The Marietta journal and courier., 1918-09-06
THIS CAMPAIGN

campaign!
We mean the one for United States
Senator.
How a man of the most ordinary
intelligence and capacity did succeed
in attaching himself to the coat-tail
of the President so firmly as to be
able to fool large number of real
good people in Georgia, for even a
short time.
How he succeeded in bartering
promises of federal patronage for the
support of the politicians of the va
rious sections of the state.
How he got from somewhere suf-
ficient money to make fty-thou-
sand dollar campaign, for he has now
spent more than half that sum in ad-
vertising himself.
How he is ever going to comply
with the law limiting expenditures
in the race to $4,000.
How he and his chief confederates
could keep the President fooled and
satisfied with his conduct during all
this long campaign.
He has been actively running and
spending most of his time in Georgia
for more than year.
How he has had no platform but a
claim of loyalty" while there can be
nc doubt that with few exceptions
every man in Georgia is just as loyal
as he.
1t is possible that he feels that hav-
ing fed more highly from the public
crib, a higher degree of loyalty has
been produced in him than can be at
tanned by an ordinary mortal
By the same reasoning he assumes
the right to pass upon the loyalty of
every other Georgian, and he has
made and enunciated the rule that
you are disloyal if you refuse to vote
for him.
His egotism is so great as to make
him absolutely obnoxious to people
accustomed to observing the ordinary
rules of society.
Neither he nor his most ardent fol-
lowers have in their widest fights of
praise, ever claimed that he was
successful business man. The con-
trary is too we'll known in Georgia.
Now here is our solution of this
great mystery. We have seen the
myth of William J. Harris as a great
patriot and statesman, grow and
grow and grow, and then shrink and
shrink and shrink
Personally the writer has under
stood it all the time, and here is just
how it was done.
When Mr.. Wilson offered for the
presidency, nay, even before, we were
his ardent admirer and supporter. He
was Southern man, and we knew he
was a good one. His candidacy grew
by leaps and bounds throughout the
country. He had lived in Georgia and
married here, and his wife had many
relatives here, among them one Ed
T. Brown of Atlanta lawyer
The roseate outlook for Mr.. Will
sons success caused Mr.. Brown, with
an associate, to assume charge of Mr..
Wilson's campaign in Georgia.
Mr.. William J. Harris also came
into the headquarters office as a clerk
or in some such capacity. By their
splendid ability, Mr.. Wilson did not
become sufficiently known in the
state to carry it, the people no doubt
believing he was of the same stripe as
his.wife's relative, and his campaign
managers in the state. He lost it then
by some 10000 votes.
After the election Col Ed 7. Brown
and Bill Harris just naturally drift
ed" toward Washington, and Col.
Brown, by reason of his kinship,
got into the White House and attach
ed himself to the family.
In the course of time Bill Harris
was put in chsAye fthe Census office,
and and when people wondered at
this it was the current explanation
in Washington that Bill Harris We
zone of the things" that Ed Brown
had Carried in at the back door" of
the White House.
Everybody who knows anything at
all about it knows that Departments
in Washington are run largely if not
exclusively by chief clerks, and not by
the political heads, therefore BNl
Harris got credit for making good.
Any other man in Cobb county
could have done the same. The salary
was the main thing about it.
Then after time the Census job
was giving out, and Bill had to have
another, so they put him on the new&'
created Federal Trade Commission.
This being a new thing they had