Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1888-11-26
rhe Daily Intelligencer.
LAnCAsrRR, NovEMBsR %, isss.
The Meassst Of white FOX.


The Messest Of white Folk.
The New York Times attributes con.
GA1erable influence In the defeat Of Cleve-
'1and 10 the malignant stories privately
circulated prior to the election, purport-
1ns 10 detail, upon the highest authority,
- presidents brutal treatment Of his
Uiee. None Of these tales were ever per-
5nltted to get into print, and they did
ehoir baleful work unchecked by the ex-
poeure OF their utter falsity. Since
'the time when the New York 7fiJume's
reporter was exposed In his undertaking
3, show the president TO be O brute, there
has been no publication Of such charges;
but their circulation from mouth to
mouth by his political opponents was as
untiring as it was shameless. If there
was the slightest foundation for any
ouch aspersion, Its currency, ct the hands
Is least OF political opponents, would
nct have been surprising and would
have been too natural to call for special
condemnation. But when 1t is an unde-
niable fact that the tales were utterly
foundationless, the political malignancy
which animated them is clear and we
are justified in saying that they were
deliberately concocted, for the purposes
of the campaign, by its managers. They
had been taught q lesson by the failure Of
their personal attacks upon Cleveland
four years ago and while they adhered
to the weapon, they used it secretly.
Undoubtedly the Times is correct in
attributing measure of success to the
~dsvlish scheme. Wei know reputable
people in this town who believe that Mr..
Cleveland is as vile as these stories paint
him and others who think that, while
The tales are exaggerated, there is some
DIRE beneath the smoke. or course, these
people are Republicans, whose political
prejudices incline them to believe i'll of
= political opponent. The seed fell
In good ground aud grew; and the
stories these folk heard they repeated /;
and became vehicles for the diffusion of
ISLANDERS which earned for them the pen.
alties of the law. There is no meaner
slander can be imagined than to falsely
charge against the president of their
country that he is beastly in his habits
and cruel to his wife; and there is but one
palliation for the men who uttered 1t,
while claiming to be themselves decent !;
and that is that they believed it, as doubt.
less many did; permitting their political
prejudice to make of them fools.
n But there was another class whose
activity In circulating these tales, and
whose assertion that they had particular
knowledge Of them, marked them down
- the selected instruments for propoga
ting the calumnies and showed them to
b base knaves. Of this class was State
Treasurer William B. Hart, a man of
no culture and OF coarse mind, who was
well fitted for his office of false tale bearer.
He sat himself down in the railroad train,
Or wherever he could find hearers, and
related, with positive assertion of their
truth and the intimate sources of his in
formation, stories In detail of Cleve.
esAhA y SAuOVJ DEdobldllt1S NuICu
were innocuous, 1t is true, to intelligent
hearers, who discerned their inherent i'm
probability, but found acceptance among
people who were disposed to believe all
evll Of the president.
That this dirty scheme changed
one Democratic vote, we do not
believe; but that 1t halted undecided
vote, that were attracted to Cleveland by
the general good fame of his administra-
ton, is very probable. The cunning of
the plot laid in its levying upon the gen.
eral good feeling for Mrs. Cleveland and
turning this against her husband, which
should have. been his best defense. That
the tales told were lies from end to end
y not a matter of dispute. This no one
y bold enough to deny. No father can
b found for these lies aud they stand
In their monumental baseness unpar.
alleled in history. Those who have cir.
culated them, if they did justice to them
selves, would cut out their tongues.