The dispatch-news. [volume] (Lexington, S.C.) 1919-2001, 1922-09-06


sewer rat politicians, We'd with each
other in slandering, impugning anc
vomiting out their gangrene upon
him. They make me think of buz,
zard that sails over the beautiful
fields, orchards and vineyards. After
a whileit finds something that is
black, putrefied and foul smelling and
it lights upon it and begins to pull
and pull and pull. \ ;oi Of the South
Carolina human vultures when they
couldn't find anything black and rot
ten in this mans life tried to make
the public think they had. Like the
buzzard they flew over the kind
heart, good traits and many virtues
and lit on some little Inconsistency
Of his boyhood days or some little
mistake or imperfection Of his poll
tical career (and everything human
ity does is painted with imperfection)
and they have pulled, pulled, pulled
and magnified, and Pharisee-like
have strained at gnat and swallowed
q camel. They flew over the fact
that he was poor struggling boy
who worked his way through college
and who stood at his dying fathers
bed and promised that one day he
would be governor of South Carolina
They flew over the fact that New
berry county elected him for every
office he ever asked for and that for
years he was in the legislature and
state senate, that that good old aris-
tocratie City Of Newberry made him
mayor by an overwhelming majority
They sailed over the fact that when
South Carolina had voted for proili-
bition and they were trying to give
US the state dispensary instead, that
it was Cole L.. Blease who stood on
the floors Of the general assembly and
fought for prohibition. He was a
local optionist but the people of this
state had asked for prohibition and
he argued it was not right to give
them stone when they asked for
bread so he stood and preached that
we ought to have prohibition because
the majority of the people wanted it
They have also sailed over the fs CT
that when the poor cotton mill people
OF South Carolina were working from
six o'clock in the morning to six in
the evening in poorly ventilated mills
and were being commercialized and
fed into the machines of industry to
grind out dividends, when the bone
and sinew and the life blood Of poor
little pale faced, enemic. overworked ID
children were being capitalized, then
it was that Blease worked and fought
until better conditions and shorter
hours were given to the mill people
They sailed over the fact that
Blease worked for the betterment OF
rural schools, for the welfare of our
old soldiers and better pay for our un-
perpaid school teachers. They flew
over the fact that Blease worked and
preached for lower taxes and had the
will and nerve to veto useless and eX-
travagant appropriations and if our
general assembly had listened to
Blease there would not have been
thousands of dollars of unpaid taxes
today in South Carolina.
You can fool all the people some
Of the time, you can fool some of the
people all the time, but you cannot
fool all the people all the time. 1t
has dawned on our people that taxes
have doubled and tripled just as
Blease prophesied they would under
the Cooper-Manning administra ton
and unless economy and business eff
cheney is brought to bear on financial
affairs this state is really headed for
bankruptcy. They see that the real
government is not the chief eXecu-
tive, state offices and legislators. The
real power had passed from where il
was placed by the constitution into
the numerous boards and commits
sioners, appointed or elected at the
behest Of a small junta who have
their habitat not far from the Co.
lumbia State, whose share Of The
spoi.s is the state printing at two
hundred per cent. increase.
The people Of South Carolina know
hat Cole L. Blease was one Of the
greatest governors the state ever had
and the only governor we have had
for years who was not a jumping ia ck
and rubber stamp for the Columbia
r.1v I, ,Jne- . nd