The Monroe Journal

Replies to Webb's Attack Upon Kitchin - Keep History Straight.

News and Observer, March 22, 1908.

To the Editor: Senator Chas. A. Webb, of Buncombe, is a zealous supporter of the Hon. Locke Craig for Governor. He has a right to prefer his fellow-countryman and to use every legitimate argument in his favor, but he has allowed his zeal to lead him beyond the bounds of fairness and Democratic comity. Last year he was quoted as saying that Mr. Kitchin could not carry his own Congressional District solidly. That was unfair and misleading for the reason that two powerful corporations whose enmity Mr. Kitchin has incurred in his fight for the people are very strong in two or three counties of the Fifth District. It is to Mr. Kitchin's credit that they are against him, and for this reason he has the backing of an overwhelming majority of the rank and file of the party.

Mr. Webb's second attempt to discredit Mr. Kitchin was by casting suspicion on his sincerity as a temperance man. At Wadesboro, on the occasion of the Kitchin-Craig discussion, Mr. Webb asked Mr. Kitchin privately if he had not opposed the Watts Law in 1904. Mr. Kitchin told him he did not, and wanted to know his reason for asking this question. Mr. Webb asserted that Governor Glenn had told him so. Mr. Kitchin was provoked and characterized the statement as false, regardless of who was responsible for it, using a shorter term to express his indignation. The incident has resulted in the publication of Mr. Kitchin's typewritten declaration on the Watts Law in 1904, which he prepared very carefully before he took the stump. It verifies his contention that he supported the Watts Law very heartily and was fully abreast with the party on the temperance issue. He recognized the right of the people to modify the law if they desired and while not displeased with the law in any particular himself, was willing to see the counties have the right of passing on it.

Senator Webb comes back with a statement in which he seeks to show that Mr. Kitchin is not dealing candidly with the people now, seeing he was willing to yield to county option in 1904. He says: "...I submit further that Mr. Kitchin has not in this campaign been treating the people with candor and frankness when he states in his speeches everywhere that he favored the Watts Law in 1904. This position in that year, according to his written statement, is as follows:

If a majority of the people of this State should demand the privilege of voting upon this problem for themselves, I would not refuse their demand. As the temperance question has in our State been considered a proper one for towns and counties, the counties upon their demand should have the same privilege."

It is true that he said in general terms that he 'heartily' favored the Watts Bill, but to show that he realized that he was differing with the party on this question, he says further in this statement:

I recognize that some good men do not agree with me in this position and I respect the high motives that actuate them.

"The spirit and intent of the Watts Law was the abolition of the liquor traffic in the country districts of North Carolina by legislative enactment without a vote of the people, and this was approved by the Democratic convention of 1904 on the ground that the country districts were without police protection.

"The Republican platform on the Watts Law spoke as follows:

"We favor a law which submits to the qualified voters of the several counties and incorporated towns of the State, at their request, the question of whether they shall or shall not be permitted to make and sell intoxicating liquors."

Where did Kitchin stand in 1904 with the Democrats for the Watts Law? Let his platform, above quoted, speak for himself.

I regret very much that I used Governor Glenn's name in the conversation at Wadesboro. I should not have done it. Governor Glenn did not volunteer any information to me, but I went to his office and asked him about it. I know that he is taking no part in this contest."

The writer likes both Senator Webb and Mr. Craig, but their course in seeking to cast discredit on Mr. Kitchin's sincerity and party regularity makes it necessary that some plain facts should be stated. Mr. Webb, in his zeal to condemn Mr. Kitchin, quotes the Republican platform, without stopping to inquire whether it is the real platform or the doctored plank. Unfortunately for him, he quotes from the doctored plank, sent out by the Republican Executive Committee, which is not the platform adopted by the Republican State convention of 1904 and does not establish his contention. The genuine platform, as published in all the daily papers the morning after the convention, denounced the Watts Law. This proved a boomerang, and the Executive Committee doctored it, so as to get in line with the modifying clause of the Democratic State platform, which seemed to yield somewhat to possible contingencies in the wet sections. It was the Republican leaders who veered around toward Kitchin's position rather than Kitchin going towards them. Now, the Democratic platform of that year, which Mr. Webb fails to quote, after endorsing the "general principles of the Watts Law," as Mr. Kitchin did, added this clause:

"The General Assembly has the power, and when controlled by the Democratic party, can be trusted to make all amendments which experience and conditions may demonstrated to be wise and proper."

Why did Mr. Webb omit to quote this while he was quoting the doctored plank of the Republican platform? And if Mr. Kitchin was out of line with the party favoring county option, what has he to say to Governor Glenn's position that year? Governor Glenn endorsed the Watts Law, but said also in his opening speech at Wentworth, as reported by a staunch supporter, the Reidsville Review:

"The Democratic party believes in the great principle of majority rule, and if any section desires to be permitted to vote on this question, and will say so to the Legislature of North Carolina, they would not be denied these rights."

