Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-10-02

stration of "most sweet voices1
whenever he should give the sig
nal for it by throwing his arms
above his head and gesticulating
wildly. In answer to Mr.. Rhodes
allusion to his fathers position as
railway president, he merely spoke
of reverence for his father as an
honest man, but this was exactly
Mr.. Rhodes position, who contend
ed that Mr.. w. Munford was an
honest man, and that therefore
transaction to which he was a party
could not be fraud, while Mr..
Munford's argument required the
assumption that it was.
He contended that half the men
in this county were not making a
living because legislation here is all
transacted in the interests of bond
holders and railroads.
Both, he commended, ought to be
taxed he did not tell us, however,
that the railroads are secured by
charter for term of years from
taxation, and that it will be time to
tax them when that term is out;
nor did he remind us that the bond
holders are at this time mulcted by
the state to the whole amount of
their bonds, which is as heavy a
tax as he himself could wish to inn
pose upon them. Nor did he men
ton the fact that if special favor
had been shown to the railroads
and bondholders by legislature,
that legislature had been controlled
by majority of low-tax men.
But then Mr.. Munford does not
hold himself bound by the tenets of
any party, republican or democrat
ic, state-credit, greenback, or low
tax. He is a party unto himself
at least, he and Col. Rogers; he
condescendingly permits the low
tax convention to endorse him, but
defers to it in no respect. With
Richard III, he folds his arms and
draws himself up, exclaiming:
81 am myself alone"
He now addressed himself to the
railroad debt, and affirmed that the
railroads owe it and not the state /;
at the same time he made no at
tempt to cope with Mr.. Rhodes ar
gument generating the railroads
from that claim.
He did read what he called some
authorities in law, but not one of
them was a judicial decision. His
principal authority was an er pdrte
pleading of Judge Hoadley's when
acting as counsel for the bond-hold-
ers in their suit against the railroad
companies. Mr.. Munford will sure
ly not contend that the ca pdqte
pleading of counsel in a case is au-
thority at law.
His only attempt at argument on
his own part was that the people
were led to believe that they would
never have to pay interest on the
bonds; this, as Mr.. Rhodes showed
in his rejoinder, was quite true;
they did not believe it nor did
those who addressed them believe
it; but then neither they nor their
instructors could have anticipated
at the time the desolating war
which afterwards swept away ev-
cry vestige of the property which
had been the states security against
being called upon for its liabilities.
Nothing more was said bearing
upon the question of the debt; but
Mr.. NJ. wound up in his favorite
tragic vein, holding out the idea
that some combination of railroad
presidents, bond-holders and law
yers were conspiring against his
life, and pathetically prescribing
the epitaph which he desired to
have inscribed upon his sepulchre
when that shocking purpose should
be carried out.
Not much additional light was
thrown upon the subject by the re-
joinders of the two parties except
that Mr.. Rhodes was able to pro-
duce the intelligence just arrived
that the courts in which Judge
Hoadly made the er p0ete plea
above alluded to has decided fatty
against the position. Mr.. Rhodes
also seized the opportunity of vim
dicating the pure and exalted char
acter of Senator Bailey, against the
insinuations that he owed his ele-
walton to unjust action in behalf of
the railroad companies.