The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-05-15
AN OPEN LETTER.
To Hon. j. T. Wilson /:

pFlnIeU IN Ine STANDARD just as L ma IL
in the Manchester Gazette which you sent
me under your frank as Member of Con-
gress 1t contains all the errors in spell
ing, punctuation &c, found in the Ga
zatte I do this not to bring you into
contempt among men of sense, but that
you may not say that 1 garbled your
letter.
From the tone and spirit of your letter,
I am happy to see that you feel pretty
keenly the enormity of your action in
the salary grab business. This is cheer
ing sign, and if all men who betray con-
fdence placed in them would have the
decent respect for the opinions of man
kind that was exhibited by Judas Iscariot,
James Brooks and Oakes Ames-if they
would go and take themselves out of the
sight of mankind, it would be more to
their credit than to live on and attempt
to turn attention from the enormity of
their conduct by throwing mud at their
old friends whose confidence they have
betrayed.
Your attempted justification of your
course will not do You say others have
done the same thing You supposed
when you left Washington City that all
the other Members of Congress had their
arms in the peoples treasury, and there
fore you did it too. According to your
argument, any horse thief murderer,
STAKEHOLDER, or other criminal, could jus
tify himself by pleading precedent.
You say that the organic law does not
forbid what you and your fellow Mem
bers have done. True; and that enhances
ten fold the enormity of your action The
founders of the Government left the mat
ter all to your honor and honesty. If
you could take two thousand FIVE hun
dred dollars per year for the past two
years you have been in Congress, in adj
dition to the five thousand dollars per
year for which you contracted with the
people to be their Representative, could
you not have taken fifty thousand dol
lars per year for each of the six years
you had been in Congress2 You know
you could, as there is no part of the
organic law that would have been vio-
ated. In this view of the case it is not
strange that the following appeared in
the proceedings of the Ohio Legislature
on the last day Of its session:
ThegHouse by vote of 81 to l, adopted the
Senate joint resolution ratifying on behalf of
the State of Ohio, the second article of the
twelve amendments to the Constitution of the
which prevents retroactive increase of Con-
gressmen's salaries.
1 tell you that the hour is coming and
now is, when all who have taken this
money, whether they voted for or against
it, will be loathed and Stunned by all
honorable men with greater detestation
than if they had the itch or the leprosy
You pretend to think that alone am
making a fuss about this matter, and
that am actuated by some base motive
You think no one else cares or says any
thing about it. Surely you have not read
the papers, or talked with the people. l
have never met man, of either party,
who does not condemn, with indignation,
the whole miserable business I got
your paper on Monday night of last
week. I write this on Friday morning.
l will make few quotations from the
papers which have received in the past
three days, and let the people see whether
am the only one who talks about this
matter. You will scarcely dare say that
all those from whom I quote, including
the Ohio Legislature have been making
bids to you to buy them. 1 publish the
extracts in another part of the paper.
1t is d settled principle of the law OF
evidence that when witness is convicted
of falsehood in one instance, it destroys
all his testimony, unless he is corrobor.
ated by other witnesses, or surrounding
ar I iFl1
effectually shown the falsity of your
charge that I am the only one who has
been complaining, and calling this miser
able business stealing. Now for another
case in point
Your very first sentence is a falsehood
as ] am prepared to prove. 1t is this
Hitherto have not deemed it proper in a
single instance TO reply to newspaper attack
m rom any quarter however, scurrilous it might
To give the lie to this, refer you to
the issue of the Jackson STANDARD for
October A, 1866. You deemed it ex.
tremely proper at that time to reply to a
newspaper attack. 1t came about in
this way: In August, 1866, you had been
nominated for Congress. In my next
paper 1 said that you had been a brave
soldier, at the front during your service
in the army. 1 had heard so much about
the gallant services of Captain Wilson,
that I honestly believed was telling the
truth. But the Democratic paper of your
own county said that instead of being at
the front, you had actually deserted
shortly after the battle of Shiloh. OF course
/ denied this. But the troublesome
editor proved 1t from the master roll of vo,tr
Regiment. 1t was certainly about time
that you began to reply. So you wrote
me a letter covering three pages" in
which you had to admit that on the Both
of june 1862 you were marked from the
muster roll of your Regiment as DE-
SERTER. 1 will here apply to you your
own impudent language:
Suppose yoq deny having ever wrote me such
letter and tell your readers the whole thing is
sheer fabrication. You must own up, deny,
or be mum; which course do you propose.
Now for a display of ingenuity or abuse or
both, as the case may be.
In your second sentence you say:
But having lately ceased to be a servant 1
now claim to be one of the sovereign people
possessing rights in common with others.
l did suppose that you was no longer