The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1863-05-07
JAMES t. LANE,
Chm State Executive Com.
The Mercury won't Wait.

Inc OttumWa MERCURY is impatient.
1t is tired of waiting. 1t has reason to com.
plain. The rebellion isn't put down Two
years have elapsed, and 100000 men
have been raised by "various MEANS" and
the end is not yet. What use then, the
MEscuRY persistently enquiries, to wait any
longer. 1t appeals to the people. the peo-
pie Of Wape'lo county in particular, to say
what use there is in tolerating this state of
things tn any further extent The MERCURY
has evidently made up its mind wait no
longer. 1t is enough to affect one to tears
to think Of the great deception, injustice
and injury which the Federal Government
has perpetrated upon the Ottumwa Mercury
in thus deferring the Anal extinction Of
the rebellion, for the period of two long,
dreary years, especially when one takes IN
to account the many Inconvenience to
which that sheet has been subjected, the in
dividual and personal right it has had to
have rebellion speedily wiped out, and the
immense expenditures it has made in aid of
doing it! naEn.
In view of all these facts, who will won
der that the Mercury has got its dander up
and has come to. the irrevokable determine
ton to wait no longer. Every thing has
heretofore depended upon the Mercury.--
It's responsibility is inconceivable. and its
forbearance vast and astonishing Mani
testify it would be not only useless, but not
to be thought of, to wait any longer
This is the present position of the Ottnm.
wa Mercury, or was at last accounts, and
the world is wait ng with breathless anxiety.
to see what will turn up when the Mercury
fairly stops waiting. 1t will doubtless alb
sorb, to great extent,the attention of this
and fereisn nationalities, and neutralize to
no small degree the interest which might
otherwise he expected to attend the move
nents Of Hooker, Rosecranz, Grant and
Banks, the progress Of the Polish Insurrec-
ton, and the rapid, brilliant march of the
French toward the Halls Of the Montexumas.
And then to think of the mystery, the ex-
cruciating obscurity of the whole thing
Uncertainty is subimity, and here is uncer-
tainty What is coming? Visions of tor
pedoes, internal machines, masked bate
rles, and all the terrible shooting devices
and instrumentalities of destruction in
stinctvely rise before the troubled appre
hension of our already distracted nation,
and are almost certain speedily to embroil
the rest of mankind. What pity it is the
Burlington Telegraph isn't finished. Dun
ham ought to have dispatches from Ottum-
ga now. The line would pay for while.
Bat seriously, this pretence of waiting,
preferred by the Mercury in one sense is
mistake. fte NeYeury has waited in one
sense; the sense Ct standing still and do
ing nothing toPnt down the rebellion In
this sense it has waited with vengeance.
Beyond few crocodile tears over the pic.
ture Of Washington, and huge subscrip-
ton, based upon impossible conditions, it
has done nothing. But ia another sense,
the Mercury has not stood stH. Nobody
has worked more industriously for the past
twc years than the Mercury Ever since
the first shot on Sumter, that sheet has
been at work, openly or covertly, all the
time, against the government, constantly
seeking to deprive it of public confidence
finding fault with all it has done, organizing
o party in opposition to it and in every way
in its power nursing, developing, aud sys-
tepizing every disloyal element and nfu.
enee about it, until last week it comes out
openly ADD iBsinuates plainly that it is the
duty ofthe people no longer to submit to
the law and constituted authorities of the
land. It's meaning is plain and unmistak-
able. 1t counseis revolution. 1t takes is
sues with the Federal government, and
opens its batteries upon it.