Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-04-13
GEORGE D. PRENTICE.
The Scandal Relatire to HIS Being Paid t
Support the COnfederucy.

The Scandal Relative to HIS Being Paid to
Support the Confederacy.
Kentucky has been agitated lately relative
to the charge made public that George D.
Prentice, now deceased, the former editor of
the Louisville Journal, was bribed to sustain
the confederacy. The Courier-Journalp pub
fishes lengthy documentary evidence to dis
prove the charge, and editorially says:
That Mr.. Prentice's inner self was South
ern there can be little doubt. He was pre-
eminently a sentimentalist. His wife was
Southern. His sons were Southern. His
closest friends were Southern. His own ma
ture and habits were Southern. His head
and heart were divided. One went one way,
the other went the other. His Judgment,
which was good, told him the South could
not win. 1t told him that safety lay in the
Union, not out of it. All else took the
pair, and it drove him into additional ex-
cesses. On this point, however, mistakes
should not be made though hard, he was
an occasional drinker only, and, the greater
part of his time, hard worker. He could
do more in an hour than most men in a
day, and then he INDUCED himself, and
he never courted obscurity. No man ever
saw him indecent or disorderly. though
many have seen him drunk; and, since this
phase can no longer be CLOSED over, it
should be stated that his fatal passion was
not at all convivial, but disease, which,
when he was disappointed or fretted, at
tackled him irresistibly.
1t is a sad thing to say, but it explains
much that may have happened. He was
hopeless. He was wretched. He was not
himself. We do not know that he did; but
he may have given way. One thing, how
ever, we do know: he was possessed of as lit.
tie venality as any man who ever lived. He
had not the consciousness of the value OF
the use of money. Anybody might stick his
hand in his pocket and take what he wanted
and everybody did. His own wants were
absolutely contemplate. We venture tt
say he spent less on himself than the hum
blest of his employees. Always mean
ly clad, always poorly fed, al
ways transformations, he literally spent moth
ing, saved nothing. Though he earned larg
sums, he was perpetually behindhand in hi
money affairs, as dependent and as helpless
as baby. He was wit, poet. He hac
no convictions; he had inspirations merely
His heart led and his head followed; and tn
nearest he ever came to principle of actor
was prejudice, which he sometimes cher
ishea with whimsical pertinacity. He wa
personally brave and transparent, and, if h
were living now, would tell the whole stor,
without equivocation or reserve, and, goo,
Or bad, in an English style and ldiom which
would captivate every reader. The facts ar
not known to US, and, if they were, it is no
in our power to give them as he would but
we repeat, of one thing we are perfectly sure
neither Mr.. Henderson nor Mr.. Shipman
acute men who we're constantly on his trail
ever accused him of obtaining anything O
the South. If he had they would hav
known it, He was not man of conceal
ments.
Mr.. Calvert, the author of this scandal
has done himself no credit in giving breat
to it. The bones of poor old Prentice shoul
have been allowed to rest undisturbed.
ever the maxim de n1ortuis had relevancy,
should be extended to him, who, in life, no
withstanding the quantity of attic salt b
scattered right and left was singularly vol
of malice and of guilt. AS matter of fac
he did his country deal of honest servic'
he irradiated the era in which he lived, b
, distributed plenteously whatever came
him, and, dividing fair with his colleagu.
every instance, he beggared himself as far
he was able, and denied himself most pi
eously to give his all to his last survivin
child.