Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1885-07-25
A MICHIGAN BOURBON.

A MICHIGAN BOURBON
We have been vastly amused this
week BY letter written BY Mr.. George
Haskin, Of Oscoda. Michigan, I'd the
Standard, a weekly paper published 1t
McMinnyille, in this stale.
Mr.. Haskin has probably plenty OF
prejudice and RANGER towards the
South TO make him willing victim,
but he has been sadly imposed upon
by the lies told on this section for po-
litical purposes.
He refuses to believe that the K K.
K. is not still rampant and evidently
thinks that the favorite dishes of the
cannibals who live down in this God
forsaken country, are stewed Yankee
and niger on toast.
He makes an exception of Tennes-
see, not because of any goodness per-
tanning to the benighted natives, but, as
he asserts, Northern people have set
tied in such numbers that the spirit
which animated the old K. K. X. has
no room for vent"
Further ON, he speaks OF @the spirit
of utter desolation which peryades the
South to-day" and says: @There are
thousands of industrious men in all
parts of the North who would emf
CRATE to the Southern states and help
to raise the country from the slough
hole into which it has fallen, were they
| allowed the same rights as at home"
In concluding his article he says:
@Long hair, whiskey and corn-cob
pipes are breeders of heaps of devil
ishness. They raise lots OF hell and
not much cotton"
He tells an absurd story of two la
dies who came South, one from Cana
da and the other from Michigan. The
former, he says. was kindly received,
while the latter was ostracised on ac-
count of her hailing from the North.
From all this it can be seen that
Mr.. Haskin is very ignorant man.
1t is mortifying to our patriotism to
know that citizen of our common
country is so poorly informed about
one section of the Union. His ideas
of the South, based on the political
trash he has been reading, are about
as correct as those that a romantic boy,
who has devoured dime novels by the
dozen, has of the far West. We assure
him that he is totally and radically
wrong, and urge him to suspend his
opinion until he can pay the South
visit and make thorough investiga-
ton of these things. If he will come
to GAINESVILLE we will undertake the
task of convincing him of his error.
1t would afford us a pleasure to meet
the gentleman and a sense of duty to
country would stimulate us in the at
tempt to enlighten iellow-citizen so
badly benighted.
We think Mr.. Hasl<in must be mis-
taken to some extent as to the person
mel of the political parties in his own
state. He says, Northern Democrats
are not an emigrating class-they
mostly live in towns and cities, drink
rot-gut, organize labor-strikers and try
to raise hell generally with everything
pertaining to good government"
This sounds little like the political
intolerance of which Mr.. Haskin accu-
ses the South, and we don't know how
to credit it in the face of other facts
with which we are acquainted. Mich
igan, which has for long time been
Republican state, recently gave
heavy Democratic majority for a can
didate for Supreme Judge, and the
Republicans urged as cause of their
defeat that the Democratic candidate
was man personally preferable to the
one their own party put out. Then
too, Mr. Lathrop, the newly appointed
minister to Russia, is Michigan Dem
ocrat, and we hope he is not of the
class Mr.. Haskin describes.
We are really afraid that Mr.. Has
kin is a Bourbon, the worst kind of
Bourbon. He don't seem to have for
gotten the animosiLies of the late war,
and, to those who have read the state
ments from him we quote above, 1t is
unnecessary to say he hasn't learned
anything of what has since happened. !
We may throw some light on Mr..
Haskins pity for the wretched South
10y stating that OScoda, the town in
Mqich he lives, is small village, situa
ted on the shores of Lake Huron, in |
the northeast part of Michigan. The
county of Iosco, in which it is located,
has only 6,873 inhabitants. Oscoda
and another town get up a weekly |
newspaper between them which has a
circulation of 425. The county is pen
etrated for short distance by branch
of the Michigan Central railroad, the
only railroad in six counties forming
the northeast portion of the state.
The agricultural products are limited,
lumber and salt forming the chief ar
ticles of export. The Republican plu-
rality in the county at the last election
was 296.
THE SUPREME JUDGES.