENTED that>it has gained considera BILE
credence even in Democratic circles.
always in the East. however. In the
Southwest no such e-eminence has
ever been acknowledged, and at half
of the elections. as the record shows,
precisely the opposite has been demon
strated to be true.
The truth is that of all the districts
in Virginia. the Ninth is the most truly
DcmocratiO 1t was the Ninth in the
chaotic years which followed Appomat-
toX, that sent to Richmond solid dele
cations of white Democrats when tho
populous eastern districts packed the !
General Assembly with a motley crew |