Spirit Of Jefferson

Judge Morrow and the Governorship.

The last issue of the Fairmont Index, we regret to see, contains the following card from Judge Morrow, of that place:

FAIRMONT, August 9th, 1888.

To the Editor of the Index:—I avail myself of the earliest means of communicating to my Democratic friends that I have sent to the Register some correspondence between Judge Fleming and myself, in which will be seen an effort on my part to escape a contest with personal and political friends and to avoid also what I regard as an unseemly exhibition of political greed which would be made by the presentation of two certainly, and probably three, candidates to the Huntington Convention from a single village in Marion county for the office of Governor, against one from the rest of the State. This effort having been entirely vain, I transmitted also to the Register, for publication, my withdrawal from the candidacy. My friends deserve the courtesy of the earliest information I can give them of this fact.

Whether they shall approve my course or not, I beg them to reflect that I do not retreat in the presence of our political opponents, but solely, as I conceive my purpose and action, as a means of escape from a contest which could have no basis in any public interest whatever, but which would be purely a contest of pitiful personal ambition, in which I could not use even all the means and accessories of success which are considered legitimate amongst politicians, without bringing upon myself a feeling of self-contempt; and in which contest I am conscious that I have not a chance of success against a competitor who is either superior or indifferent to all such considerations.

JAMES MORROW, JR.

We regard Judge Morrow as one of the ablest and purest men in West Virginia, and with all due deference to his card of withdrawal, hope that the Democratic State Convention will take him up and make him the unanimous nominee of the party to head the next State ticket.