The Washington times., 1918-07-03
PITCHFORK BEN
FOUGHT DEATH
9 YEARS AFTER
HEARING DOOM
BY BILL PRICE.

Ben Tillman once asked me to
write for an important publication,
which had requested it, q biography
It at the time, and kept putting it
off. regret that the request was
not complied with. because history
may not carry in the detail that it
should the early career of this pic
turesque figure in American politics;
this volcano of the forum; this rug
gedly honest champion of the rights
Of the common people," a phrase he
often used in his vitriolic speeches
AZ q young newspaper man in my
home State, South Carolina, follow
ed his meteoric rise; saw, felt and
wrote the bitter things that hap
pened while he was overturning
things there; saw pistols flashed
around him and his followers, once
helped to save him from an assassin's
gun, and, when he had reached the
Senate of the United States, which
he entered with deep prejudice star
ing at him from all corners, watched
his innate strength and greatness
overcome all this and more and put
aAhA NnG aims OA eAAoN
body.
Warned Of Coming Death.
Then, eight or nine years ago,
when he told me physicians informed
him that he was dying fast from
progressive paralysis, watched that
grim determination he possessed
fight the shadow OF death day in
and day out, holding the mystifying
monster at arm6 length for years
past the time allotted TO him by ex-
perts in diseases ravages. He did it.
too. with the same weapon that he
had conquered in politics, q bulldog
tenacity IN holding on and doing
what he believed to be right; stead
fly and vigorously following the di-
rections Of physicians as to stringent
diet and moderate exercise.
Watching "the old man" fight his
way through the most bitter political
campaigns, his life often in danger
and defying threats against him, It
V1S with q still greater admiration,
however Eruesome. that I kept track
II his grapple with death, his cour-
Age TO hEht on disease by abstemous-
mesa In diet. control Of his aggressive,
8crAppy nature. and daily devotion to
\ system OF exercise that greatly
aided him.
It almost broke the hearts Of his
colleagues In the Senate some years
ago when knowledge OF his condition
compelled them to set him aside in
20 which he would have attained had
hts health warranted He fought
agatnEt Il simply because at heart he
was q fighter, but all the time he
knew that he was @all IN" so far as
anything like the activities of the
original Ben TiIlmGn-
Ola EnMfties Forgot.
Down in South Carolina, where
twenty-odd years ago men hated each
other with the deviTs own hatred be-
canse OF him and his poIicies-fatherl
and son refusing to speak to each
other, brother arrayed against broth
er-it hurt them that the old scrapper
was nearly all in, but just the same
they continued to send him back to
the Senate, his former enemies join
ing with his lifelong supporters in !
piling up majorities for him in the
primaries against all opponents, no !
matter what their platforms or issues. |
1t was his desire and their wish that
he should die in harness.
There Is in no State in the country |
an exact parallel TO the intense bit |
terness that Tillman's entrance into |
the political arena caused in South |
Carolina unless II was In the same |
State ten years after the civil war,
when those people were Wrestling con-
troll from civil war carpet-baggers /
and grafters.
La Toilette confronts something OF
the same feeling in his own State. |
Vardaman Of Mississippi knows it to 4