Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1859-09-23
HISTORICAL.


years in history for fitting illustrations Of our
every day topics of political discussion. Hu-
man life, indeed, is short, but not 50 exceeding
ly brief, that a man cannot turn many summer
sets and cut many fantastic capers therein, with
a reasonable hope that they viii not be notch
ed up against him. The trouble is, that the
memory hardly goes back as far as three years
in ordinary matters; and it is essential there
keep tho current Of history smooth and unbro-
ken. Esq. Ncodemus, for instance will thank
us for not permitting the public to forget the
important part he bore as one of the founders
of the late Know Nothing party, aud the fact
that in leaving the party he carried the books
and Office of Secretary over to the Democracy
with him. The editor of the Gazette has for
gotten few historical truths, or imagines his
readers to have become exceedingly oblivious.
One who did not know better would suppose
from reading the Gazette from week to week,
that the Know Nothing party never had more
sincere hater than the editor Of that Sheet
All those sweet and endearing epithets 10 the
anti-k. N. vocabulary, such as Ozark Lantern
assassins," "Thugs," "Plug Uglies," drop so
daintily from his pen that no one would sup
pose that he had ever struck hands with his
brother under culyert at midnight, and sworn
to vote against all foreigners and Catholics for
ever. But History must be vndicated. Mr. 3.
h. Meyers was one Of the earliest Know Moth
ings in Somerset county, and was leader SO
far as he could be trusted. He organized lodges,
aud has more than once read the solemn formu-
la of the order, by the aid of dingy lantern
to knot of novitiates, late In the night BY some
lonely road side. But to read the Gazette. no
one would ever imagine that Mr. Meyers had
ever been "bloOdy minded" Know Nothing.
In the midst of the campaign of 1856 in
the very shock of the coDfict-Mr. MEYERS
suddenly went over TO the enemy. Shortly af-
ter his mysterious desertion, be came here from
Somerset, on political mission, and in a speech
In the Court House, he undertook to give some
reasons for his change, the principal of which
was that the American party had abrogated
their test against their Catholic fellow citizens
While the great mass of the Americans opposed
this odious prescription, there we're many mem
bers of the party, bigoted and intoIerant, like
the editor Of the Gazette, who would be salts
fed with nothing short of the complete Gisfran.
chisement of all Catholics, native as we'll as
naturalized; and because they could not be
gratifed, they left the American partv. and
carried with them into the bosom of the De-
moeraey all the malevolence aud rage against
Catholics which marked them as Know Moth.
ings. The American National Convention
which nominated Millard Fillmore iG 1856. ad.
mltted the Catholics from Louisiana, as dele
gates, and for that reason this intensified K.
N, Or. Meyers, could not vote for the candi-
date Yet be is now model Democrat. and
sets himself up to instruct people to vote
against John Taylor. He was used as de-
coy IN 1856, to allure ignorant and preiudiced
Americans from the party, because it refused
to lend itself any longer to prescription: he
did his utmost to fan into fury the existing nre-
JadIce against Catholics; he refused to vote for
a candidate for President because some Of tba
men who nominated him we're Catholics. and
and now he sturdily turns about, and reads lone
homllies 10 Catholics as to their duties as c;ti-
zens. Impudence has touched bottom.