Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1885-08-14
PAHSON MASSEY AND GENERAL LEE.

1t will be remembered when Mr..
Massey was supposed readjuster
and honored with Office by the re-
adjusters that he was one of the
abused men in the Commonwealth.
The Richmond State spoke Of him as
"The creature Massey-this ira
ducer of honest men-a disfrOcked
pulpiteer. This vile Massey-brn-
tai and villainious-this dog-this
NANCY cur-this wretched liar
this creature who has forgotten
every rule of right-the spawn OF
corruption-a brute, liar and a
villain-the moral leper upon whose
forehead we have forever but a
brand-this Reverend hypocrite-
unmasked canting creature"
1t would be difficult to string
more epithets together than these.
In 1881 Massey could not stand up
against the renewed attacks from
the funder press, although he had
absolved himself from all obligation
to resent them, and he turned into
bed with those who had thus writ
ten of him. He deserted in the
midst of the hardest fight readjust-
ment ever had, making himselfthe
more odious ifpossible by proclaim
ing himself the father of the child
he abandoned. Those who had
"put d brand upon his forehead
forever" made him a bed fellow,
and, in 1882, ran him for congress
man at large against John s. Wise.
lie was ingloriOusly beaten.
Since then Mr.. Massey has made
another record. The Danville cir
cnlars are not forgotten. Horse.
men ready in the saddle carried
them through these remote noun
tain counties in a day, telling how
white men had been murdered by
negroes wrought to frenzy by read.
iusters. When the truth came, ne
grOes in the Saturday evening mar
ket had been fired into, numbers
killed and wounded and no white
man touched. A congressional
committee composed Ofmen of both
parties were compelled to admit
this fact, and it now forms a part
of our history in bound volumes.
Nearly a year after this, Mr..
Massey, who had aforetime adopt
ed the sacred calling to preach
"Peace on Earth, = in the same city
of Danville made a political ha-
rangue in which he justified the
massacre and the falsehoOds.-
Among other things in spea king of
the massacre, he said
~, with you, deplore the neces-
sity of administering the medicine,
but never was a dose of medicine
administered with better effect"
Again:
"Other parts of the State are
looking to You with the warmest
sympathy. You have set them an
example worthy of imitation, and
they expect you to repeat it in the
future
Does not that excite "the grief
and indignation Of good men of all
parties :" fit does not, there is
nO:doubt that it should do so.
Should not his nomination for
Lieutenant. Governor arouse "the
grief and indignation of good men
of all parties 2? There can be no
question about that in any civilized
and Christian community.
This ought TO dispose of Mr.. Mas
sey. 1t will do so with all men
worthy Of the name of MAN. Hence
it is with the head of the ticket we
must deal. The tail is too small to
wag. But the head of it was an
original funder of the worst type.
The writer met him in discussion at
Stafford Court House-then his
home. We know him as a McCul-
lochite. However good a soldier
he was from 1861 to 1866, he was
one ready to give his old mother
over to absolute pOllutiOn-by her
despoilers. The Lee who tried for
years after the war to make the
living Virginia soldier, the widows
and the orphans of the dead ones
"hewers OF wood aud drawers of
water" for gamblers and specula-
tors, is not the Lee who bowed his
head in humiliation atAppOmattOx
rather than shed another drop of
blood and then rode to his new
home to die of a broken heart. The
dead one was Robert +. The liv-
ing one is Fitzhugh.