Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1891-09-19
The County's Editorial Reform.

coming Star furnishes collateral testi-
mony favoring its view that this was
to be "a campaign of silence in the
following fashion:
To this end the Nems, the Reciem and the
Ledgcr were brought under the thumb of the
Ring managers, and the JOURNAL was silenced
by slice of the county printing! veritable
Esau's mess of pottage-and an offer was
made to bride the Star into deserting the
cause of the people.
The JOURNAL has had occasion be-
fore to say to the people that in the
effort to reduce the cost of advertis
ing the commissioners agreed to use
one paper each in Cumberland, Frost
burg and Homecoming. AS to choice
of papers in the two former places
there was no disagreement. But as
to Homecoming there was, and the re-
suit was-neither paper in Lonacon-
ing got the "slice," which, it seems,
the Star, measuring other papers in
its own little half-bushel regards as
''mess of pottage."
But in order to exhibit cause and
effect we must continue the quotation
Had this last scheme not miscarried, the
people of Georges Creek would to-day be
without single advocate among the news
papers, and the evidence of the Rings cor
ruption and dishonesty, and the unworth-
mess of its chosen candidates would have
been as safe from discovery and detection as
the price paid to bride Washington county
jury in an important murder case.
What would have happened had the
commissioners given the Star the
"mess of pottage" is not stated.
But the JOURNALS conclusion is
''the people of Georges Creek" would
have had to struggle on under the OPP
preston "without' even the Star ''as
a single advocate among the news
papers,"
Moreover, the offer of Money
would never have been made.
Or, had it been made, would have
been accepted with thanks.
This view is supported by the facts
|, That the Star never ''fearlessly
attacked the servile, time serving,
Board of Commissioners for its lack
of manhood and gross partiality" until
after the "mess of pottage" missed its
skillet =
>, 1t took the STIR quite a month to
decide whether it would accept or re-.
ject the alleged bride, and
3, The Star has never fulfilled its
its promise to ''the people to give
them fac simile reproduction Of the
offer to bride it--this in the face of
the fact that there are hundreds who
believe the letter is not genuine.
1t has never been the JOURNALS
purpose to deal severely with the Star,
but when that paper assumes that we
have been lllegitimately affected by
any consideration it must not object
when we employ its "logic of motive"
as an atomizer Of its own virtue.
In this entire business, as in every
act of twenty years experience, the
JOURNAL has done nothing that will
not bear the severest analysis.
1t sought, not for the mess of
pottage," but for a higher price for
work, lowered by the Stars greed for
''pottage.'
1t sought and lost.
The Star sought only for the ''mess
of pottage" and lost.
But the JOURNAL made no cutlery;
it was not noisy and had not been
hence it was not "silenced."
But the Star, angered by reform
whose knife fell on its own neck,
affects to be the apostle of reform
and the one and only genuine advocate
of the people.
The Star, missing the mess of pot
tage," its standard price of 'silence,"
assails the agents of ''the people, be-
cause two of them could not decide
which should have the ''mess CT pot
tage'-the Star or the Reciem.
At this very same time the Star, the
anti-Ring paper, was handling glove
with the registration ring-an institu-
ton which directly robs the Star of
work rightly its own, and robs ''the
people" whose sole advocate the
Star is.
Now, people, what think you of a
guardian who wants to keep one
Rings corn-stealers out of your crib
and is in full "cahoot" with another
Rings illimitable appetite for hog
feed ?
Moreover, tell us what you think of
the patriotic editorial hindsight that
can see something strikingly sugges-
tive in the ''silence" of the News con-
corning its assaults, and nothing
whatever in the solemn, dead stiffness
which pervades the Cumberland Times
and Courier when the JOURNAL walks
into the registration combine
If there be anybody, therefore, who
is favorably impressed by the Stars
certificates to its own integrity and
patriotism, let him institute an all
round survey of its favorite conceit,
and he will find contradictions suffic-
iant in number and hold anOuph in