Weekly Trinity journal., 1879-07-05
HOW NAsBY' GOT HIS START,

was a very poor man once, and /
edited the Findlay JeGersoaia1, IN Find
lay, Jefferson county, Ohio. If there is
any grade of poverty from which there is
no further descent, editing newspaper
in sparsely settled country is the grade.
] was on that grade, and we'll on to the
further end of it, too. / set my own type
carried my paper on my shoulder to my
printing office, worked off my paper on
rusty old hand press, and wrote or
scissored 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, pc
titioning the Legislature to prohibit me-
groes from coming into the State, and
asking for legislation to remove all the
colored population The State contained.
What was then known as copperheadism
was and important element in our State
political history Of the time. / was then
as now Republican, and the petition
was not brought to me. / heard of it,
and hearing also that shiftless, worth
less fellow named Levi Flenner-w whose
parents, by the way, we're both in the
almshouse as county charges-was circu-
lating il, made up my mind to see the
paper. The satire of the situation struck
me at orce. The few negroes we had in
Findlay were hard working, law abiding
men, and to remove them from the State
and leave Levi there was a preposterous
outrage on the fitness OF things. One
night in country drag store, where peo-
| pie gathered. as you know, in country
towns, met Levi. l saw a paper in his
pocket, and az knew the dirty cuss new.
er read newspaper at all l grabbed it as
the petition. And so it was. read it
aloud with comments, and, as / read and
interpolated my own remarks, felt the
afilatus of the situation, and made up my
week published the first one. 1t was
las those that followed it we're not locally
colored, even to the names of Levi and
and the few colored men living in Find
lay. The first !etter was dated Wingert's
Corners, Crawford county, one Of the
rankest coppeThead sections in Ohio. A
preacher, few Sundays before, in that
locality, had the temerity to pray from
his pulpit for the safety and preservation
of the Federal Government. That night
he was warned 10 drop that sort Of bust
ness, and the next Sunday mob came
with dozen teams of oxen and pulled
the church to pieces. will do the mob the
justice to say that they were cons iderate
enough TO ask the congregation to take a
walk before the work Of demolition was
begun.
tell you it was hot times then in
Ohio, and Vallandigham was the prophet
ofa gospel that eminently threatened to
divide the State on the question of Sc
cession and Union. The greao argument
OF the Copperheads against the negro at
that ime was, first, that as the Union
army invaded the slave States the ne
BTOes WOuIu HOck 10 lne NOrIn; ana Sc
cond, that once in the n orth they would
enter into competition with and destroy
the rights of the white labor. In the
Chinese question the same arguments,
orienta lized, are now being revamped.
Why, IN 1861. there was a Democratic
church organized in Ohio, VIII ich gave n
new dispensation of gospel, indeed. |
kept up the letters from Wingerts Cor
ners for some time. Ny first letter tray
eled every where. 1t was the first thing
| remember Of having seen quoted at all
from the Findlay Je6ersonion, and l
was very proud Of it. Afte. few letters
had been published Murat Halstead, ed-
tor of the Cincinnati Commercial, hunt
ed me up and offered me $40 week for
letter from Wngert's. 1t was simply
boundless prosperity to me. l had meyer
hoped, even in my widest deans, to
possess so much money, and that is the
way ] got my start as Petroleum V.
Nasty Philadelphia Times.