The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1891-05-09
PAPER Or MCLEAN co.
A Few Hard Questions.
DAWSON, N. D., April, &c

DAWSON, N. D., April, 30.
EDITOR LEADER: In my communication
of the 7th inst, I partly promised to re-
new my acquaintance with your readers,
and now feel the more like fulfilling the
promise since reading the Washburn Mail
of the 25th, wherein the editor OF that
mongrel sheet emits another dose Of ven
omous slang against Hon. John Satterlund
and his Mclean county friends. One no
ticcable sentence in that TRADE of abuse is
tho closing paragraph, which I herein
copy:
"They will run us out of tho county,
will they? Well, they might do it, for the
gang that hold the power to-day in Nc
Lear county affairs is enough to cause any
honest man to flee while he has Il little left"
Great heavens, Britton, do you call your
self IN honest man? Have You forgotten
the numerous whisky bills you owe in the
town of Steele? Do you remember how
you kept your filthy carcass full of whisky
SO long as you could get your rot-gut on
credit? DO you remember how you used
to hang around the saloons and sleep off
your drunken stupor in their back rooms!
Have you forgotten tho grocery bills you
run in Steele and Dawson, which have nev-
er yet becn liquidatel? Do you relnem-
Der the dishonest efforts you made to
secure the county patronage here, and, be-
cause you failed to get your crooked fingers
into the cash-box of the treasury, how you
yelled "thief," and public plundcrcr"
Have you forgotten all this? The above
quoted paragraph gives away your present
situation in Mclean county, and explains
everything in a nutshell. You have
been deprived of your former opportunity
OF putting in illegal printing bills and hay
ing them allowed at fabulous figures. and
must now earn your bread i'll Il Legitimate
way, or Jog along to some new field whero
the run of suckers' is more plentiful
than in Mclean. Your cry in Steele that
Kidder county WAS going bankrupt had
littlo weight with tho people here. and the
tax of ton cents Il year you paid on those
two lots presented to your twin babies,
was but IL very little help to prevent the
bankruptcy you SO dreaded. But l Cor
tainly hopo you contribute more to the
support Of your present county than you
did hcre-st least you ought to be Il free
holder by this time. By the exercise of a
moderate amount of c-ommon-senso you
might yet have had you hand on the vault
door Of tho county treasury, but the lnsta-
bility of your ~veracity must have develop
ed too rapidly there as it did here, and be-
ing knocked out" is what makes you
squeal how'll Have you forgotten how,
through your indecent system of begsary,
bragxardism and slush in your old Steele
Herald, you opened tho eyes of the people
who thereafter were Obliged to keep u
watchful lookout for your dirty tricks and
guard their public and private affairs a
Cainst your vile intrusion and attacks?
Do you remember how, long before you
loft Steele, you were snubbed and jeored
at by the people, and at last burned in
et1iyy in one of the public streets-all on
account of your general dishonesty and to-
tai worthlcssness! Is it possible that the
business men of Washburn and the good
people of Mclean county have discovered
the true lnwardneSs of your soul. the total
depravity of your mind, and the natural
dishonesty of your purpose? If this be
so, we'll may the people rejoice, and that
such is the case is evidenced by your wlll-
ing appeals for sympathy i'll accusing 9th
crs of attempting ito disgrace your tami-
ly." Iseo you are doing tho same in Mclean
az you did in Kidder county. While here
you assaulted through the Herald every
one who did not say, "yea, yea" to all
your vile schemes and you are continuing
the same course whore you now are, but as
soon Us some of your victims retaliate and
resent your abuse, you cry like an idiotic
child and claim they are trying to disgrace
your family. when no one but yourself ever
thinks of mentioning family" More than
once while you were in Steele you made
disreputable mention of women in your
assaults upon men i'll political discussions,
q thing which no one but a moral coward
and a depraved wretch would resort to.
1 am really surprised, Brit, to hear you
talk about honesty. Do you remember
how you tried to beat two poor settlers
out of their claims here by contests? Do
you coll that honesty? Didn't you send
the Steele Herald to men who repeatedly
refused to have the sheet in their houses
because of its %untitness for children to
road, and then sue them for the subscrip-
ton price? wonder if you are doing the
same thing in Mclean county? If you
are, it would be we'll for your victims to
be cautious and order their postmaster to
notify you of their refusal to receive the
paper, US required by law; for if they con-
tinue to take it from the otice-even I'M
der protest-they may rest assured your
tactics there will be the same as hcre-to
sue and collect, as that was the way you
claimed you often got up a large circula-
ton. The scheme is a good one, but do
you think it is an honest way of doing
businessg If you can answer any of these
questions, I shall be pleased to bear it.
You seem to be sorely perplexed as to
who the Leaders correspondents are, but
I rather think you know who I am without
my attaching my name to what I write.
I have "brushed you off" a few times be-
fore, but I am handling you mildly now
for the sake of those whom you say others
are trying to disgrace. Your abuse is a
blessing to any man who falls under the
ban of your displeasure. The more you
abuse him the more popular he becomes,
and the more you spit and sputter at the