And this from the Democratic nominee for Governor in 1904, to whom Mr. Craig's lieutenant goes four years later to find out how Kitchin stood on the Watts Law!

Mr. Kitchin was not a candidate for a State office; Mr. Glenn was. If Kitchin was off the platform, where was Glenn?

Far from the Watts Law being considered the "final word" on temperance, as Mr. Webb would have us believe, even Governor Jarvis, who precipitated the prohibition contest this year, declared at Greensboro in May, 1904, that he favored prohibition legislation, but that

"As it stands, the Watts Law is about the meanest piece of legislation ever constructed."

It was not the paramount issue in the campaign, though a very important one. Chairman Simmons gave out an interview July 27, 1904, denying that he had said it was the paramount issue. We will quote:

"The Republican party, by taking the side of liquor and assaulting the Democratic temperance legislation, has made the Watts bill an issue, and the Democratic party will defend and support that legislation. But neither the Watts bill nor any other question will be paramount. We are not in the paramount business."

Nearly a month later Chairman Simmons, who shares with Governor Aycock the paternity of the Watts Law, wrote the editor of Webster's Weekly a letter giving his interpretation of the platform, from which we will quote the concluding paragraph:

"The essential principle of the Watts Law is that liquor must neither be manufactured nor sold in this State, except under adequate police protection. As at present written, that law confines the manufacture and sale of liquor to incorporated towns, where adequate police protection is presumed because required by law. It would seem, therefore, without reference to the incorporation of a locality as a municipality, if adequate police protection of the traffic to be conducted therein can be and is in truth and in fact provided and secured by law, it would be in compliance with the party's requirements limiting the manufacture and sale of liquors to 'localities in which there may be adequate police protection.'"

Yet Mr. Craig's lieutenant finds fault with Kitchin's concession to county option, when the Democratic State Chairman and joint author of the Watts Law was willing to yield the point of confining the whiskey traffic to the incorporated towns, provided police protection was "secured by law!" And mark you, that was two months after the State Convention, and before Kitchin had mapped out his defense of the Watts Law!

Governor Glenn in his inaugural address advised the friends of temperance "not to be too zealous in their demands," and said further:

"If the Watts Law needs amendments, and to make it more effective, and less discriminating, let it be done, but the cause of good morals should not allow the sale or manufacture of liquor anywhere in the State unless municipal protection or something equal thereto is guaranteed."

Which echoed Chairman Simmons concession at the inception of the State campaign. But temperance sentiment had gotten beyond that.

Then came the fight on the Ward bill, in which the Watts Law was amended so as to close out the little whiskey settlements like Shore, Advance, Williams and the like. Senator Webb was in the Legislature and one would infer that he was over-zealous for ridding the country districts of these humbug liquor communities, but we find him reported in the Raleigh Post of February 11, 1905:

"There has been doubt in my mind how to vote," said Senator Webb, "but he had decided that if distilling were to be wiped out by special legislation they would move from one town to another and there would be endless contests over repealing charters, so he had decided to support the bill."

Was that not more politic than straightforward in Mr. Kitchin's critic? We wonder if the doubts in the mind of Senator Webb were chargeable in any measure to the following epistle of Hon. Locke Craig to Mr. N. Glenn Williams, the boss liquor manufacturer of North Carolina:

Asheville, N. C., Jan. 28, 1905.

Mr. N. G. Williams, Williams, N. C.:

My Dear Sir: Your letter received and read with interest.

In my judgment this Legislature ought not to interfere with your business. I have not seen the Long bill, but I presume that it is for the repealing of the charter of Williams. I expect to go to Raleigh tomorrow, and while there it will give me pleasure to speak a word for you to my friends in the Legislature. Sincerely yours,

Locke Craig.

Now the purpose of this communication is not to attack anybody's record, but to do justice to all hands by letting the facts speak for themselves. Our contention is that Mr. Kitchin was as zealous a defender of the Watts Law, as much so as Senator Simmons, Governor Glenn or Mr. Craig; and we may safely add, Senator Webb.

We rejoice that all our leaders have come up to the position which the people occupied on this question in 1904 and 1905, and none had less distance to traverse in moving up to the forefront than W. W. Kitchin, the next Governor of North Carolina.

Like Glenn and Simmons, he moved cautiously, realizing that he had a double duty to perform: to be true to his own convictions and at the same time to preserve the unity of the Democratic party. He voted for prohibition in his home town, which cost him the support of every saloon man in the county, and he went on the stump and defended the Watts Law against the assaults of the sharpest Republican debater in the State, and put him on the defensive, till before the campaign ended. Kitchin made no mention of his willingness to yield to county option. We heard Kitchin and Reynolds at Reidsville, and Kitchin gloried in the Watts Law, never once hinting that he favored leaving it to the counties. Reidsville being the liquor stronghold of the county, it required courage to take this position.

J. R. WEBSTER.

Reidsville, N. C., March 21.