The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-06-14
AT 1T AGAIN!
The Man who ClamOrs for the
Peoples Rights while he
Assassinates the Peoples Leaders

Assassinates the Peoples Leaders.
| had really hoped that l would
never again be obliged to refer to E.
w. Fish in the columns of the REP
REsENTATIvE, but when he devotes
whole pages of abuse and falsehood
to me, and even brings his wife and
mother-in-law, (both very worthy
LADIES', into the field, to back him up,
self-defence requires some reply.
His last trick is cunning one. I
charged that he took money from the
republicans in the campaigns Of 1890
and 1892, and challenged him to sue
me for libel; and said that if he did
SO he would have to swear,-in his
complaint,-that the charge was
false, and that if he did so he would
go to prison for perjury. He never
sued me and never will. But in his
last issue he makes an affidavit that
he did not take money from the re-
publicans, and challenges me to COM
mence criminal proceedings against
him for perjury. Now he admits that
he has been comforting with attorneys
about this matter, and he knows, as
every well-informed man knows, that
a man cannot be punished for perjury,
for swearing falsely to q voluntary
statement outside of a courtroom, or
without connection with some pend
ing proceedings. The statutes of
Minnesota define perjury to be false
swearing,-''in an action or special
proceeding, or upon any hearing or
inquiry, or on any occasion IN achich an
oath IS required by lac, or is necessary
for the prosecution or defence of a
private right, or for the ends of pub
lie justice, or may be lawfully admin
istered." If the reader doubts this
let him ask the first lawyer he meets,
and he will tell you that a man may
fill newspaper with false affidavits,
where no suit is pending, for a year,
and no law can touch him. Fish
knows this perfectly we'll; and hence
this cunning, rascally dodge. But if
he is SO ready with his attidavits why
don't he begin an action for libel,
sacear to has complaint? He says his
character is ruined from salt sea to
salt sea-" Why don't he defend it in
open court, if it took his last penny,
and he felt sure he would never re-
cover sixpence? Isn't his character
worth anything? Isitnot worth even
law suit?
We charged that Fish had box in
safety-vault, and that he put into
it the money he received from the re-
publicans, at various times and es-
pecially during the campaigns of 1896
and 1892. He denied, point-blank,
that he ever had any box in any
safety-vault; but in his last issue he
admits that there was such box
and that there were $1,000 in it
which we're part of the 'accruing pro
fts," Gust as we said), since 1889, but
he tries to make it appear that this
81 300 belonged to his mother-in-law
and yet he does not say so. See how
obscurely he writes, this man who can
write with remarkable clearness when
he wants to. He says:
"There were 81 300 stored in a vault
rented by other parties, which were
the remains of original capital and
accruing profits during and from Sep
tember A. D. 1889, until the fall of A
D. 1892, in December or after NOvem.
ber 8th; as the individual ownership
of said E. p. Patterson
Can any one tell what this means:
How much Of the 81 1900 was Fish's
and how much Mrs. Patterson's? And
| how did he come to withdraw it .jatsl
after the election Of 1892? And if, as his
figures show, his newspaper business
fell short $500 of paying expenses,
from April 1st, 1892, to Nov. 18th, 1892,
while he was receiving thousands OF
dollars from the alliances, and while
the campaign excitement was red
hot, how much must he have lost dur.
ing 1S91;-and where did that $1,000
of accruing profits come from? The
thing is too thin. 1t won't wash.
He charged that had received 81, zoo
from the republicans the same year
wrote "C9sar's COl,tnan;' and when
this paper called attention to the
fact that the book was written in
1889, published in 1890, and that in
1889 there was no election, and no
campaign, and that l then held no
office, the uncomfortable rascal shifts
his ground to 1888, and says the book
was written in that year; and that |
received some money from the repub-
lican party in 1888. To be sure | did.
I was acting with the republican
party in 1888; that was four years be-
fore the peoples party in this state
was born; and two years before the
alliance party was organized. In 1888
flee gears ago almost every man who
voted the peoples party ticket in 1892,
was either democrat or republi.
can. Fish himself was prohibition.