Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-04-20
The
Real Issue
Copyright. 1922. by the Macmillan Co.
fs-s-s-s~s~s-s-S-s-- by -'-'~s-s-s~s-S-s-sl
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

CopynGhts 1872 BY the MACMILLAN 20.
TT WAS near the close of a long
sessiOn-a session which had last
Il ed a winter and a spring and a
summer and threatened to push itself
into the first days of autumn, when
Wharton, the western member, who
had been in the house five terms, ION
Guided to pack his valise and go home.
The campaign was growing warm.
Nearly all Of the county conventions
had been held, and a majority of the
delegates elected were instructed for
him, which insured his denomination
If the three remaining counties in the
district did not go sOlidly against him..
He had laid his plan mechanically for
a denomination, and if he had stopped
to ask himself whether or not he really
wanted to come back to congress, he
would probably nave said &c. He was
tired, but he did not know why. He
thought he needed rest, that he had
been ~overworked, that he was played
out yet his private secretary, who
kept the run of the pension business
and did his routine work, did not seem
tired-the private secretary even had
refused a vacation, and it was at the
secretary's own request that he stayed
in Washington.
But Wharton, the western member,
was tired-dead tired, and he pictured
to himself the pleasures of going back
to his home in the little town of BaX-
for u,hara naon1a on tba Straatc who
had seen him grow up from a boy and
called him 'Tom," really were glad to
see him. Just before he had left his
rooms for the departing train his pri-
vate secretary had handed him the
days clippings and after he had been
riding for an hour or so, while he was
fumbling in his pockets for a match,
they tumbled out in a tight little roll.
He idly read them. He was used to
unjust abuse and sick of u~ncalled-for
praise. The first clipping was taken
from the Queen City Daily Herald; it
bore a Washington date line, and was
introduced by the words, Special to
the Herald 1t read:
They say here that Wharton of the
Fourth district, is beginning to feel
uneasy. He has received several let
tiers from his district that have con-
WINGED him that the Populist cyclone
has shaken down several lengths of
fence in Lee, Meade and Smith coun-
ties. Bill Heatley's strength is said to
be developing down there wonderfully.
The Hon. Ike Russell, who was here
last week looking for a job as receiver
of the Baxter National bank, was in
close consultation with Wharton three
OF the four nights he was here, and the
"old man. is wearing a hunted look
and is talking to himself. They say
down in the Fourth district that it will
take more than "Our Tom" Wharton's
hug to explain away his silver vote.
Wharton knew the correspondent and
only smiled as he tipped the wadded
clipping out of the car window. There
was a short editorial clipping from the
same paper. 1t read:
The dispatches say that Our Tom"
Wharton is wiggling in his seat and
trying to project his astral body in the
Fourth district to see how his fences
are, and at the anne time to keep his
corporal body in Washington to look
after Ike Russell's pie plate. If "Our
Tom doesn't fall down in his anxiety
to keep one foot in the "bloody Fourth"
n the other at the political bake
shop. he must be either a Colossus of
Rhodes or a ''quadrille dancer"
Wharton dropped that on the floor
and read another from the Smith Coun-
ty Farmers Friend. 1t was long and
full of double leads and "break lines"
and italics and exclamation points. 1t
was abusive in the extreme and closed
with this trade:
Now, let us reason together. Tom
Wharton has been in congress ten
years; he had been judge six years be-
fore entering congress, and county SUI
perintendent foul years before he was
Judge. Twenty years has this man
been in office; his total salary in that
time has been only $4,000. Yet he is
rated by the commercial agencies at
one-half million dollars. He has banks
and railroad stock; he owns mort
cages and farms. Where did he get
them? His time has been sold to the
people; he has been false to every
trust; he has voted with the East on
the money question he has neglected
the farmers at every turn. He is a
~garden-seed congressman; he comes
out here and haw-haws around, and
then goes back to vote with Wall
Straet Wall street knows its friends.
and sour Tom is worth one-half mil
lion dollars, lives in a mansion filled
With hammered brass at Baxter, while
he farmer foots the bills.
Wharton knew that the editor of the
armer's Friend had been a candidate
Or the post office at Smith City; that
lie himself had lent the editor money
md held his note for $500. He put
he clipping in his pocketbook with