Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The SearchlightHolt, Mathew Joseph
General
Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight
Holt, Mathew Joseph
Fiction
"I want the nomination for Judge of the Court of Appeals in the Seventh
District."
"Against your brother-in-law?"
"Yes, he didn't consult me before he announced."
"You are too late. We have promised that to Judge Kash; though from the
way he's shelling out, he had better change his name to Judge Tight Wad.
Your nomination would hold some votes which otherwise Cornwall would
swing for the State ticket. How do you stand with the miners? If I give
you the nomination what will you do for the State ticket?"
"I will give five thousand dollars and finance my own campaign. I'm all
right with the miners, if I do say so myself."
"Well, I will think about it and if my answer is favorable your
announcement will be in the Sunday Post. If you see the announcement
bring me down that five thousand in cash next week. I want no checks. No
one need know what is spent this year. Goodbye. Call again when you come
to town."
"In the Sunday Post Colonel Saylor read an excellent biography of
himself, coupled with a declaration that he was a candidate for Judge of
the Court of Appeals in the Seventh District, and was said to have the
backing of the Republican State organization. Though, when Mr. Searcy
Chilton was called up and asked, he stated; 'The organization has
adopted an unbreakable policy of hands off in the district, and local
races.'"
In due course, Colonel Saylor and John Cornwall were each nominated and
entered upon an active campaign of the twenty-seven counties of the
district.
In the beginning of the campaign it looked as though Colonel Saylor
would be overwhelmingly elected. While nine-tenths of the lawyers
favored Cornwall's election, Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor was making an
active canvass and lining up the women in her husband's behalf; Luigi
Poggi and several other miners were organizing Saylor clubs among the
miners; and a majority of the American Legion, of course, favored the
election of one of their charter members.
Slowly sentiment began to shift in favor of Cornwall. Some of the
members of the Legion insisted that Colonel Saylor as a candidate was
using his connection with their organization too strongly. He made an
egregious blunder in an address to the Clear Creek miners and when his
speech was reported he lost many votes.
Some of the lawyers in the face of his almost certain election, knowing
that after his qualification, he would even scores with them, charged
that he was unfit for the place; and that the politicians of the State
would no longer permit a good lawyer to be elected Judge of that court.
Colonel Craddock, a retired lawyer of the local bar at Pineville, and
eighty-three years old, published a statement in opposition to Saylor's
candidacy. He said in part;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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