The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1879-11-15
RED RIBBONIsM IN POLITICS.

| took occasion in the last issue Of the FREE
TRADER to denounce the unwarranted ana
wholly unjustifable conduct of the president
of the La Sale Red Ribbon Club, in writing
and circulating certain slandcroHs and mali
clous ialsehoods in printed documents, to the
injury Of the good name of Mr.. \. VI. Hoffman
and Mr. W H. Leckey Of Ottawa, Since last
Saturday Mr.. Bowman, president of The county
Red Ribbon organization, and Air Matlcck,
president of the Ottawa club, have written me
letters IN which they dlscam the acts which
were charged to them; namely, the circulating
and endorsing of said scandalous and false
circulars and they repudiate them, leaving Mr..
Blanchard TO father his own base born progeny.
Not for moment intending to lnjurc ony one
and especially Messrs. Bowman and Matlock,
with whom my associations have been pleas,
ant, | at once reract, but until MIR Blanchard
proves that his name to the libclous documents
is forgery, hold him responsible for all the
prcmeditated injury to Messrs. Raymond and
the gentlemen named which his undetermined
work implied.
1t may not be generally known that Mr..
Hoffman deserves much better at the hands of
Red Ribboners of La Sale county than some
of them allow, or practice towards him. Yield.
ing to the clamors Of Red Ribbonlsm in and
out of the county agricultural society he and
he alone as secretary caused the sale of beer
and all manner of intoxicating liquor to be
strictly forbidden on the grounds at the late
fair, He not only caused it to be prohibited
but at large expense hired and paid a score
or more Of extra policemen who were Red Rib
boners, and expressly put there to prevent in
toXicating drinks from being Struggled in up.
on the grounds.
To my certain knowledge he also refused to
sell retreshment permits to nearly twenty ap-
plicants, who would have paid the society
enough to have brought the receipts out even
with all expenditures and premiums, and there
by enabled the payment OF everything in full.
The money that he thus refused for permits
to saloon keepers, and the expenses Of those ex-
ira police, all the direct result of the earnest
demands of Red Rlbboners, would have enab-
led the society topay every dollar of premiums,
me Of citlom apenny for. fce monthS faititM
services. Not only this, but hundreds OF beer
drinking people Of Ottawa refused to patron
ize the fair, and what is still more mysterious
many Red Ribbon people within easy reach of
Ottawa and IN the city too, never visited the
fair, and more wealthy Red Ribbon farmers
within ten miles Of Ottawa visited the fair at
Wenona than their own fair at home!
To the certain personal knowledge of the
writer Mr. Hoffman, while not Il Red Ribbon
er, is so nearly practical temperance man; so
much IN habits total abstalner, so closely al
lied with us in all that is valuable in the cause
of sobriety by precept and practice, and has SO
shown his sympathies with the
cause by his own personal financial sacrifices
as in case of the recent fair that we not only
have no right to throw mud at him as Red Rib.
boners, but make ourselves ridiculous by carp
ing at him j. G.. ARMSTRONG.