The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1871-10-05

Editor Democratic Statesman.
AUSTIN, September 90, 1871.

. ... %AOAAN1 OOPIOAUOA 40 AOh1
The following article appears in
the State Journal Of the 30th inst:
In the House, yesterday, Mr.. Morrison rose
to question of privilege, read paragraph
from an obscure Democratic Journal charg-
ing him with being convict, denounced the
author (who was the correspondent of the
San Antonio Herald) as a liar, and moved
his expulsion from the reporters seat. In
the discussion that followed, it turned out
that Mr.. Robertson, of Robertson county,
was responsible for the slander, whsreupoa
Mr.. Morrison withdrew the motion for the
expulsion of the reporter, and fastened the
forcible epithet of liar on the Representative
from Robertson. This latter gentleman, by
violating the decencies and eourtesies due to
his fellow members, and giving currency to q
base slander, deserved the rsbuke be receiv-
ed, and the singing epithet that sent it home.
We hope that he will mend his parliament
tary manners for the future.
I know not, nor do I care by
whom this paragraph may have been
written. j. G. Tracy and e. H.
Quick, editors and proprietors of the
State Journal and Houston Union,
"both dailies," were at the elbow Of
that detachable piece ofhumanity, ].
81. Morrison, on yesterday in the
House of Representatives, when he
made a cowardly attack upon me,
surrounded by his friends and under
the protection of the House. /
presume the authorship may be at
tributed to one or both of them.
But be the author who he may, he
is public slanderer, a falsifer and
liar. A correct report of what
was said by all parties on the occa
sion referred to, l am informed will
be published in your next issue, and
from that an intelligent public can
make up its opinion. 1 assumed the
responsibility of having said that
Morrison was a penitentiary thief,
and ought now to be in the peniten-
tiary. 1t was personal matter bea
tween myself and Morrison, and had
he possessed even the instincts of
gentleman, he would never have
sought redress at the hands of the
House of Representatives. The
coWardly miscreant had not the cour-
age to resent the insult at the time,
if indeed his low character does not
render time impervious to insult, nor
has he sought redress outside the
House, though l have frequently met
him on the streets. The fact is, Nor
rison was gOaded up to this attack by
Tracy, Quick and others, to crafty
little personal malice, ranking in
their bosoms. But he could not
work his courage up to the proper
point, only when under the protec-
ton of the House. 1 acknowledge
no courtesy or decency due such men,
nor can they be slandered, and when
I take further lessons in parliament
tary manners, I will seek instruc-
tions from those whose standing is
decent and respectable, and am sure
not to find myself in the company of
either Tracy, Quick or Morrison. To
say that the author of the article
referred to is a liar, is to repeat what
the world already knows; to.say they
are towards is to assert q fact de-
monstrated in every act of their
lives; to say that they are miscreants
and poltrons, is reflection upon the
character of decent villains conceiv.
ed and born and bred to be mis-
creants--it cannot be expected that a
gentlemanly impulse could possibly
actuate one of them.
1t is an easy matter for Morrison
to apply vulgar epithets in the House
when the unlicensed tongue of the
blackguard seeks protection, and it
is an easy matter for the State Jour
nal to echo a lie, when its editors
walk the streets under the protec>
ton of the State police. The pimps
of corrupt administration, fed and
fattened on taxes illegally extorted
from people who utterly despise
them, 1 leave them to themselves,
conscious that their thrusts are as
harmless as they are false and mali
cious. This is the last reference I
shall make to this matter. I shall take
no further notice of anything said
by these parties or any of them, and
would not now appear before the
public in this manner, but to refute
the slanders of a suborned party
press. JOHN w. ROBERTSON.