Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Republicans Making Quiet, Systematic Campaign to Register All Who Will Vote Republican, 1918

“Mr. Morehead’s Tirade,” an editorial from the French Broad Hustler, Hendersonville, Noah M. Hollowell, publisher, Thursday, Oct. 24, 1918.

The news comes from Ashe county that John Motley Morehead, Republican candidate for United States Senator, bitterly attacked the Democrats in a speech at Jefferson, recently for having failed to keep the country out of war and belittled their record in the conduct of it. He went on to say that the “Democratic orators” and “adjourned politics” because they were afraid to face these charges and called upon the people to sustain the indictments he had made. Mr. Morehead need not take any consolation to himself on that score. A 10-year-old school boy knows that the administration kept the country out of war as long as was possible and entered only when the situation could no longer be controlled without resort to arms. For more than two years, President Wilson did all mortal man could to honorably keep our peace-loving nation out of the war. However, it is needless to recite the causes which led our county into this war. The time for debate has long since passed. Grave and solemn we are marching forward in majestic unity to meet the foe and this is enough for any true American patriot to know.

Mr. Morehead is either intentionally withholding from his Republican brethren information touching the matchless achievements of the administration in the perfection of war plans in the past 18 months, or he is too ignorant for the leadership of that party he essays to represent. He ought to stop and consider that the war will be either won or lost while Mr. Wilson is President. If he wants Germany to win this war, the kind of lingo accredited to him at Jefferson may aid in bringing about a spirit of dissention which will help the Kaiser along. The election of Mr. Morehead, in the face of his recent declarations would be a spoke in the wheel of German autocracy. F.M. Simmons, whom he seeks to displace is considered the country over as the strong right arm of President Wilson in the senate branch of the American government. Of course this is not going to happen. The people of North Carolina have no notion of retiring Senator Simmons at the zenith of a brilliant career, especially when by so doing their action would be considered a refusal to sustain the president in the efforts he is making to secure the fruits of war.

The country is facing a formidable foe and the unstinted support of every patriot is needed to make victory sure, liberty a reality and bring a lasting peace to a bleeding world. It is little less than treason for any class of men to speak lightly of those in authority during this hour of peril. Every intelligent citizen of the country who possesses even the semblance of fairness cannot get away from the fact that the administration has made wonderful progress in its war activities since war was declared and only the ignorant or the simple will dare to speak of it in a disparaging way. Patriots never resort to that kind of trickery. When the Democrats consented to eschew politics and conduct a campaign of patriotic endeavor in honor of the boys who are making the supreme sacrifice to safeguard American liberty, they had a right to expect fair play on the part of their political opponents. It was their intention to proceed in a friendly, courteous manner instead of resorting to mud slinging at home while the boys “over there” are giving their lives for the safety of home and country.

The people of North Carolina and the country over are in a heroic mood. They are trusting the administration to win this war, which it entered with full justification, and will voice their approval of the President’s course with an avalanche of ballots on the 5th day of November

Register At Once

The registration period for the election on November 5th is rapidly passing. If your name is not on the registration books already see that it is placed there before sunset on next Saturday, October 26. If you fail to do this it means that you will be deprived of voting in the most important election held in the country since the United States was engaged in war with Spain 20 years ago.

Only a little while ago President Wilson journeyed all the way from Washington to his former home in New Jersey to exercise the privilege of voting in a primary. Surely the average citizen of the country can afford to qualify himself for a general election in which the safety of his government is so deeply involved. Only those who are equipped for service will be able to measure up to expectations on that momentous occasion which we all hope is to add further emphasis to the President’s ringing declaration that autocracy must perish from the earth.

The duty to register and vote is laid upon every voter this year. There can be no honorable exemption. The registration books have been open for three weeks and those who have only a very short time in which to place themselves in a position to stand up and be counted for Wilson and a lasting peace. This matter of registration is extremely important and should not be neglected a single day. The Republicans have been making a quiet and systematic campaign all over the state in their efforts to secure a full registration of those whom they believe will vote the Republican ticket. If a considerable number of Democrats should fail to register and vote, as many of them did two years ago, they may wake up on November sixth to find that a congressman and some of the close counties have “gone glimmering.” Let us be up and doing, at a time when licks will count.

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