The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-11-06
Some Pertinent Queries Present.
ed for Goodwin to Chew.
WHO is THE LITERARY RUFFIANs
A Brief Glimpse at Past and Present that
Will be of Intense Interest
to Admirers.


reach the public by means OF a more I'D
eral paper and in the ''open letter"
Tuesday morning i went to an out-of-
town precinct TO vote for gentleman as
candidate for Congress. There were TWO
candidates up. You were one OF them.
When say / voted for gentleman you
will know al once that did not vote for
YOU" / mention this that you may be sure
] made no such mistake as to cast ballot,
ihe choicest boon in all the gifts OF Amerl-
can citizenship, for man who has shown
himself for years the persistent foe OF
human liberty.
My attention has been called to your
characteristic attack upon myself in your
smut mill of Tuesday. Of course, no one
is deceived by it. Everyone knows that
you have made the same attack on every
man and woman who has had word to
say against your malicious abuse OF the
Mormon people. When dirt ceased to
pay in the Nevada gulches you came
hither, did you not. with
"a mind we'll skilled to find or forge fault"
The vein of anti-Mormon 'dirs" you
struck in Salt Lake has paid you better,
has it not, than any ''mine'' you ever
worked "at the head of great paper" in
Nevada!
In Salt Lake you found the position you
sought and went to work, judging from the
character Of your contributions, under in
structions that might have read as follows,
might they not!
Fear not to lie twill seem lucky hit:
Shrink not from blasphemy, twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling; pass your ribald jest
And stand critic, hated yet caressed.
Let all the scandals OF a former age
Perch on thy pen and fiutter DER thy page;
Assume a candor which thou cans't not feel;
Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal;
Write as il St. Johns soul could still initiate,
And do for hire what Red Nose does from hate.
You "doten on poetry. Did you not
study this morsel in fitting yourself for
your work at 'the head of paperm Has
all these years.
II in any wise your attack upon me is
more venomous than your usual diatribes
against those who will not give you s'taffy''
for your villification of people better than
yourself, is it not because / have stayed
by you, and, in spite of your sneaking
efforts to deprive me of a hearing in Salt
Lake; in spite of the efforts of the pimple-
headed apostate and the monkey visaged
thing who have been for many months
loading your blunderbuss with dirt
10 be discharged upon me; in
spite of all the combined efforts
te drive Ellis out'' have held you up to
the soorn of honest men and womens Is not
that what is the matter with yous Does
not your malice measure the depth to
which have reached beneath the cuticle
of fraud with which you have clothed
yourself as with a garmentln Judging
your hurt by your howl, l tiatter myself
have been reaching very sore spots on your
person.
d., ;,uardo way, aoouca ma oF 5;,-ar, +o,,
ribleisms. Do you know how that kind of
work is measured in all this world by hon
orable people! Are you aware that you
have written yourself down as something
more despicable than the murdererl Do
you know how much worse it is to attempt
TO kill people by lying about them than it is
to STAB and shoot and club them. Was
your brain so fume-steeped with rum that
you did not know what you were doing, or
was it the constitutional villainy Of your
nature that prompted you to do this thing 2
You would not sneak up behind my back
and kill ME. That would require some
physical courage, and you have none. Your
paper is a cowaru's castle. You can lock
yourself in aud ply your trade Of vilifer,
because that requires no courage. The
only requisite tor that kind OF literary
ruffianism' is lack of conscience. You
were never conscious of possessing con
science, were you.
WQen you WROTE budJ dUJlCh upon me and
called me "oeast," ''ruffian" and what
not, did you not draw pen-picture oil
yourself, true to life, and, calling il
''Ellis,n instead Of Goodwin" did you moi
publish it, hoping to kill the man who ha6
the moral courage to expose your infamous
vilification of the Mormon people, and to
use his lounge and pen against the party
ring, clique, whose hired scrub and liar anc
literary cuss- pidore you seem TO have be-
come! Do you not know that know thai
all your talk about ''polygamy" and the
Mormon priesthoodn is tustian Haunted
in the face of the world to cover up the de
sign of the liars and thieves behind you
Do you not know that know that the CRY
CT ''disloyal Americans" is the yell of mer
who were rebels in the late war many o.
them; of men who have no other purpos,
in Utah than to force the Mormons out O.
the territory that you and your hackers cal
grow rich upon the property they will b,
compelled to leave behind them? Do yol
not know that your whispering LITTLE
s'Iago," Thomas admits in private tina
the Mormon people are entitled to all thu
rights and privileges in Utah that are ex
tended to the Methodist Smalls, lifts ant
Hills who are tramping the nation to sti
up spirit of bloody hatred against tn
Mormons! Do you not know that an
right ia denouncing your priest-politician
alleged-liberal combine as an attempt +
drive out of Utah not only the Mormons
but also all Who stand outside of tn
chuches.
Your accusation that / am "a literar-
ruffian'' would be comical if it were not s.
vicious. Have you forgotten your recen
pen picture of Judge Goodwin watchin
little girls tying their shoes on the stree
or following the hired girl into the wood
shed to see her perform the same act
Have you forgotten Judge Goodwin,
editorial to the effect that if ''the wome
of Kansas had no issues "that would be
good reason why they should get out o
election day to vote, instead of being res
son why they should stay at home, as a
exchange had said and upon whose remar
you had based your obscenity9 When
comes to literary ruffiaIism, do you flatte
yourself that you clay over" every man i
Salt Lake Are you Jealous because ar
other Literary ruffian" divides the hor
ors 60 with you Are you sure YOU ar
not only a literary ruffian,'' but also ii,
erary thiefl Have you not been acceptin
fame as the author of certain articles O
the silver question that belonged to anothe
man Did not all your gush on the silve
matter come from poor literary fellow
Nevada who was not low and mean enoup
to fill the 'head of a great paper" Whe
you intimate by malevolent inuendo that
have used literary matter that belongs
others, why do you not present YOU
proof Is there not even that niue
manhood about you When you int
mate that steal literary matte
why do you not point out a particular /,
stance. In your sheet there are man
columns of my work, why do you not sho
wherein am literary thiefs
You pose before this community as 9
honorable man. Have you forgotten a
tempt TO assassinate even the man who,
he chose to consider his enemy nv lvin