Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-09-04

The Greeley organs, led by the New York
Tribune, finding it impossible TO make an effec-
tive attack on Senator Wilson, now contine
themselves to asserting that he was formerly
''knownothing." The Tribune pursues this
attack in the most ferocious style, dealing
largely in the "raw-head- bloody
method. 1t reproduces the knownothing oaths,
forms of initiation, and professions, of seventeen
years ago, and undertakes to make Senator
Wilson responsible for them then, now, and for
ever. 1t may be that the present chief manager of
the Tribune is literally knownothing in the mat
ter of political history; but Mr.. Greeley knows
very well that such an attack on Senator Wilson
is nothing better than unmitigated villany.
Any one desiring honestly to knew what princ-
pies and policy Gen. Wilson has supported, dur
ing the last seventeen years. will go to the record
of his speeches and votes in the senate; and
there they will find that he has never for mo-
ment advocated what is known or remembered
as "knownothngism" That is alden in which
his mind never lived. During the time specified,
he has delivered speeches, not only in the senate
but in almost every part Of the country; and yet
no speech of his can be produced in which know
nothingism was endorsed or encouraged.
The outbreak of knownothingism, in this
state and elsewhere in the country, did not
proceed from sympathy with the proScriptive
principles of what is called "Native American
ISM" it was encouraged and used as a method
of breaking up the wing party and preparing
the way for the republican party. Not one in
ten of those who went into the movement had
any sympathy with Native Americanism;" but
they did mean to secure the organization of
party that would sternly oppose the slave
power; and, in 1856, they showed what they
meant and where they were, by organizing the
republican party and voting for Gen. FIRE.
mont. The genuine Native Americans" with
the inveterate pro-slavery wing hunkers
voted for Mr.. Fillmore. We chose to
stand aloof from the knownothing move
ment; but we know well what Senator
Wilson said and did in regard to it; and
we know that during the time of that political
overturn, he had no more sympathy with what
are called "knownothing principles" than with
the institution of slavery. The Boston Pilot is
good authority on this point Its conductors
tell us that they have taken pains to investigate
the charge of knownothingism made against
Senator Wilson, and that they find nothing to
justify it. The Pilot says:
of Mr. Wilson uttered these things in 1854,
the Pilot did not say word about it, which
surprises us. We are, therefore, inclined 10 be-
lieye, whether Henry Wilson was a knownoth-
ing or not, that these alleged quotations are
manufactured as campaign documents, and un-
usually dirty campaign documents, at that"
The quotations referred to by the Pilot were
manufactured for political effect. They are de-
liberate forgeries. Nothing like them, nothing
kindred to them, nothing consistent with them
nothing TO excuse them, can be found in any
speech he has ever delivered. He had certain
connection with the knownothing movement,
for short time; but like many others who
used it TO clear the field for an anti-savery re-
publican party, he never was knewnothing in
principle, purpose, or sympathy. This was I'M
derstood then, and is sustained by his record
before and since. The truth is, Gen. Wilson
was an earnest, persistent, Incorporating
anti-slayery man, in and out of politics, and
his whole aim then and afterwards was to
get more powerful support for his
anti-slavery principles. Those who misrepresent
his position and work, at that time, and say he
was proscriptive knownothing, are wilful cal
umniators, and they know it. Nothing can be
more base and villanous, in political warfare,
than the attempts of the New York Tribune to
misrepresent and falsify his actual position rea-
tive to what is called Acknowledgment" Po-
litical and other reform will be in a bad way,
when there shall be nobody to help it but those
who use Tribune methods in politics. But,
Gen. Wilson is attacked this way, because his
record is SO irreproachable, that his opponents
can do nothing better than attempt something
against him at this point