The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1879-09-02
Time to stop.
From the New York Tribune.

Is it not time for an end to this business Of
trying to fight the political battles of a great
State over the quivering body of a woman?
and the heads of her defenseless children ,
The news of the strengthening scandal
was long since exhausted. Can there be any
motive but political malace of warning over
he nasty mess and pardalng it on the table
again every morning?
We have not been much in the way of
defending Mr.. Conkling, and it is hardly
likely now that we shall learn the habit. For
that matter, we do not see that he needs any
particular defense. For fifty years his private
character has stood in the ~tiercest light with
out a stain. To-day no man brings a tangi-
BILE accusation against him. His NEST volu-
BILE assailants stop short OF that. Even
Governor Sprague makes M charge. He
goes further, and declares that he has no
charge to make. Plainly Mr.. Gorkling has
little, in the long run, to fear from the attacks
that dare not take the form of accusations.
But to the hapless woman in the case they
are ruin. Do the journals that rake Rhode
Island daily for scandal intend thai? Do they
imagine a fair-minded people will permit it?
Bear in mind, there is absolutely no shred of
proof of any criminality anywhere in the
case, or even a charge of it. Nothing is
proved but ill-temper and bad tanners Are
the good name, the happiness, the whole life
Of a woman to be recklessly destroyed, with
nc greater warrant than that? Mrs. Sprague
has some right to generous treatment from
the American public. She is the daughter of
a man who did the country great service, and
whose name is justly cherished as a part of
the national renown. The very friendship
which is now tortured to her discredit was
formed under her fathers roof, and because
she was her atber's daughter. Her habits.
her associations, the fatal prominence given
to her great gifts and beauty are all the 1irect
results Of her fathers devotion to the public
duties thai were laid upon him. She has the
right to look to her cOuntrymen now for a
kindly judgment, and for protection from
the reckless. ineessant repetition of a deadly
Islander that nobody fathers and nobody be-
lieves.
Governor Sprague, too, has done the State
some service. and may well CLAIM the charity
Of silence. He is a man O many generous
impulses. and the misfortune which has led
him into more than one unlucky public APP
pearance entities him at least to be let alone.
What was the matter with him the other day
everybody knows, and it Is surely not a thing
10 engross the attention OF the cont. nent for a
fortnight.
We reproduced recently from the Herald a
grave aud weighty protest against the needless
publication Of improved family scandals. We
could wish that a large part of the press,
which learns It's ideas of enterprise from the
Herald could get this idea Of decency from
the same quarter. We believe hose news
papers mistake the public taste which con-
tinae striving to prolong this pittifii bust
ness. We are sure those make a fatal mis-
take which suppose Il can be proftabiy hand
died as q political weapon. We warn these
people that hisun-AmsrjeaD crime o fslanlei-