The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-12-09


that scandalous journal is base enough to assail
women as well as men, when it has purposes
of revenge to serve. The Tribune had "spite'
AGAINST the Wisconsin Senator for having
caused the imprisonment of one Ramsdell, a
Washington correspondent of that paper be-
cause he refused to answer questions concern
ing state paper, of which his principals had
obtained surreptitious possession and to which
they had given unauthorized publicity. Ever
since that time the Tribune has pursued Mr..
CARPENTER with revengeful malignity. Its
misrepresentations of him have assumed every
conceivable form of detractiop, from positive
libel to ridiculous lampoon. To quote the
language of its underling it sought to "get
even with him."
Last summer Mr.. Carpenter went to Long
Branch. He was accompanied by lady. He
went to the West End Hotel RamsdeIl was
there and saw him arrive. Alighting from
the carriage, he proceeded to the clerks desk
and was Informed that the house was full.
The clerk, however, who knew him, directed
him to another hotel, where he could obtain ac-
commodations. Thither he repaired aud engaged
rooms for himself and the ladylwho accompanied
him. In the evening he called upon the Pres
dent and on his returning to the inn gave audi
ence to several visitors, some of whom
manned with him till after midnight. The
next mo rning he left. The day after there ap-
peared in the Tribune brief paragraph stating
that Senator Carpenter had been refused
rooms at the West End Hotel for reasons best
known to the proprietor" or words of that i'm
port. This invested the matter with an air of
mystery, calculated to provoke public curiosity.
few days later the Tribune contained an ed
itorial of an unusually splurgy and sensational
style, directing attention, with sanctimoni-
GUS affectation of pious horror, to the fact that
high officer of the government, between
whom and the Presidency there stood but two
lives, had been guilty of nameless breaches of
decorum and morality. The story was told in
florid sentences and with rounded periods, and
might have served as a chapter in one of the
high-wrought novels of Sylvanus Cobb, or en-
titled its author to permanent engagement
with Beadle.
Now as there was a lady in the case, this was
kind of libel most difficult to be dealt with.
Nobody knew better than the object of this
baseless calumny that it emanated from a
creature who would spare neither sex nor sta
ton in appeasing his thirst for revenge. Ac-
cordingly Senator Carpenter chvalrously kept
silence But his friends were too indignant at
the shameful prostitution of the columns of
newspaper for the purpose of personal malice,
to permit the matter to drop. The husband
of the lady whose reputation was involved,
took prompt and decisive measures to vim
dictate her. He went to the Tribune Office
and informed its editor that it was at his re-
quest that Senator Carpenter consented to act
as his wife's escort to Long Branch, and that
there was nothing clandestine nor improper in
the matter 1t might have been supposed that
this would have led to prompt and emphatic
retraction of the calumny But the Tribune
never retracts, except under duress. Its GUS
tom is when its statements are disproved by
overwhelming testimony to reiterate them with
offensive pertinacity. In the case of this out
ragged household it refused all reparation in
its columns, and its editor even went SO far as
to distort and misrepresent the interview be-
tween himself and the aggrieved husband in
casual conversation and dinner table talk.
The facts, as at length divulged, supported by
ample testimony, are that Mr.. Carpenter did go
to Long Branch in company with perfectly re-
spectacle married lady, with the knowledge and
appreciation of her husband, and that nothing
transpired there which could in the smallest de-
gree reflect upon the good name of either par
ty.
But it certainly is of some consequence to the
travelling public to discover that the proprietors
of the New York Tribune employ corps of
spies and informers to hang about watering
places to dog the steps of visitors thereat to air
their eyes at keyholes, and flatten their noses
against walls and window panes in search of
material for gossip and SANDER. And this for
a newspaper that devotes large portion of its
space to self laudaton, that pirates loudly of its
independence, impartiality and austere virtue,
and calls upon the world to admire and sub.
scribe for it! There is not q journal in America
making any pretension to decency, that so con-
stantly reflects the individual hates and ami
mosities of its responsible editor" Every at
tache of the establishment understands perfect
ly wellIthat there is no way in which he can so
effectually commend himself to the favor of his
chief as by indicting persons against whom
that functionary holds grudge. These things
are matters of such common notoriety at home
that the nest damaging allegations, albeit ac
companied with minute and unqualified specif-
cations which emanate from the Tribune,
work very little injury to the parties assailed,
among our own people. The mischief they do
is in the circle of country readers who cannot
be expected to know the motives in which they
originate.
Nothing could more clearly illustrate the
harmlessness of Tribune spleen, upon public
men, within the limits of our own state, than
its utter failure to impair the political fortunes
of our Republican Senator. For half dozen
years, it has exhausted its editorial and repor-
torial force in the vain endeavor to write down
Mr.. Conkling. Look at the result. While it
has fallen from the position of the leading or
gan of Republican sentiment in the Empire
State, to mere guerilla in political warfare,
without influence and without respect, the Sen
ator has become the acknowledged and uudis-
pnted leader of his party, with national fame
second to that of no man in public life He
never sought to concilate this unjust newspa-
per even in its palmy days. He has always
treated its misrepresentation with contemptu-
Gus Indifference. For time his friends took
pains to set the Tribune right on matters of
fact, when9it contained some extremely bald
and palpable untruth about him. But they soon
found out that it never took back any thing; on
the contrary it aggravated its misstatements
by "damnable iteration" Mr. Conkling was
wiser than his friends. He saw plainly enough
that that sort of journalism would bring its
concOcter to grief without harming him. From
his assured position of eminence in statesman
ship, he can now contemplate with a smile of
pity, the utter fruitlessness of the efforts of a
little knot of penny-a-liners, whom freak Of
fortune has invested with the control OF the
types of metropolitan newspaper to shake the
faith OF the people in the claims to their CRATE
full confidence of an upright and conscientious
representative
Still, it is to be regretted for the sake of gen
eral morality. that such false light ia journal
ism exists. There never has been a time when
State affairs formed so large part of newspa-
FER discussion as now. 1t is a misfortune that
they cannot be discussed with candor and fair
ness And vet if has haan tha bob;t a tho