Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1880-12-30
The Fool In a Mortar.

I'M mortar among wheat with pestle, >
saith the proVerb Of Solomon, "yet
will hisfoolishness depart from him. y
The Democratic Fool has been brayed
in mortar pretty constantly for the
last twenty years, and the Scripture is
fulfilled for his fOolishness shows nc
signs of going out. He was brayed to
an impalpable powder in the years oi
the rebellion, but refused to be recon
structed without additional thumps Of
the pestle. When some of the State
elections turned toward the Democrats,
in 1874, he had not sense enoughtO take
advantage of them, and hold his ground
by decent behavior, but lost by blum.
ders all that had been gained by luck;
and when the Presidential contest in
1876 had given him pretext for rails
ing the cry of fraud against his oppon.
ents, the dreadful pestle came down
upon him again, in the shape of cipher
dispatches, and hammered the poor fool
almost out of existence. Not content
with that experience, he, in the sum.
mer of 1879, crawled into brand new
mortar in the shape of an extra session
of Congress, for the aVowed purpose
of repeating the Federal election
laws, which were intended to
preserve the freedom and purity OF
the ballot, and again the pestle
descended upon him in the shape Of
Presidential vetoes and the derision OF
the whole country. This year his
friends hoped he had learned wisdom
in that dear school of experience which
is said to be beneficial to pupils who
will learn in no other, and some of them
expected to see him 60 through the
campaign withoutrepeating the process
of his own creation by making fool Of
himself again; but they were disap-
pointed. The Fool asserted himself
continually. He broke forth at Cincin-
natl in the ostentatious promise of
"sOlid South;' he blistered his two
hands in cheering when John Kelly
came upon the stage as the representa-
tive of all that is corrupt in the politics
of Tammany Hall; he put up for office
the veriest old penny-squeezer to be
found in Indiana, in the hope of catch
ing the votes of laboring men; he
belched forth charges of bribery and
forgery against General Garfield which
had been exploded for years and we'll
nigh forgotten; he opened his mouth at
Staunton during the canvass, and be-
sought his Virginian audience to remem-
ber what Leo and Stonewall jackson
would do in their places; and, finally,
on the eve of election, as if to exhibit
the utmost stretch and verge of human
idiocy, he invented letter purporting
to be written by man whose instant
denial anybody but fool would have
expected, and to be addressed to an
imaginary parsonage whose existence
nobody but fool would ever try to
establish. He received the doou-
ment from q man with whom
none but fool would have
any dealing; got it printed in
paper hardly fit even for fool to read;
heard Abe Hewitt tell the publisher
"twenty times over" that the letter was
genuine; knew that General Rosecrans,
away in California, who was familiar
with Garfeld's handwriting from years
of correspondence, held his peace
when he saw the forgery in fac similei
got an old woman, up in Lynn, to make
a foolish affidavit, and then interpolat.
ed initial letters to change the mean.
ing to suit his purpose; gave Sam Mo,
rey $3.50 to come to New York and
swear to four or five lies, and housed
him in the rooms of the Democratic
National Committee while there;
brought Morey to New York again with
Warner, and had them registered at
the Belmontas Asa Clement and Gilman;
sent to Maryland for the scoundrel
O'Brien, and put him on the stand as
Robert Lindsey" to repeat a yarn
that had been stuffed into him by the
National Committees agent; saw his
FOOLS fabric of forgery and perjury
all tumbling about his own ears in
the courtroom, and then carefully
laid himself down in the mortar
with the whole Democratic National
Committee alongside. His co-workers
have been arrested, his witnesses
are in Jail for perjury on their own con-
fession, and the remorseless pestle is
again grinding the great Democratic
Fool into an Odorous heap of dust.
When the blows fall Rosecrans winces,
and Hewitt squirms, and Speaker Ran
dali thinks of the impotence of his
gavel against such merciless thumper,
and Barnum rattles like a nutmeg, as
he is, and all the highly respectable
gentlemen who have been sitting in
New York to direct the Democratic
find themselves very uncom.
Portable. But the Fool survives, and is
happy. He feels at home in the NOR
tar. The pestle is his old friend, and
he rather enjoys the gentle agitation IT
gives him. He is brayed in a mortar
but his foolishness will not depart from
him. He will contest the returns from
New York. He smells fraud, and thinks
by this time he ought to know it by its
smell. He is sure there was Republic
IN colonization in Brooklyn Herecog-
nizes no mistakes in the past, and will
read jeff Davis book when it is pub
ished, and stick to the principles of
Lee and jackson. He will do what he
,an to bind togetherthe "solid South"
He sees the Democratic party on the
light road to glory, and there is moth
ng to be learned or forgotten.
If not inconsistent with the existence
If the Democratic party Republicans
would like to see it become possessed
II some grains of sense. Honesty they
10 not always expect but perpetual