Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1883-08-11
A CONDITIONAL FAREWELL.

Our unfortunate contemporary on
First street Is Il most persistent blum
derer. So repeated and SO apparent
are the errors that it falls into that we
feel loath to take any further advan-
tage of its weakness. But some of
these errors are so comical and ludi-
crous that we find it impossible to
pass them over, especially when they
occur in articles aimed at the CHRoN-
IcLE. Last week the following was
the opening sentence of an editorial
In that paper "As the Democrat
lterated IN the salutatory of its editors,
1t will take no part in quarrel with
contemporaries whose only weapon is
personal reflection" Now we are
fully persuaded that those able young
editors, those learned and very accom-
plished journalists, have in their brief
career done many things that no other
newspaper man was ever able to APP
proach, but how they managed to
iterate i'll their sal,statoyy is beyond the
reach of mortal ken. The word "iter-
ate" means "tO utter or do a second
time" and Il salutatOry is the first
thing an editor writes on taking
charge of a paper. We hope there is
nothing personal" in thus alluding to
this miraculous performance of our
neighbor, nothing that will prevent its
answering our comments and inform
ing an anxious public how this won
derful feat was performed.
The Democrat does the CHRONICLE
a marked injustice in what it says
about personal reflections" We
didn't begin the war and have con-
Quoted our part in the battle with due
regard to journalistic courtesy. Moth
ing that we have said could be tortured
into personal reflection" We have
pointed out many blunders that the
Democrat made and couldn't excuse,
and alluded very freely to the mixed
jargOn contained in Its editorials; but
certainly none of that was personal.
The Democrat seemed to consider it.
self at variance with us on the tariff
question and when we invited it to
state its objections to our position on
that subject it failed to do so. We
have never shirked any argument and
feel willing to meet our neighbOr on
any issue 1t may present. We have
made very frequent reference to the
editors OF the Democrat but only in
their public capacity as editors. We
scarcely knew them in any other ca
pacity and don't suppose the public is
favored with a closer acquaintance.
We hope we have given no ofense in
speaking of them as young and able;
the former adjective is certainly APP
plicable and no one would object to
their disclaiming the latter.
We have expressed our willingness
to smoke the calumet whenever the
Democrat should pass it round, but
we don't intend to withdraw from the
fight under charge of having won a
victory by foul play. The public is
the arbitcr and we leave it to the pub
lie to decide if we haven't acted fairly
IN the contest.
The truth is, our neighbor has been
fairly beaten at its own game and
makes rather ungraceful acknowl-
edgement of the fact. 1t would have
done well to have observed Longfcl-
lows injunction
Let him not bOasr who puts his armor OH
AS he who puts 1t OF, the battle DONE"
Then the gall of defeat would not have
been so very bitter. We would advise
the Democrat to avoid controversy;
inexperienced swimmers should hug
the shore. Ii the able young editors
will read more thoroughly and write
more cautiously, they may improve
their paper, but we don't want to
encourage them with the belief that
they will ever become eminent Jour
nalists. Without further provocotiOn
from the Democrat, we gladly quit the
field