The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-11-12

ming upward from left to right across
the face of the card, was like this;
Senator Stewart of New
of u. S. senate
Washington
D. c.
On the reverse of this card was writ
ten:
Oct 9Th 1893 My Dear Sir
The attempt of the press & the bank
ers to st;fe the popular will by using
the president as a tool will have failed
by the time you receive this note. The
victory OF The silver Senators Ga
peaceful " is 1 think already
won-Sep or NoreheeS of Ind is said
TO have declared unconditional repeal
hopeless unless the rules of the Senate
can be changed the next tactics of
your opponents viii ! think be an at
tempt to change The rules of the sem
ate any proposed change in the rules
will therefore I hope be prevented &
vigorously & effectually opposed by
yourself & honorable colleagues
l have the Honor to Remain
Respey Your Humble Servant
p. Eugene Jos Prendergast Chgo
Another card was dated Oct. %, and
the writing on it ran up and down and
across. On this card Prende, CAST said:
Dear Hon Sir
This talk about comprimis is very
disgusting to me Mr. Cleveland is de-
feated & would now cover up his re-
treat by comprimise--they cannot pass
unconditional repeal of the purchase
clause without a majority to favor
dishonorable & infamous CLOSURE
from the reports which reach here
from Washington think it will be i'm
possible for them to obtain a suffi-
clent number of honorabl senators to
pledge themselves for dishonorabl
cloisure-the latter being impossible
there cannot be any unconditional re-
peal or even a comprinise
l am Therefore Sir
Sincerely Your Humble Servant
PEI. Prendergast
On the morning of Oct 25. four DAYS
before he shot Mayor Harrison, Prem
dergast became very much excited and
sent a telegram. He neglected to pay
Tor it and the telegraph company col
lected for sixteen words from Senator
stewart The telegram said:
Chicago, Ills, Oct. 25. 1899.
Senator Stewart, of Nevara:
Your opponents have attempted conn
d'etat; do not yield; our side is
the stronger.
P. E. ]. PRENDERGAST.
There is popular impression that
all public men receive letters from
cranks This impression is incorrect.
Quite number Of senator's to whom I
have spoken recently tell me that they
&c not receive crank letters John L.
Mitchell, of Wisconsin, is one Of these.
George c. Perkins, of California. is
comparatively new in the Senate and
he tells me that he is glad to saw
that he has not received aav crank
letters yet. Wilkinson Call, of Flor
ida. is another senator who SAYS that
he has not received any crank conn
munications. Senator Lodge. of Mas
sachrsetts, receives crank letters oc-
casionally but he destroys them i'm
mediately. So does Senator Brice. of
Ohio. Senator Pettigrew says that he
has not been the victim of either
threats or advice from the cranks.
Senator Proctor has not had the
same immunity. II have received sew
eral crank letters" he said the other
DAY; most Of them while secretary
of war-a few since. l never paid any
attention to them or preserved any of
them, though it may be that some of
them are on file in the war depart
ment. 1 have had some very wild
ones"
Senator Dolph is another victim of
the crank letter writers. But they do
not bother him very much. L always
destroy these letters from cranks,'' he
said to me, and when I learn to rec
ognize the signature of one, do not
open his letters. l occasionally re-
ceive threatening letters"
Sena tor Jones, of Nevada, frequently
receives crank communications: and
as he handles all &C the mail thu t
comes to him, he reads all of them.
Most of his letters contain. crank the
<zz09 22 S22zae1E 2Sz2z &zSzzz0 q rex zgs
zezEaz9G88E R@ zazes 70 a8a8ses8 e
mem
Senator Frye received a great many
more crank communications when he
was chairman of the commerce COM
mittee Of the. Senate than he receives
noW. There was one persistent crank
who pursued the commerce committee
for years with a proposition for the re-
oempion of the earth by water. He
sent & box by express to the committee
ore day. 1t had such suspicious
look that Senator Frye fearing dyna-
mite sent the box to the carpenter
and had him open it. Within the box
were some grass and some sand-noth-
ing more. There was nothing to ex-
plain the meaning of this extraordi-
nary package for several days Then
came a letter from San Francisco,
signed Michael Cahill, NJ D." The
letter said that the writer had been
experimenting with sand in the belief
he had succeeded in his experiment.
The grass in the box, he said, had been
grown in sand. That was all that there
was TO this communication. Of course
the committee paid no attention to it.
Then came another letter from the
doctor saying that he proposed 10
solve the home rule opposition aud sew
eraI other questions of deep import by
the use of water He did not explain
e1acfly how this was To he ocoo,,,
pIished. A later letter from him said /:
Demonstrations of rain by art, so
as to open up all the deserts and in
time the polar regions for settlement.
turning the tide of European immigra-
ton I'D into the Russian Empire and
opening up two-thirds of the Chinese
Empire for China; also to establish
an independent Irish republic in al
lance with and under the protection
Of God and the United States for a
good purpose"
Enclosed with this letter were some
extracts from newspapers which
showed plainly On what subject the
doctor had become cranky. One of
them was a story from a San Fran
cisco paper calling attention to the
fact that waterspouts seemed to be
attracted by the iron track and the
telegraph wires of the railroads which
were being constructed in New Mexico.
It said that as fast as the construc-
ton trains advanced, the rain followed
This, DR.. Cahill said in his letter. was
due to the rails becoming magnetized
by jolting. which defects the electric
current overhead at right angles to
itself, causing a jamb of ice spicula
and vapcr vesicles, which fall as
strikes the keynote of thunder, caus-
fs4er raif. from vfhra fsnre In, e4,,orr,