The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1918-02-26
A STORMY PETREL OF
POLITICS REEAPPEARS
MARY ELLEN LEASE, WHO TOLD
FARMERS TO RAISE MORE
CORN AND LESS HELL"
Is CANDIDATE FOR UNITED
STATES SENATE in new YORK
Way Back Yonder She Played a
Mans Game in Politics. Neither
Asked Nor Gave Quarter. Once
Made Tour of Georgia.

MADE our OF Georgia.
Mary Ellen Lease, yes, the same
Mary Ellen who back in the days of
the farmers alliance and populism
advised the farmers to "raise less
corn and more hell" is a receptive
candidate for a seat in the United
States senate from New York.
Mrs. Lease, who then was resi-
dent of Kansas, it will be remember
ed, visited Georgia in the hey-day of
such notables as Lon Livingston,
Tom Watson, W. ]. Northern, w. L.
Peek and others, and triumphantly
toured the state and made it more
than hot with her burning, blister
ing oratory for the old-line politi-
clans, who were kept mighty busy
holding the democratic party togeth-
err.
Mrs. Lease wants it understood
that she has consulted no women
with respect to her candidacy and
doesn't intend to do so. She intimates
indeed, that the endorsement of a
feminine body, as such, would not be
warmly welcomed. She proposes to
run for senator not as a woman but
as a citizen and voter.
In the late SOS Mary Ellen Lease,
blazing the way through the political
wilderness, asked no quarter because
of the fact that nature had made her
woman, or did she give any. The
Anthonys, the Stantons, and the Will
lards had sought to annex women's
organizations to politics, but Mrs.
Lease played a mans game with men
and as a man, striking a mans blows
and winning mans fights.
Nobody came to understand this
better than Lorenzo D. Lewelling, the
first Of all pouplist governors, who
after appointing her the first and on
ly woman president of state board
of charities, sought to remove her.
She stuck to her job and in doing it
proved herself the better man of the
two.
Its this way, brother" she said
the other day. Mrs. Lease continues
to speak the language of the Metho-
dist class meeting, though her name
Is on the rolls of no church-the fer
vent right hand of fellowship Ian
guage that carried conviction when
she was organizing the horny handed
sons Of toll.
Its this way, brother. Some of
the finest men in this state pledged
me their support if I would only say
the word. | am not at liberty to re-
veal their names now, and anyway
the term of Wadsworth is
his name, isn't it?-doesn't expire
for three years. l told them l was
not anxious to hold Office, but that
| would cheerfully respond to any
call to service which might come"
Ful6llment of a Prophecy.
On a hot August night in 1896
Mrs. Lease, then the Kansas Joan of
Arc, the high priestess of populism,
the free silver Minerva, stood before
q sweltering, frenzied audience in
Cooper Union and uttered this pro-
phecy:
"The discovery and use of gun
powder brought royalty and labor to
common level, and the aristocracy
of royalty is dying out There are
those here tonight who will see the
last crowned head fall. But in the
place of the aristocracy of royalty
we find the aristocracy of gold, more
greedy and more disastrous to the
country. 1t too shall be dethroned."
Mrs. Lease recalled these words
the other day, more than 81 years af-
ter she had spoken them.
THE crowned heads are topping
off now" she said. "And the arts
tocrats of gold are passing, too. Men
and women no longer do obeisance to
self-appointed but government pro-