“Mr. Hudgins Replies to Mr. Ewbank,“
from the French Broad Hustler,
Hendersonville, Thursday, Oct. 24, 1918.
Editor of Hustler:
In a remarkable article by E.W. Ewbank published last week
in the Hustler he said a vote for Britt means hope for Germany. I propose to
vote for Britt and therefore, if Mr. Ewbank’s statement is true, I help
Germany, but anyone who says I help Germany tells a confounded lie. Everybody
with home I have discussed the said remarkable article believes this
contemptible subterfuge is being resorted solely for the purpose of getting
Democratic votes.
Now nobody doubts Mr. Ewbank’s hatred for the Huns, and
there seems to be rage within his patriotic breast but one passion greater and
that is his undying love for Miss Democracy.
Mr. Eubank feels sure he made his point clear, and he did,
but now is not the time to use such arguments. Things are too serious and times
to strenuous for his finely drawn theory, and the mere political destiny of a
candidate now holding an office to which he does not seem to have been honestly
elected does not justify the means employed. What does it matter if a
Republican Congress is elected? (and, by-the-way, that very thing is going to
happen.)
Do Mr. Eubank and The
Asheville Citizen mean to say Republicans can not stand back of the
President without outraging their feelings to the extent of voting the
Democratic ticket? Have not the Republicans in Congress supported the President
and essential war measures more strongly compared with numbers, than the
democrats? Does Senator Lodge’s utterances printed in bold type above Mr.
Ewbank’s misguided statements hold out any hope for Germany? Are not the two
statements most consistent and clearly contradictory?
Who, Mr. Editor, is attempting to disgrace and dishonor men
who perhaps have sons now in France where at any moment they may be called upon
to make the supreme sacrifice for those at home? And who is indirectly, if not
purposely, attempting to brand every man and woman who dares not vote the
Democratic ticket as holding out hope to Germany? It is hard to imagine what
some people would not do in the last extremity to secure political success.
--S.H.
Hudgins, October 23, 1918
-=-
“Mr. Staton’s
Circular,“ from the French Broad
Hustler, Hendersonville, Thursday, Oct.
24, 1918.
“A vote for James J. Britt means a vote of hope for the
German people. A vote for Weaver means a vote of doom to any hope of a
negotiated peace—peace that would suspend a German sword above the people of
the earth for all time to come.”
The above paragraph is an extract from an article signed by
E.W. Ewbank, who is chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of Henderson
County, and published in the French Broad Hustler of date Oct. 17, 1918. In
answer to this charge we submit the following facts:
James J. Britt has delivered 242 patriotic addresses; has
contributed liberally to the demands of the government for money with which to
carry on the war, and takes pride in the fact that two of his sons are now in
the trenches of France battling for the success of the cause for which we and
our allies have spent and are continuing to spend so much blood and treasure.
We, therefore, ask if it is right, patriotic or fair for any man to make such
false and unjust charges against his neighbors who differ with him politically,
and especially to attempt to launch a campaign of slander in the closing days
of the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign when all men and women, irrespective of party
or dreed, are working hard to promote the sale of the bonds from which will
come the money to feed and clothe our boys in the service and to furnish them
with ammunition and arms in order to make it so that the bloody drac of the Hun
will never been seen in our fair land.
We maintain that, of all times, this is the most inopportune
time for making charges of the character of those made by Mr. Ewbank in the
article from which the above quoted paragraph is taken, or when any dissension
should be brought about, or attempted to be brought about, among our people,
which would tend in any way to hamper the sale of bonds, or otherwise hinder
the successful prosecution of the war.
--Chairman Republican Ex. Committee of
Henderson County
-=-
“Mr. Ewbank Replies
to Critics of His Article in the
Hustler“, from the French Broad Hustler,
Hendersonville, Thursday, Oct. 24, 1918. Mr. Ewbank made liberal use of
capitalization in this article, and I am printing it here as it was printed in
the newspaper.
“HURRAH FOR ROOSEVELT!”
That’s what nearly a million independent Democrats cried in
the campaign of 1898 when the United States was at war with Spain, and Mr.
Roosevelt passionately pleaded the cause of the Republicans in this language:
“REMEMBER THAT WHETHER YOU WILL OR NOT, YOUR VOTES THIS YEAR
WILL BE VIEWED BY THE NATIONS OF EUROPE FROM ONE STANDPOINT ONLY. THEY WILL
DRAW NO FINE DISTINCTIONS. A REFUSAL TO SUSTAIN THE PRESIDENT THIS YEAR WILL,
IN THEIR EYES, BE READ AS A REFUSAL TO SUSTAIN THE WAR AND TO SUSTAIN THE
EFFORTS OF OUR PEACE COMMISSIONERS TO SECURE THE FRUITS OF WAR. SUCH A REFUSAL
MAY NOT INCONCEIVABLY BRING ABOUT A RUPTURE OF THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. IT WILL
GIVE HEART TO OUR DEFEATED ANTAGONIST; IT WILL MAKE POSSIBLE THE INTERFERENCE
OF THOSE DOUBTFUL NEUTRAL NATIONS WHO IN THIS STRUGGLE HAVE WISHED US ILL.”
