The Cairo daily bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1870-1872, 1872-05-18
STRONG TALK.
HORACE GREELEY To THE UNION
LEAGUE.
CAUSTIC BUT MERITFD REBUKE.
RACY READING FOR GREELEY
MEN.
Extract from q letter written in 1871

Extract from letter written in 1s67.)
"At once a concerted howl of denucia.
ton and rage was set up from every side
against me by the little creatures whom
God, for some inscrutabls purpose, permits
to edit majority of the minor Journals,
echoed by yell of "Stop my paper"
from thousands Of imperfectly Instructed
readers Of the Tribune One impudent
puppy wrote me to answer categorically
whether l was in favor of hanging Jeffer-
son Davis, adding that must stop his pa
per if were not. Scores volunteered as
surance that was defyng public opinion,
that most of my readers were against me,
as if ! could be induced to write what they
wished said, rather than what they needed
to be told. never before realized so
wildly the baseness of the editorial
vocation, according to the vulgar concep.
ton of it, The din raised about my ears
now is nothing to what then endured
and despised. l am Inundated by the re.
Election that it is or was in the power OF
such insects to annoy me, even BY pretend.
ing to discover with surprise something
that have tor years been publicly and
emphatically proclaiming."
"Gentlemen-I shall not attend your
meeting this evening. l have an engage
ment out:of town, and shall keep it. do
not recognize you US capable Of judging
or even fully apprehending me. You evil
IDENTIFY regard me as weak setimentalst,
misled by a maudin philosophy. l ar
raign you as narrow-minded blockheads,
who would like to be usefu! to great and
good cause, but don't know how.
Your attempt to base great en-
during party on the hate and
wrath necessarily engendered by bloody
civil war, is as though you should plant a
colony on an iceberg which had some-
how: drifted into tropical ocean. / tell
you here, that out of life constantly de.
voted TO the good Of human kind, your
children will select my going back to
Richmond and signing that bail bond as
the wisest act, and will feel that it did
more for freedom and humanity than all
of you were competent to do, though you
had lived to the age of Methuselah. l
ask nothing of you, then, but that you
proceed to your end by a direct, frank,
and manly way. Don't side of into
mild resolution Of censurc, but move the
expulsion which you proposed, and which
l deserve, If deserve any re.
proach whatever. All l care for Is that
y oa make this. square, stand-up fight
n nsv. 'ecGvsr your Judgment by yeas and
now many vote against me, for l know
that the latter will repent in dnst anS
ashes before three years have passed H. r.u
derstand once for all, that l dare and dsfv
| you, and that propose to fight IL out o1
the line that ! have held from the dsv nf
Lees surrender. So long as any man was
seeking to overthrow our government he
was my enemy; from the hour in which
he laid down his arms, he was my for.
merly erring countrymsn. So long as any
IL ut heart opposed to national unity, the
federal authority, or to the assertion Of
equal rights to all men, which has become
practically identified with 10y.
atty and nationality, I shall do