The Bloomfield times. [volume] (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1867-187?, 1871-08-29
A CURIOUS STORY.

IL told by an old man in the year 1890,
is rich take off, on Horace Greeley
and his peculiar theories, and what might
result from his election as President
"You ask ME to tell you, my children,
Of the events which Immediately prece-
ded the destruction of the once great
American Union, and the capture of the
country by its present European rulers,
and to say something also of the causes
which led to these deplorable results,
l undertake the task with heavy heart,
for when revert to that terrible time
| cannot help contrasting our proud con-
dition up to that fatal year with the hu-
initiating position occupied now by the
American people! The story is short
one In the fall of 1872, Horace Greeley,
the editor ofa newspaper in New York,
was elected President of the United
States. The people voted for him be-
cause they thought he was an honest
man. And so he was. But he was also
vain and weak, and he entertained GER
tain fanatical and preposterous notions
about agricultural matters, for instance
which he was determined to force upon
the people at all hazards and despite all
opposition. He believed, among other
things, that every man ought to go the
west to earn his bread, and long before he
was chosen President, he used to advise
everybody to move to that region as a
cure for all diseases that could befall the
human family. ..,,t., ..,.. .......
As soon as he reached the Executive
Mansion, which we used to call the
White House, President Greeley organ
lied an army of 200,000 men, and pro-
ceeded to force the entire population of
the seaboard States westward at the point
of the bayonet. The utmost violence
was used. Those who resisted were shot
down, and their dead bodies were carted
off to a national factory which the Presi-
dent had established for making some
kind of fantastical fertilizer. All the
large cities of the East were depopulated,
and the towns we're entirely empty. The
army swept before it millions of men,
women and children, until the vast plain
west of Kansas were reached, when the
pursuit ceased and the army was drawn
up in q continuous line, with orders to
shoot any one who attempted to visit the
East. or course hundreds of thousands
Of these poor creatures perished from
starvation. This seemed to frighten
President Greeley, and he sent a message
to Congress recommending that seven
hundred thousand volumes of book Of
his, entitled What | Know About
Farming" should be voted for the relief
Of the starving sufferers. This was done,
and farming implements and seeds were
supplied, and then the millions of wretch
ed outcasts made an effort to till the
ground, Of the result Of this will
speak further on.
In the meantime the President was
doing infinite harm to the country in anoth-
er way. His handwriting was so fearfully
and wonderfully bad that no living man
could read it. And so when he sent his
first annual message to Congress-the
document was devoted wholly to the
tariff and agriculture--a sentence appear
ed which subsequently was ascertained
to be "Large cultivation of rutabagas and
beans is the only hope of the American
nation, am sure" The printer, not
being able to interpret this, put it in the
following form, in which it went to the
world. The Gar of Russia couldn't
keep clean if he washed himself with the
whole Atlantic ocean once day?" This
perversion of the message was immedi-
ately telegraphcd to Russia by the Rus
sian Minister, and the Gar was so indig-
nant chat he Immediately declared war.
Just as this time President Greeley un-
dertook to write some letters to Prince
Bismarck upon the subject of potato rot,
and, after giving his views in great length,
he concluded with the statement that if
the Emperor William said that subsoil
plowing was not good in light soils, or
that guano was better than bone dust,
he was "a liar, william and a slave p
OF course, the Emperor also Immediately
declared war, and became an ally of
Russia and England, against which latter
country Mr.. Greeley had actually began
hostilities already, because the Queen, in
her speech from the throne, declared the
TiJune's advocacy of tariff on pig iron
incendiary, and calculated to disturb the
peace of nations.
Uuhappily this was not the full meas
sure of our disasters: The President had
sent to the Emperor Of Austria copy
of his book "What know" ete.,
with his autograph upon fly-leaf. The
Emperor mistook the signature for car
feature of the Austrian eagle, and be
readily Joined in the war against the