By R.E. Powell
Raleigh, Jan. 27—Old time politicians and prophets who have watched the campaigns in North Carolina since those “terrible dark days” are flabbergasted with he pep and punch that has marked the opening of the quadrennial battle to pick the Democratic candidate for governor. Not many of those counted wise in the past believe that the furious firing of the past week can or will be maintained.
The attack has been launched on Mr. Bailey, and that astute gentleman is returning the fire to Roberson county from whence former Representative Oliver arose to ask, “Is Mr. Bailey sincere or was he sincere in 1919?” Almost forgotten now are the few shots fired between J. Bayard Clark and Dean Gulley of Wake Forest, and it is seldom that the Roxboro Courier is mentioned anymore.
The immediate engagement of most promise is between Editor Wade Harris of the Charlotte Observer and Mr. Bailey, Colonel Harris countered Saturday with an editorial dreadnought which highly pleased his friends and admirers in Raleigh, especially those who have been fretting because someone did not rise up and hand the Raleigh lawyer a knockout blow.
Mr. Bailey will reply Monday to the latest broadside from the editor of the Charlotte paper. So copiously have the exchanges been printed in the other papers that everything else political is waiting on the next article. It must be highly disconcerting to Mr. Bailey to find the editorial page of a great Democratic paper turned on him with a ferocity it hasn’t known in years. But everything is getting to be fierce.
The writings have been entertaining enough, but the “Paying of respects” in the old fashioned style is due to get under way in another week or so. This attack and counter attack will be from the stump, so to speak. Mr. Bailey will open in the auditorium here and if his supporters have been correctly informed he will go after “the gang” which he says and they say is trying to name Mr. McLean as the successor to Mr. Morrison.
Things are going nicely in the McLean camp, strictly speaking. The Lumberton man hasn’t been drawn into a controversy and of course he can’t help it because some of his more zealous admirers get in behind Mr. Bailey. Every once in a while there is news of a new force supporting Mr. McLean, and that is what usually counts.
Representative Lindsay Warren, whose name a few days back was mentioned as among those considered by Mr. Bailey for his campaign manager, upsets the “dope” and announces that he will support Mr. McLean.
“Shortly after the state convention of 1922,” Mr. Warren writes to this bureau, “I announced that I would support Honorable A.W. McLean. Since that time I have been more or less active in his behalf. I believe that Mr. McLean would give the state a great administration and that he should be nominated.”
So Mr. Bailey will hardly consider Mr. Warren any longer. It is now reported, and this seems to be better grounded than the Warren report, that R.C. Dunn of Enfield is to manage the Bailey campaign, and that headquarters will be opened in Raleigh around February 15. On that date Mr. Bailey’s father-in-law and former law partner, Mr. James H. Pou, will vacate the firm offices in the Tucker building and the five rooms will be converted into campaign headquarters. KKK's Complaint Against Columbus County Sheriff
Reports that the Ku Klux Klan, with the hearty support of State Senator Joe Brown, have worked up a clear cut case of conspiracy against the sheriff of Columbus county are brought to Raleigh today by bankers who are interested in the recent developments in connection with an apparent shortage of $31,000 in the books of the cunty treasurer. The accountants from Major Durham’s offices also reported to the commissioners a shortage in the accounts of the sheriff.
The Kluckers are said to have only recently organized in Columbus and to have immediately started the crusade on the sheriff’s office. One of them—one of the few to admit membership in the order—declares that the grand jury will have sufficient evidence upon which to return a bill against the sheriff when it meets on Monday.
Senator Brown’s part in getting action is not surprising to his friends here. He has been a relentless foe of booze in the state and is known to have worried no little about the apparent lack of sympathy he received from the Columbus sheriff. Between the double charges that recent investigations have turned up, it looks as if the sheriff is in for hard sailing.
From the front page of the Durham Morning Herald, Monday, Jan. 28, 1924.
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