The Semi-weekly leader. (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1905-1941, 1919-06-07
GUBERNATORIAL CAN
DIDATES ARE BUSY
But Race Drags Along With Lit.
tie ''Pep" or Enthusiasm
Being Shown.


Jackson, Miss.-The gubernatorial
race continues to drag its weary
length along, creating little interest
and not modicum of enthusiasm.
This is something unusual for Miss
issippi-in fact, the-.oldest inhabi-
tant" never experienced anything
like it in statewide election, and
they are wondering why.
Various and sundry reasons are
assigned, but the most generally ac-
cepted explanation is that the peo-
pie are too busy trying to make an
honest living to spend day. or a
half day, out of their fields, shops,
factories, or other places of business,
boosting some candidate they never
saw for office. 1t costs money, 1t is
argued, to stop work day and
stand around school house, court
house or brush arbor listening to
political powwow. The farm hand is
drawing down from $3.50 to $2.O0
per day, the ordinary day laborer is
making from $3.50 to $500 per day.
the carpenter, the bricklayer, the
plasterer, painter, plumber or any
other mechanic is paid from Sc to So
per day. The farmers time is worth
Just as much, and they do not see
where it pays them to lose a day in
the interest of any candidate.
The four candidates for governor
are doing their duty, as they see it.
They are billing the towns week
in advance of their coming and II
they do not get as large audiences as
they think they should have at many
of their one-night stands, they md
consolation in the thought that
their opponent did not have so many
voters out to hear them as he did.
These candidates are all possessed
of the gift of oratory in just as emil
nent degree as was any man who in
years gone by has made a canvass OF
the state. They come as near being
born orators" as most any can@i-
date for gubernatorial honors during
the last decade. They are perhaps
Just as good and deserving citizens
as any man who ever asked to be
made governor of the states and are
making the closest canvass that was
ever made of Mississippi. That may
be one reason few, IL any. large au-
dienees are reported, and the stand
ing room only sign has not been dis
played at any Of their stopping pla-
ces.
In former years it was the rule
that candidates for such exalted Of
fees spoke only at country towns
and the voters gathered from way
up in the forks of the creek, from
the four corners of the county
leaving home before daylight and re-
turning most any old time of the
night. Then the voters went to hear
the speakers the speakers go
to the voters-delivering themselves
at dozen crossroads or every lit
tie voting precinct in the county. In
stead Of one large audience they thus
get several small ones, and perhaps,
after all, there is more interest than
appears on the surface.
EACH CLAIMS LEAD.
Each candidate continues to claim
and to maintain that he is the "lead-
ing" candidate, and their campaign
managers are flooding the state with
that kind of propaganda. 1t is pos
sible that all of them believe that,
having boasted 1t SO often, but nat
urally three of them are mistaken.
The voters are not so sure that any
candidate is in the lead now, but
some of them are ready to bet their
money that one or the other will not
be nominated on the first round of
ballots. A bet of $100 was put up
here this week that Ross Collins
would get more votes in the first pri-
mary than will Lee Russell, and Col
Inns stock went skyward, for short
distance.
The bet most frequently registered
is as to whether the second primary
will be between Johnson and Longi-
no, johnson and Russell, or Longinc
and Russell. At this writing the
majority Of voters seem to believe
that Russell will go into the second
primary. That is because they are
convinced he is backed by the great
majority of the old-fine Vardaman
and Bilbo followers who have not as
yet deserted those two erstwhile
leaders. Meanwhile the Collins men
are confident that he is going to fall
heir to great many former Varda-
man and Bilbo votes especially to
those of men who have repudiated
one or both of them.
1t is conceded by great many
that Longino, the last candidate to
get into the race, is the man the 9TH
Ter fellows must beat-the only Ques-
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