The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1890-03-27

at once, federal militia officers assaulted
Duane, editor of The Aurora, and his
lawyer, Cooper, was bounded to Jail by
implacable federal Office holders.
In 1912 the editor of The Alexandria
(Va.) Herald, just across the river from
Washington, was arrested for printing
secret session news about the proposed
embargo net. thrust into prison and kept
there fer several months. He refused to
give the nalre of his informant, and
was finally liberated.
In 1878 two of the greatest senators.
Clay and Calhoun, united in a move
ment to expel members of the press
from the floor of the old senate chamber,
! where they had been accommodated for
many years, and send them to the gal
lery. The movement was successful.
Later. in Andrew Jackson's time, Reu-
ben Whitney, who wrote articles for
Frank Dlair's Globe, was threatened
with death in committee room by Con-
gressmen Baillie Peyton and Henry A.
Wise. These statesmen put offensive
questions to Whitney, who retorted in
kind, and bloodshed was imminent.
Afterward Wise and Peyton confessed
at the bar of the house that they carried
weapons with an intention to use them
on Whitney if occasion arose, and thus
it is history records statesmen and not
journalists as the first offenders in the
matter of carrying guns with hostile in
tent.
The famous C;lley- Graves duel in 1883
was the outgrowth Of a quarrel between
statesmen and journalists. Cilley,
member from Maine, charged James
Watson Webb, then a Washington cor
respondent, bat afterward editor Of The
New York Enquirer, with having re-
ceived bride of $50, 600 from the Bank
of the United States, Webb challenged
Cilley, sending his message by the hands
of Congressman Graves, of Kentucky.
Cilley declined to recognize Webb as a
gentleman, and in that lofty manner
which some latter day statesmen initiate,
refused to "get into q difficulty with
public journalist" OF course Graves
had to take up the fight on his own &C
count, and promptly challenged Cilley.
This challenge was accepted, and the
preliminarics were arranged by Henry a.
Wise and George w. Jones, the latter
afterward a senator from Iowa, and still
living. Rifles were the weapons, and on
the fourth fire Cilley fell dead He left
wife and three young children, and,
having been very popular man, his
death in this manner caused great deal
of excitement all over the country.
1t is worth Willie here to pause and re-
mark that it was one of these quarrels
between American statesmen and jour-
nalsts that gave to the world the modern
system of reporting legislative debates.
In waging their prosecutions of the press
of Philadelphia. the Federaists of John
Adams day found it convenient to drive
an editor named Goblet out of the coun-
try. Cobbett retired to England and
there began the first complete reports of
the parliamentary debates ever published,
while he also conducted great political
journal. Thus parliamentary reporting
the world over may be said TO have been
born out of the persecution of the press
! in free America
One of the foremost of American jour
nalists had serious personal difficulty
with statesman. More than third Of
century ago, when N. p. Banks (whose
white head is on the floor below me as
l write) was speaker, Horace Greeley was
a newspaper correspondent in Washing
ton. AS a correspondent he was as pug
nacious as he afterward proved to be as
an editor, and he succeeded in rousing
the ire of big, six-footer congressman
from Arkansas of the name OF Rust.
This fine specimen Of the statesman
met Greeley OH the steps of the old Capt.
toll and struck him with his fist, and was
following this up with his cane when by
ISLANDERS interfered. In the letters of Mr..
Greeley recently published by Mr.. Dana,
| of The New York Sun. this assault is
often spoken Of, and it is made plain
that while not subdued the young cor
respondent lived in no little fear and
trembling of the personal violence with
which he was SO often threatened. At
any rate, he armed himself with re-
volver, and allowed it to become known
that he would not stand any more pum-
melting. After this he was not molested.
Those were fighting days. 1t was at
the same session of congress that Mr.
| Wallach, editor of The Washington
Evening Star, then struggling sheet,
now earning an annual profit of
100000, was attacked on the street
by Extra Billy" Smith, an ex-con-
gresham, who was getting rich out
of some mail contracts. Smith Knocked
the editor down, but the latter got