And these Independent Democrats marched to the polls and
gave the Republican ticket a tremendous majority.
Again, hear ex-President Benjamin Harrison in the same
campaign:
“If the word goes forth that THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES
are standing solidly behind the President (McKinley) the task of the Peace
Commissioners will be easy, but if there is a break in the ranks—IF THE
DEMOCRATS score a telling victory—if Democratic Senators, Congressmen and
Governors are elected, SPAIN WILL SEE IN IT a gleam of HOPE. SHE will TAKE
FRESH HOPE, and a renewal of hostilities, MORE WAR, may be necessary to secure
to us what we have already won.”
Yet again, read what the New York Sun—President McKinley’s
great New York mouth-piece, declared in that memorably campaign of 1898, when
we were warring with Spain:
“WE ARE AT WAR WITH SPAIN, PEACE COMMISSIONS AND PEACE
JUBILEES TO THE COUNTRARY, NOTWITHSTANDING. UPON PRESIDENT McKINLEY AND HIS
ADMINISTRATION ARE YET THE BURDENS AND REPSONSIBILITES OF A STATE OF WAR NOT
YET TERMINATED. AND UPON ALL PATRIOTIC CITIZENS OF EVERY POLITICAL PARTY RESTS
THE DUTY OF SUPPORTING THE ADMINISTRATION AND SUSTAINING THE NATION’S CAUSE
AGAINST ALL FOREIGN ENEMIES, BOTH BY VOICE AND BY VOTE.”
On June 9th, 1864, Abraham Lincoln—a man long
revered as one of the great men of our country by Democrats and Republicans
alike—said concerning his own candidacy for re-election:
“I HAVE NOT PERMITTED MYSELF TO CONCLUDE THAT I AM THE BEST
MAN IN AMERICA, BUT I AM REMINDED IN THIS CONNECTION OF A STORY OF AN OLD DUTCH
FARMER WHO REMARKED TO A COMPAION THAT ‘IT IS NOT BEST TO SWAP HORSES WHILE
CROSSING A STREAM.’’’
I can produce reams of like appeals made by the great
leaders of the Republican party in 1898, but the above is sufficient to show
that the Chairman of the Republican party in Henderson county is woefully
ignorant of the utterances of his leaders when he declares in a hand-bill now
being distributed in a reply to a letter of mine published in the Hustler on
October 17th, epitomizing the appeals of Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Harrison
and Mr. McKinley’s spokesmen in the Spanish-American war, and asking the voters
of the country “OF EVERY POLITICAL PARTY” to sustain the President and his
administration in this war, my letter to be “slanderous.”
What President Harrison said would be a “GLEAM OF HOPE FOR
SPAIN” if the Democrats did not support the (Republican) president in 1898, Mr.
Staton now characterizes as “false and unjust charges” when I say that “a vote
for James J. Britt means a VOTE OF HOPE for the German people” if the
Republicans to not support the Administration for the very same reasons in
1918!
In short, Mr. Staton says in his leaflet in reply to my
appeal that what was the cry of patriotism on the part of HIS LEADERS in 1898
is now the voice of “slander” when I invoke it in almost identical language of
his leaders, in behalf of Mr. Weaver and the Democratic Administration, which
is “YET BURDENED WITH THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A STATE OF WAR.”
It is noteworthy that Mr. Britt’s Manager, Hon. Brownlow
Jackson, has, so far, preferred to appeal for support of his candidate upon the
high ground of his intellectual and moral fitness rather than to descend to the
cheap fol-de-rol of denouncing an appeal that HIS OWN leaders justly made with
him politically, and as launching a campaign of slander when I make the SAME
APPEAL on the SAME GROUNDS in behalf of the party now conducting the war
against Germany.
I have a much higher regard and appreciation of the Republicans
of Henderson County than Mr. Staton seems to have since I do not think that it
would affect their subscriptions to the Liberty loans and Thurift Stamps a
particle even if I had been foolish enough to publish an “unjust” or
“slanderous” article about them. On the contrary, I have faith enough in their
patriotism to believe they would have “turned their pockets wrong side out” in
buying bonds and stamps to refute it!
Furthermore, I take great pride in the fact that I have many
Republican friends who can read and write understandingly and who know the
difference between a legitimate argument and appeal to reason and “unjust
charges and slander.” I challenge Mr. Staton to publish in full my article,
which called forth his circular.
In conclusion, I again appeal to “ALL PATRIOTIC CITIZENS OF
EVERY POLITICAL PARTY” to support the Administration “BOTH BY VOICE AND VOTE”
and cast their ballots for Simmons for the Senate and weaver for the House of
Representatives and dispel “THE GLEAM OF HOPE” in Germany as President Harrison
asked to dispel ‘THE GLEAM OF HOPE IN SPAIN IN 1898!
--E.W.
Ewbank, Chairman Henderson County Democratic Ex. Committee
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