The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-07-10
How "Nasby" Got His Start.

L was a very poor man once, and l.
edited the Findlay Jeffersonian, in Fin
dlay, Jefferson county, Ohio. If there
is any grade of poverty from which there
is no further descent, editing q news
paper in sparsely settled country is
the grade. L was on that grade, and
well on to the further end Of it, too. |
set my own type, carried my paper from
the stage office on my shoulder to the
printing Office, worked off my paper on a
rusty old hand press, and wrote or scis-
sored out of exchanges everything the
sheet contained About the time the
war broke out was existing in this
way, when l heard of a paper being
circulated for signatures, petitioning the
Legislature to prohibit negroes from
coming into the State, and asking for
legislation to remove all the colored pop
ulation the State contained. What was
then known as apprehension was an
important element in our State political
history of the time Twas then, as now,
a Republican, and the petition was not
brought to me. I heard of it, and hear
ing also that shiftless, worthless fellow
named Levi Flenner-whose parents, by
the way, were both in the almshouse as
county charges-was circulating it, L
made up my mind to see the paper.
The satire of the situation struck me at
once. The few negroes we had in Fin
dlay were Woodworking, law-abiding
men, and to remove them from the State
and leave Levi there, was preposterous
outrage on the fitness Of things. One
night in a country drug store, where
people gather, as you know, in country
towns, l met Levi. l saw a paper in
his pocket, and as ! knew the dirty cuss
never read newspaper at all | grabbed
it as the petition. And so it was. |
read it aloud with comments, and, as |
read and interpolated my own remarks,
l felt the aflatus Of the situation, and
made up my mind to write the Nasty let
ters. That week | published the first
one. 1t was las those that followed it
were not) locally colored, even TO
the names of Levi and the few col
ored men living in Findlay. The first
letter was dated Wingert's Corners,
Crawford county, one of the rankest
copperhead sections in Ohio. A preach
er, a few Sundays before, in that local
ity, had the temerity to pray from his
pulpit for the safety and preservation of
the Federal Government. That night
he was warned to drop that sort of bust
ness, and the next Sunday mob came
with a dozen teams of oxen and pulled
the church to pieces. [ will do the mob
the justice to say that they were consid
crate enough to ask the congregation to
take a walk before the work of demoli-
ton was begun
tell you it was hot times then in
Ohio, and Vallandingham was the
prophet of gospel that eminently
threatened to divide the State on the
question OF secession and Union. The
great argument of the Copperheads
against the negro at that time was, first,
that as the Union army invaded the
slave States the negroes would flock to
The North; and. second, that once in the
North they would enter into competition
with and destroy the rights of the white
labor. In the Chinese question the
same arguments, Orientalized, are now
being revamped. Why, in 1861. there
was Democratic church organized in
Ohio, which gave new dispensation of
gospel, indeed. | kept up the letters
from Wingert's Corners for some time.
My first letter travelled everywhere. IL
was the first thing | remember having
seen quoted at all from the Findlay JEFF
fersonion, and was very proud of it.
After few letters had been published,
Murat Halstead, editor, of the Cincin-
natl Commercial, hunted me up and Of
fered me $50 week for a letter from
Wingcrt's 1t was simply boundless
prosperity to IRE. | had never hoped,
even in my widest dreams to possess so
much money, and that is the way | got
my start as Petroleum V. Nasby.-
Philadelphia Times