St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-05-04
A VILLAINOUS COUPLE.

To the Editor OF the Globe.
So far as the older residents of the city
are concerned there is scarcely any occasion
to notice a campaign statement made by
the men who conduct the Pioneer Press.
The fact that it emanates from such a
sOurceis of itself a refutation among those
who know them. These men who are
passing before this community as Jealous
guardians of the public honor and interests
are so utterly destitute of integrity, so en-
tirely unacquainted, personally, with any
thing which approXimates the title of honor
that it is the acme OF eifrOntery for them to
harshly criticise, a convicted criminal, and
much less comment upon reputable and
stainless citizens. 1t is only because in the
great growth of st. Paul there are so many
who do not know these men that
any respones is made to the Will
tication which they have heaped up
on the Democratic city ticket. From the
days when, over a quarter OF century
ago, the present editor of the Pioneer
Press blackmailed every real estate operator
in the city to support his starveling weekly
sheet, down through the later era when he
and his business partner combined in black
mailing Bill King out of $780, 900 for the
support of Mr.. Window for the senate, their
career has been one continuous greed for
plumber. Their harmony in robbery has
been akin to the affection of Damon and
Pythias.
AS postmasters, the one as chief and the
other as assistant, they took from the public
treasury between seven and eight thousand
dollars per annum for four years, without,
both combined, doing in all the time they
gave to the public service, an aggregate of
one weeks labor. They inauglrated in the
state the most colossal system Of public
robbery ever known, using threats, intimi-
dation, social amenities and absolute cash
to reach county officials in the securing of
county printing. All through the state, and
particularly in the frontier counties, a stock of
blanks, blank books and stationery supplied
by the Pioneer Press sufficient to meet all
demands for the next ten OF fifteen years
can be found, placed there by bribery often
times, and always by the corrupt conniv
ance OF these men who are now talking
virtue and honesty. This system of plum
der became so gigantic that the counties,
betrayed by their officials, appealed to the
legislatures for relief, and, in one case,
county was disorganized to escape the
clutches Of these pirates. Even last winter
they extended private banquet at the
Metropolitan hotel to as many county aud
ltors as they could find shameless enough
to publicly pillory themselves as bribe-
takers.
These vultures have had their hands in
the state treasury, they have invaded all of
the county treasures in the state which
were accessible by cunning villainy, and,
one year, when by accident there was
Republican council, thrust their arms up to
their shoulder blades into the city treas
ury. Thanks to Democratic rule, that pro-
cess was not repeated, but it is owing
to their desire for another opportunity that
their incessant and monstrous falsehoods
have been poured forth for the past three
weeks. 1t is these men who, if dishonesty
was an electric light, could supply in each
individual hair of their heads dynamo
which would illuminate the world, who are
raising the ''stop thief" cry and echoing it
with all the luStlneSS OF the fleeing profess
siOnal criminal.
Their polluting, knavish touch has, with
the exception noted, been kept from the
city treasury of st. Paul, and maddened by
this fact they halt at no falsehood, and
shrink from no villainy to gain their end.
Both are in their line. Mr.. William r.
Merriam is but the puppet and willing tool
of these covmorants. whose very breath
taints the atmosphere with a malaria of
peculation. Fortunately, though ostrich
like they may conceal their heads by their
shouts of virtue, the more obnoxious por-
ton of their bodies stands out in all it's
hideousness, or if we should speak in
the WheelOckian dialect when the ''di-
vine affiatus' moved him, ''like Diogenes
in his tub in puris naturalibus." H.