Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1879-08-14

379.
WHO Is SOLON CHASE!
A Great c"nale!,sht in the areennack
Church.
As the Greenback party has become q
power in Maine and has utterly chawed
up and absorbed the Democratic party
in that state the characteristics of. those
i men who have become its acknowledged
leaders and who have achieved an unex-
pected success are worthy of national
attention. The graphic correspondent
of the Inter- Ocean thus describes the
grand mogul of the Maine Greenbackers:
His name is Solon Chase. He is
about IS years of age, tall, lank,
and uncouth. He studies his costume as
does an actor upon the stage, and
"makes up" the Yankee from his COW.
skin boots to his coarse straw hat. His
face is long and peaked, and he wears q
scraggy growth of beard from ear to ear
under his chin. Forty years ago he was
a violent Democrat; then he became q
violent Wing. When the Republican
party was organized he joined it, and
became violent abolitionist. After the
war he was Johnson man, and was
appointed postmaster at Chase's Mills,
where his father used to live, and has
held that office until now, the compen-
sation being 30 small that no one else
will take it. He joined the Greeley
movement, and worked with the Demo-
Gratis until he started the Greenback
craze in Maine. At different times he
has been a member of the lower house of
the state legislature, and Was once can
didate for congress agains tFrye, receiv-
| ing few hundred votes.
He has always been eccentric, if 30
mild and respectable word will describe
him, and has never had the confidence
of his own family and neighbors. When
his father died, he left a considerable
estate, and dividing it among the family
in his will, he provided that Solon's
share should be held in trust until his
| death, when it should be divided among
his children. The will of his father
declared Scion lunatic, and incapable
OF the management of his own property.
He was then over forty years old.
He is the buffoon of the canvass. He
is making tour of the state, addressing
meetings in every town, and carries with
him lot of paraphernalia wherewith to
illustrate his absurd arguments and
point his absurder statements. This
consists of a man to sing Greenback
songs, which are the vilest sort of dog
gerel, composed by Chase, adapted to
familiar airs. Then he has broad sheet
of canvas, on which is represented by.
rude brush pair of lean steers yoked to
. hay wagon, and a tallow candle.
Chase would no more speak without
tallow candle than a minister would
preach without a scripture theme. He
is poor man, he says, one of
the people, farmer, and was
brought up to read by the light
of tallow dip. So firmly has this habit
taken hold Of him, that no matter how
brilliant hall may be illuminated with
gas or lamps. Uncle Solon must have a
candle to read by. The other night in
Portland he spoke in a beautiful hall,
brightly lighted with handsome chande-
liers, but Solon must have his candle,
and he stood on the stage with it in his
hand, pale yellow fame visible only
few feet away, so great was the glare of
the gas. But this candle business is said
to take among the farmers, and Uncle
Scion always pronounces an apostrophe
t2 bis candle, as Cough does to his glass
The use of "tthem steers'' is similar.
The canvas is hung over frame on the
stage, and Uncle Solon uses them as the
text of his speech. He owned them
steers" as he says, having purchased
them for 800. He kept them over win
ter; they ate so many bushels of corn
and so much hay, the fodder amounting
to about $50, and in the spring he was
able to sell them for only $85, so that,
unable to use the cattle during the
winter, he was $95 out by the invest
ment, which is all owing to the ruinous
financial policy of John Sherman and
the resumption of specie payments, the
blood-suckers who hold the bonds,
and the desperadoes of Wall street."
If the Greenback party could triumph,
and billion or two of irredeemable
currency could be- issued, the steers
would eat no more hay or corn, but
could be sold for 500 apiece, so plenty
would money be. The Republican
party, by preventing the imitation Of
the currency, keeps down the price of
the steers until they eat up their value
every winter.
1T is this sort of nonsense that Solon
Chase, the "John the Baptist" of the
Greenback party, goes around the coun-
try utte1ing as financial wisdom, and,
strange to say, people have, now and
then, been convinced by it.
| Uncle Scion wanted to get up q tinan-
cial debate with Secretary Sherman, and
discuss the issues with him, offsetting
Sherman's figures with his tallow candle
and "them steers"
A local artist has drawn very clever
cartoon, which has been used as ban
ner by the Republicans of this section,
in their campaign professions. 1t repre-
sents Uncle Scion with goad in his
hand, driving up pair of steers to 8
fodder trough, which is labeled "ofice."
One OK is represented as Greenback
animal, the other q Democratic. but the
latter is muzzled. 80 that the Green
back steer is getting all the fodder
In the wagon are seated local poll:
, ticians, with their portraits very we'll
drawn. This man Chase is a half.luna
tic, but there isa method in his Madness
, and, being the first man to advocate the
!. Greenback movement in Maine, he has
n acquired considerable influence, and
being utterly without principle, he il
: liable to give the Democrats considerable
I:trouble before the bargain, in which he
y claims to have taken no part, IN carried
. out. He is an avowed candidate for thu
United States senate, and some acciden
may carry him there, when there will b
I spectacle that would be amusing wer'
}. it. n-t that it would be such ,lamenta
:; ble~ caricAture upon American politics
+ and bring our system of suffrage int
!; ridicule throughout the world.
J. Imapine Uncle Solon and "Then