Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-06-26
American Battle of DOrking, Or, III. G. at
the White House.
BY MAX. ADELER.

by its present European rulers, and to say
something also of the cause which led to
these deplorable results / undertake the
task with heavy heart for when L re-
vert to that terrible time I can not help
contrasting our proud condition up to that
fatal year with the humiliating position
occupied now by the American people.
The story is q short one. In the fall OF
1872 Horace Greeley the editor of news
| paper in New York, was elected President
| of the United States. The people voted
! for him because they thought he was an
honest man and so he was. But he was
also vain and weak, and he entertained
certain 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 West
! to earn his bread and long before he was
| chsOen President he used to advise every
| body to move to that region as cure for
all the disasters that could befall the hui
man family.
| AS soon as he reached the Executive
Mansion, which we used to call the White
| House, President Greeley organized an
army of two hundred thousand men, and
proceeded to force the entire population of
| the Sea-bOard States westward at the point
! of the havOnet The utmost violence was
used Those who resisted were shot down,
! and their dead bodies were carted off to
! national factory which the President had
established for making some kind OF fan
! tastical fertilizer All the large cities Of the
| East were depopulated, and the towns were
entirely empty. The army swept before it
millions of men, women and children, I'M
| til the vast plains west of Kansas were
| reached, when the pursuit ceased, and the
army was drawn up in a continuous line,
with orders to shoot any person who at
| tempted to visit the East. OF course hun
dreds of thousands of these poor creatures
| persisted from starvation. This seemed to
| Brighten President Greeley, and he sent
message to Congress recommending that
seven hundred thousand volumes of a 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 sup
| piled, and then the millions of wTetched
0utcasts made an effort to till the ground.
| OF the result of this / will speak further
on.
In the mean time the President was do
ing infinite harm to the country in another
way. His handwriting was so fearfully and
wonderfully bad that no living man could
read it. And so, when he sent his Tristan
nual message to COngress-the document
was devoted wholly to the tariff and agri
cultural sentence appeared which subse-
quently was ascertained to be, Large
cultivation of Tutabagas and beans is the
only hope of the American nation, | am
sure" The printers, net being able to in
terpret this, put it in the following form,
in which it went to the world: 1.-The Car
of Russia couldn't keep clean if he washed
himself with the whole Atlantic Ocean
once day ~ This perveTSiOn of the mes
sage was immedialy telegraphed to Russia
by the Russian minister, and the Gar was
so indignant that he Immediately declar- |
ed war. Just at this time President Gree |
ley undertook to write some letters to |
Prince Bismarck upon the subject of pOta- |
to rot, and, after giving his singular views |
at great length, he concluded with the |
statement that if the Emperor William |
said that subsOil blowing was not good in |
light soils, or that guanO was better than |
bone dust, he was "a liar, q villain and a |
slave ~ OF course the Emperor also i'm
mediately declared war, and became an |
ally of Russia and of England, against |
which latter country Mr.. Greeley had ac-
tually begun hostilities already because
the Queen in her speech from the thrOre
had declared the Irib301e'S advocacy Of a |
tariff on pig-iron incendiary and caIculat-
ed to disturb the peace of nations.
Unhappily this was not the full measure |
Of our disasters. The President had sent |
to the Emperor of Austria a copy of |
his book, "What l Know about Farm
ing" with his autograph upon a fly |
leaf. The Emperor mistOok his signature |
for caricature of the Austrian eagle and |
he readily Joined in the war against the |
United States; while France was provok-
ed to the same act by the fact that when |
the French minister came to call upon Mr.. |
Greeley to present his credentials, the !
President, who was writing an editorial at |
that time, not cOmprehending the French |
language miStOOk the ambassador for q !
begger, and, without looking up, handed |
him a quarter and an order for q clean |
shirt, and said to him, $50 West, young |
mango WestW So all these nations |
Joined in making war upon the United |
States. They swOoped down upon our |
coasts, and landed without opposition, for |
those exposed portions of our unhappy
country were absolutely deserted. The |
President was afraid to call away the army |
from Kansas at first, for fear the outraged |
people upon the plains would come East
in spite of him. But at last he did sum-
mon the army to his aid and it moved to
meet the enemy. 1t was too late. Before
the troops reached Cincinnati the foreign
ers had seized Washington and all the
country east of the Ohio, and had hung the
President, the cabinet, and every member
of Congress.
The army disbanded in alarm, and the
invaders moved to the far West, where
they found the population dying of starva-
ton because they had followed the advice
of Greeley's book, to TRY, for your first
crop. to raise lines and don't plant more
than bushel of quicklime in a hill ~ OF
course these wretched people were at the
mercy of the enemy, who-to his credit be
it said-treated them kindly, fed them,
and brought them back to their old homes.
You know what followed-how Prince
Frederick William of Prussia assembled the
American throne, and the other humilia-
lions that ensued. 1t was a fearful blow
TO republicanism-a blow from which it
VIII never recover. 1t made US, who were
1reemen, nation of slaves. 1t was all the
result Of our blind confidence in misguid-